Scouting a new System!

The Barham River located in Apollo Bay is a small system that I had never fished before. The general purpose for the weekend away was not fishing and when I saw the weather forecast (gale force westerly winds with rain) I wasn’t too fussed. The rods still managed to make it into the car and tides and local reports where checked just in case.
Waking up nice and early on the Saturday I decided to drive to the highway bridge to check things out before my wife woke up. The wind was already blowing the proverbial and the rain was coming in sideways. I didn’t fish much that morning but I did scout around for about an hour checking out all the likely looking spots. I checked out a few snags up river, a couple of creek and river junctions and the 2 bridges that cross the river. Eventually I decided that with amount of fresh water in the system I would target the flats at the mouth when the weather calmed a little.
In the early afternoon I was able to sneak away for a couple of hours. The river was high due to the rain and the semi blocked mouth so I grabbed a packet of Gulp! Camo worms and decided to search the flats. I figured that with the tough weather conditions, the fish were probably going to be finicky, and the Camo worm would give me the best chance of producing some hits. Although the fishing was a little slow, my enthusiasm grew after a couple of consecutive hits produce a nice 30cm bream. Over a 2 hour period I had hooked over a dozen fish including a couple of nice size bream however most were small salmon and mullet. With the tide rising and a massive swell pounding the shore I was a little nervous of being stranded on what was turning out to be an island. Check out the before and after photo below. Miss timing the 30metre dash across the sand would not have been fun.
On Sunday morning I made my way back to the entrance however the tide was low and the proverb “No run, No fun” proved to be true once again. I did manage a couple of fish including the biggest for the weekend, a plump 35cm bream. Having not fished this system before I left feeling pretty happy with a few quality fish landed during a couple of short sessions.
I believe the reason for my succuss in trying conditions was the hour I spent on Saturday morning scouting around in the rain. Although I didn’t make many casts or catch any fish I tried to quickly eliminate the potential spots. At first glance the majority of the river looked very fishy, (and I’m sure it holds plenty of fish at different times of the year) however on this occasion; the edges were flooded which meant the first 2 metre or so of water had thick reeds just under the surface, the dirty water made fishing the deeper snags very frustrating, the bridges seemed fishless at the time and the steep banks were too hard to navigate in most spots. This left a 150metre stretch of sand and reeds at the mouth where I could keep my lure in the water to maximise my fishing time. So the next time you’re out and about, spend some time assessing all the conditions in order to increase your chances of hooking up!
Cheers, Hodgey

Brad Hodges is a Purefishing/Berkley Pro in Victoria. Look for more of Brads informative blogs in the future.
Dinger.