Fishing Australia

GET THE VIBE FOR REDFIN AT GOOGONG AND STANDBY FOR GOLDEN PERCH

Glen Fish from BCF in Fyshwick reports that redfin are on the chew in Googong Dam. Best lures are small bibbless minnows, vibes, or rattling Rapalas.

The redfin are not big but there are good numbers of them at times. Target rocky or prominent points, and note that redfin often school where the wind pushes food past edge of these points. Redfin school up in winter, so once you find one redfin there are often plenty more in general vicinity.

Redfin certainly don’t mind cold water, after all there real name is English Perch (they are native to English waters).

On the other hand Golden Perch in Googong are at the upper end of their naturally preferred altitudes-at this time of year they are looking for all the warmth they can get.

Golden perch are rarely caught in big numbers in Googong, but if you are keen to catch half a dozen perch in an afternoon rather than just one or two, when weather ‘first’ warms up significantly is the best bet.

The effect of the sun can is amplified in better quality lakes like Googong where the clearer water allows the heat to get the shallow lake beds earlier in the season. This warms up the perch and gets the aquatic bugs they feed on out and about as well.

If you can find a sheltered north facing bay thats unaffected by wind currents, the water temps can easily raise a few degrees on a sunny day; even more across a sunny week! Those with a temp gauge on their boat can simply move around looking for this warmer water.

Sometimes it’s simply pot luck though-pods of warm water can be trapped down deep and are likely good numbers of active golden perch.

Whenever we get a 4 or 5 days of nice calm sunny weather in a row you can bet your bottom dollar the golden’s will be much easier to catch.

GOD TURNS UP ON A FISHING TRIP

The Fishing Australia team and I often pray to the weather gods that the skies are good for our cameras, but our prayers were answered by different god when the one and only Robbie Fowler came out on a shoot.

Robbie started playing for Liverpool in England when he was just 17 years old, and played in the Premier League so well for so long that he became known to his fans as “God”.

He also played over 30 games for England and is one of the most respected players in the history of the game.

Robbie was recently the Marquee Signing for the all new North Queensland Fury Soccer club. Many sporting buffs I have spoken too say he’s the biggest international sporting star based down under at the moment.

Despite the fame and fortune he hasn’t let things get to his head, and was a very down to earth bloke with a good sense of humor.

But as it turns out God could do nothing about the weather; there was nothing but strong wind and rain squalls on the day.

But… impressively… he stuck at it with me out in the elements while some hid in the cabin of out 47 foot charter Moana 3 which works out of Cairns.

We had incredibly bad luck losing some 6 Mackerel in a row, but this just made him more determined and eventually he hooked and landed a cracker. The fight was absolutely monumental; this was one of the strongest mackerel I have seen, and it was rough as guts out behind Fitzroy Island. Robbie did an exceptional job and the relief and euphoria that followed was as good as it gets. I can thank god we got that one!

You can catch all the action on this weekend at 5 pm Saturdays on WIN and Channel 9, around 2 pm on NBN and 1:30 pm Imparja check your local TV guide for details.

See you on the water.

Rob Paxevanos