Every month the Australian Bass Association has a monthly outing, this is where a group of the members go fishing together, report on fish caught, types of lures used, times, weather conditions, water quality, fish health and locations. On the 17th of February the outing was at Hinze. Hinze Dam is the closest dam from my house, it only takes 20 minutes and I can have the boat in the water and fishing.

Information about Hinze Dam.
Catchment area: 207 square kilometers
Capacity: 163,500 million liters
Surface area: 972 hectares
Built 1976
Fish stocked over 2,000,000
Current water level low and dropping.

　Hinze dam is an electric only dam so no combustion engines are allowed, this makes for a very relaxing place to fish.
The monthly outing is a great chance to sharpen your skills, it is like a competition in a way, everyone meets after at 11:00 am to compare catches and tell a few stories, it is a good chance to find out what caught fish on the day and how you faired.
　I always like to start early and Sunday morning was no exception. We (Graeme and I) departed the boat ramp at just before 4:00am, because the place we wanted to fish was a fair distance away we had to leave early. On the way to our fishing destination we keep a careful eye on the sounder, we didnﾕt see much only a few very small schools of fish and the fish looked small. Locating Bass at Hinze is fairly easy if you know where to look and have a good sounder. Bass seem to go back to the same areas at certain times of year and like to feed at certain depths (20 feet or so ) so with a bit of local knowledge and keeping a close eye on the sounder you will find bass. It took almost an hour before we arrived at our fishing destination, and our prediction was right we soon located good schools of fish so filled the screen. The first fish was landed right on 5:00am, a nice 42cm bass caught on a rattling trap. Graeme used surface lures and got a few, we soon found a pattern that worked. The best technique was spinner baits and rattling traps fished fast, casting the lures to the banks and as soon as it hit the water 3 or 4 quick winds a short pause and then another 3 or 4 quick winds caught most of our bigger fish between 5:00am and 7:00am. We landed 14 fish for the morning session, which is good bass fishing.
　One thing every Bass fisherman knows about the Australian Bass is that even though they look harmless they have dangerous spikes and until some one points them out you really donﾕt notice them. I have been spiked by bass on numerous occasions and it always stings.
　As soon as the sun come up things went really quite, the schools had thinned right out and the fish had shut down. We decided to try some other areas and did not have much luck so for the next hour we did not catch a fish. We went back to the same location and tried a few different techniques, soft plastics fished on a _ ounce jig head was very successful. Graeme landed 4 fish in four casts (finesse fishing). I landed 4 fish in 10 cast (still good) .

For the morning I landed 13 scoring fish and Graeme landed 14 and listening to the other reports we did better than most. One angler managed a 61cm Saratoga, the week before I also caught a Saratoga. 69 cm which is my personal best.
In the next few months the bass fishing should be excellent. The cooler weather will be good for surface activity, especially if we get a bit of rain. Until next time. MIKEY.

●To Mikey Bell
mikey@fishing.onthenet.com.au

●A.B.A.(Australian Bass Association) website
www.fishing.onthenet.com.au

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