Freshwater afterschool frenzy

bridge going over the creek...
I was under the bridge

another part of the creek

After a long and much disliked math test I rode all the way to an unexplored by me freshwater creek, to be honest I didn’t expect much to be there but boy I was wrong. Before I get into the story I will give a little info on the fish I was catching, and to be honest it felt like they were acting the same as bream, which is quite odd. Fork tail Catfish are widely distributed through the inland freshwater areas of Australia and provide an entertaining catch with many runs when caught lures such as crank baits (like the Sebile Crankster) and when caught on baits like worm or muscles. When you hook up a catfish make sure you handle them carefully because their spikes can inflict a painful wound by secreting poison.

lip gripping a medium cattie

 Lip grips are suggested. Catties feed both during the day and night but all fresh water anglers agree they are most active on warm afternoons. Catfish like to feed on sweet or moving foods. If you can’t get worm or muscles if you’re a bait fisho try to get a can of corns and pop some kernels on a hook. When fishing in my local stream there were lots of surface hits but poppers didn’t work. I kept trying my sub surface lures and got a few large fish and many small fish on crank baits, soft plastics and even a blade. I was curious to see what was hitting the surface and my opportunity came about when I saw a grasshopper in a bush. Match the hatch never could get better than this. I put the grasshopper on an unweighted hook and cast as well as I could. The hopper was splashing and flailing on the surface and within 20 seconds BAM the bug was gone and the largest catfish of the day was on. My reel was buzzing and my 2kg rod was bent all the way over. After about 5-10 mins I finally tired it out and got it in. this just proves that when fishing you need to keep your mind open to reel in the big ones.

Grasshoppers

 All the Sebiles used in this trip was a splasher 52, a Crankster 45, a stick shad 72 and a koolie minnow. After this fine hour of fishing I beat my PB of biggest and most catfish in the one trip and I decided to catch and grow some grasshoppers for later… they like carrots strangely enough, put one in a box and all different bugs will come to it.

PB CATTIE