Barble: Your best bet for targeting barble are in the shallow muddy bays and at the river inlet. They are super spooky in this dam and don’t respond well to slapping in the clear water. If you find a school in the dirtier water near the inlet you can give slapping a go, but try to “slap” as softly as possible and tone down the colours to more natural hues like black and olive. The best tactic is to sight cast to cruising fish. Using a bulky fly like a JM Platanna, lead the fish by 2m so and allow the fly to sink and intercept the fish, giving it a few light strips to draw the fishes attention.
50 SERIOUSFUN@JFFC MAY 2018
THE FISHING: Target Species
In terms of target species, the largemouth bass overwhelmingly dominate the dam and are our primary target species. There are however numerous other species that can be also be targeted and I will briefly cover some tactics for them before going into more detail on the bass fishing.
Carp: Shallow banks offer the best opportunity to finding carp feeding among the reeds. Presentation to these fish is very tricky as they are usually in groups (very easy to spook them all with a misplaced shadow) and they are generally feeding head down in the thickest weed and getting the fly in front of them is near impossible. The good visibility of the dam also makes stalking fish very tricky. They have really good eyesight and more often than not see you coming before you can get within range to make a decent presentation.