Leslie Dam - April 2013

Hello hello, welcome back to more reading about fishing... well not really this time as I didn't raise a single fish for 3 days out on the dam.  To be fair when it comes to impoundment fishing I have no idea what I'm doing or what I should be looking for.  Regardless, the blog post shall continue.  I thought I would just share with you all some photo's from the trip and my experience freshwater fishing.

We all had Thursday off for ANZAC day, like most of the country we also took the friday off and made a nice long weekend out of it.  After a dawn service at sparrow fart we were off from our place on the sunshine coast to meet my mum and her partner at woodford.  We stopped for a coffee and about 5 hrs later we arrived at the Lake Leslie Tourist park.  We settled in thursday afternoon with some sherberts around the campfire watching the moon rise over the hills.

I tried to wake up early to get on the water to chase down my first Murry Cod.  It turned out this would be my first opportunity to have a nice sleep in so I took it and woke up at gentleman's hours, 7am.  I sat around reading a magazine and chatting with my partner over coffee while throwing a ball to the dog.  What a lovely morning but there was some feeling in me that said I was missing something...  The parents were heading into Warwick for the morning so we thought we would go and have a look around.  We arrived back at camp about lunch time so we packed some gear and kayaks and set off to the dam for some lunch and fishing.  I finally got the yak in the water, slipping through the film of blue green algae that had bloomed and flicked around some spinner baits at what I thought migh be likely structure.

I didn't have any luck the first day but I persisted scouting out the area and identifying structure and setting GPS marks for tomorrow's early morning foray.

The next morning I woke to a crisp foggy morning with the moon still peering over the western hills through the fog.  I was on the water before sunrsie heading to my marks.  As the sun rose behind me the light revealed some amazing sights with mist on the still water bordered by boulders and standing timber, it was quite a sight.  I was focussing some attention on what looked likely cod structure at 4m deep with a lone dead tree rising from the depths and snaggy country below.  As I was taking in the scenery I noticed out the corner of my eye something jumping out of the water into the tree... that cant be right I thought.  But it happened again and a green and yellow monster of a fish launched itself into the tree snapping branches on it's way to reach a bug that mush have been perched in the tree.  Bloody hell.  Naturally I launched a full asault with the spinners, top water and sub furface lures but nadda.  I moved around a few banks and was greeted with this sight.

I flicked a spinner around every boulder that was in the lake when finally I saw a smallish cod following the spinner back to the yak... he saw me and swam off without even having a touch.  Bloody hell.

We sat around the fire again drinking and carrying on.  I took a few more snaps to share...

We woke up early the next morning to pack up and head off on the long journey home.  It was another nice morning up in the hilly country

It was an awesome place to visit, I don't know if I would be back in a hurry, I need my fix of salt water where I at least have a clue about what I'm doing.