# NSW: Winter Glory Tuross 16-18/06



## punchanello (Oct 6, 2011)

Our friends at the Lakeside Holiday Park hooked us up again with a comfortable cabin and a tinny. We were going to take the Yaks but windy weather and and an extra person along made the planks a non-starter. While we were dissapointed, myself, Millonario and cousin Luke weren't to be dissapointed by the fishing.

The park were happy to have a boat ready and early check-in to the cabin by 7:30am on Sunday morning on our arrival. Because I am practically a genius and been described as the suburb of Curtin's "most interesting thinker in the shower', I decided to make two makeshift drift socks from camping rope and a couple of buckets the night before. From experience dumping an anchor every few feet is not the best practice for fishing in the wind. Not if you want to keep the fish around.

We were out on Turross lake by 8am and within the hour (and three slightly undersized flaties) had settled on the technique. We positioned the boat up wind, deployed the drift sock and drifted across the deeper holes of a broad basin. Our insticts early on were that the Bream and Flathead would be bunkered down in the warmer deep water and would be slow to take lures mid-winter. So with a drift of less than walking pace we cast 100mm plastics in natural colours (mostly Damiki shads in a bloodworm type colour) upwind and bounced them over the territory without even winding in. Our early insticts were right and this brought us fish all weekend.

What was interesting to me was that we barely caught 5 (out of 40) legal flathead in the 2 days we were there. Almost every fish was a centimetre or two under size. I'm assuming last summer's fishing cleared the system of most legal fish and the next batch were underway. IMO, anecdotal evidence that the limits are absolutely necessary. Biggest flatty was 65 cm's.

While we were picking up the odd bream and we had identified our honey holes, by the middle of day two we had had our fill of undersized Flatties and decided to focus on picking up some more bream. We broke out small vibes fished of the bottom and a very slow pace and picked up a handful of decent sized bream. It was nice to switch it up and get the result we wanted.

We were due to leave on Tuesday midday and decided one more fish was in order. The temperature had hovered around 17 degrees for the previous two days and was surprisingly bearable. But that morning was decidedly icey. By the time it dropped a further 2 degrees and our teeth wee chaterring another 7 fish were caught and released including 2 decent Bream.

Stats:

52 Fish caught - 8 Bream, 44 Flathead.
6 cans of baked beans and 5 Flathead consumed - Carbon gas quota filled and nearly accounting for one member. 
Biggest Bream - Millonario 36cms
Biggest Flathead - Luke 65 cms
Willing females encountered - 0
Lost lures - 5

I probably learnt more on that trip about fishing than I have in a couple of years. Photo's to come.


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## punchanello (Oct 6, 2011)




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## millonario (Feb 20, 2012)

Great winter trip. I'm never bunking with cousin Luke again though.


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## punchanello (Oct 6, 2011)

Does that Bream in the second pic look a bit mutant? Strange forehead and eyes.


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## boads69 (Jun 20, 2013)

Hi guys,

Great effort and fishing, I enjoyed the report, hope to read more soon.


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## koich (Jul 25, 2007)

I'm not suprised about all the just undersized fish; Tuross gets beyond hammered.


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## kayakone (Dec 7, 2010)

punchanello said:


> Because I am practically a genius and been described as the suburb of Curtin's "most interesting thinker in the shower'


 :lol: Brilliant, as usual.

Top report Luke. Looks _VERY_ cold....brrrrr


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## punchanello (Oct 6, 2011)

koich said:


> I'm not suprised about all the just undersized fish; Tuross gets beyond hammered.


Every time I go there I meet another old timer telling me about how good the new penny Gulp's go. Old Timer + New Penny Gulp = Flathead Armageddon. No catch and release for these fellas.


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