Midmar Bass-hing

It’s that time of year again when the fishing options are endless. The harbour is starting to perform with the summer game-fish arriving. The rivers have finally been opened and have received some rain. It hasn’t yet got too hot so the dams are still producing some nice trout. The yellows have moved up into the rapids. And the bass are coming into the shallows.

With so many possibilities it was tough to choose a weekend’s outing. However we eventually settled on Midmar and some bass bashing. Why? Well, the recent rains had possibly discoloured the rivers and we didn’t want to drive all that way for nothing. We also wanted to make use of the boat and have some fun with surface flies. Midmar checked those boxes.

Since summer is essentially upon us the sun is up nice and early. We therefore got off to a decent start and were on the road by 5:30am. The drive to Midmar took us a massive 1 hour in the Terios, including a petrol and coffee stop. It really is a wonder we don’t do it more often.

It was a chilly morning and the dam was exceptionally low, so we weren’t 100% sure of where to start or what to expect. The water temp was 18 degrees with decent clarity and it was partially cloudy.

Things got off to a bad start when the motor looked to be overheating after covering only a few hundred meters. Thankfully Nick was on hand and soon we’d stripped out the thermostat cover and had cleared a minor blockage. Game on!

Amazingly we didn’t head for Bay X (which we know produces) and instead started searching for new honey holes. We found a little structure along an unexplored bank and I hooked into a nice bass on just my third cast. Sadly it came off before I could get it to the boat (much to Nick’s delight).

It was at this point that I realised I was fishing with an intermediate line instead of my floating. And my heart dropped further as I quickly remembered that my floating line was in the car…a long, long way from where we were fishing. Thankfully Nick had his 9 weight floating with us so I switched to his Guide series and continued fishing.

Fishing was initially slow since the amount of weed and structure was seriously depleted due to the low water levels and recently passed winter. Thankfully when we did eventually find some more structure Nick picked up a small largemouth.

We then discovered a new honey hole and had soon hooked into a few good sized bass sub surface.  Sadly a lot of the better bass were lost due to fishing light tippets amongst thick weed. None the less we had great fun and landed a few decent bass.

Eventually it was time to call it a day as the midday heat finally caught up with us and the fishing slowed down. All in all a great day and the perfect exploratory trip before our camping visit in December.