Jump to content

Recommended Posts

At 747 metres elevation, Koombooloomba Dam is Australia's highest tropical storage. It is perched in the dense forest on the Great Dividing Range on the headwaters of the mighty Tully-Millstream River and feeds some hydro projects below. The water is very clear, and cold in winter.  Unlike other stocked dams, it lacks bony bream, freshwater mussels, water lilies, and other submerged vegetation.  I guess the lake fauna and flora comprised whatever was in the fast-water streams blocked by the dam wall at the time. It has been stocked with sooty grunter and barra, but the barra do very poorly in the cold, with dead and dopey fish reported each winter.  Lean pickings for fish, and popular wisdom has it that wind-blown insects drive  the food chain. Perhaps sooties were already up there, or the stocked fish have found spawning habitat in the rapids, but whatever the reason there are abundant sooties in there with "cricket score" catches reported and hoards of juveniles visible along the edges.  Few have caught barra in there, and those that do report that lures resembling sooty grunter are the go. 

Sooties need rapids in the hot, wet season to spawn successfully, and recent storms from a much-delayed monsoon had some of us hatching a plan to get upstream to the inflow to  flyfish the spawning aggregations. The day did not start well, with lightning knocking out the power pre-dawn and torrential rain, with the flash and rumble of the dreaded cloud to ground lightning. during the 2 hour drive. Amazingly, the rain ceased  just below Koomby and we were off in the tinny threading and feeling our way up along the old river channel through a dense forest of dead trees and prop-busting stumps.  The plan was to get up to the Tully inflow and walk the bank with flyrods to sight-fish sooties.

At 28% capacity we had just caught the first inflows of clear, tannin-stained water, and there were some cascades and rapids to fish off the rocks. Dan fished the opoosite bank with a blooper-type fly and I used a tiny shrimp-cicada thing tied by an SA mate (Dave) 20 yrs ago. At the first rapids the tiddlers just belted the little cicada if I let it sink deep and I soon had a half-a dozen captures before they wised up. Dan did not get a hit, so switched to a white clouser and moved up into the limpid pool above the cascades. Immediately he raised bigger fish and caught 2 in quick succession.  He was trialling a line-tub worn around his waist to stop the flyline tangling and missed some takes.

On the opposite bank I found what SA Dave calls a "Monty" of a spot. A fish surety. A tiny crystal-clear rivulet running over a sandbank to a deep dead tree. I got belted 3 times on that snag, with the first 2 humping boils at the surface by obviously big, angry, sooties. The third take was on the wrong side of the snags and within milliseconds I had been dusted. Broke the 10 pound flourocarbon leader just below the flyine -- and I had no spares in that department, so a long walk back to the tinny for more. Sooties are smash,grab, and run back to cover specialists.

We decided the big fish were either absent from the rapids, or not biting, so we tried Plan B. Motor down in the boat and find islands or points with horizontal "lay-downs" of dead trees. Not that common, but marvellous habitat for a sooty ambush predator. Again, small fish were eager biters but no sign of the dark-black brutes that inhabit the dam. Back-casts often ended up in the dead forest, too.

So the last plan of the day, before escaping the approaching lightning storms, was to try walking a steep bank with deep water, rock ledges and lay-downs. I thought I would "ground-truth" the presence of bigger fish with a spin rod and little Mohawk deep-diver. Dan went off along the bank and I fished off the boat, testing a deep rock ledge. Some tiddlers on the fly were followed by a decent fish on the lure, which pulled the hooks at the net. So there were big fish there!

Then we started to see sooties patrolling the edges as the shadows fell on the water. I was mucking around with various little Clousers on the tiddlers, by applying "S-factor" scent and testing if Dave's 20 yr old, high-sparkle flies attracted more attention when a grey/brown fish in the 30's came out for a look. I changed to a bigger, ratty, marabou fly and landed a better fish but could not tempt the lurker. Meanwhile Dan raised 2 huge fish on his Clouser from the base of a high dirt cliff with overhanging snag -- another "Monty". We spent the last half-hour of the day together trying to fool those fish, which were joined by a third that emerged swimming along the drop-off from left-field. I don't think they could see us, but we could see them and they would not be fooled by flies, soft-plastics, minnows, or even a very lifelike savage flick prawn, scented or not. Easily 40cm -plus fish, with charcoal backs and big spade-like tails. They showed mild interest, but were rejecting the offerings from afar. I guess they don't get that big by being gullible.

At the ramp we met a 'yakker who fished there regularly, and he told of once stumbling across a hatch of the spent, winged termites that blanketed the water in wind-rows. He told of sight-fishing sooties breaking the surface. Now that would be an experience to go keep going back for.

 

 

Rapids.sootie.jpg

Tully.first.cascade.jpg

Bank.sootie.jpg

Koombooloomba747m.jpg

Tully.Inflow.Rapids.jpg

Link to post
Share on other sites
5 hours ago, AquaticResearch1 said:

Great write up mate, top read. I've always been keen to chase sooties, this just fuels the fire. 

In the wild streams a 400mm fish is a good one, but they get very large and fat in the lowland dams, with fish over 50cm present. The Trophy sooty in the 2014 Tinaroo Barra Bash was 3.965 kg (not measured) when it was still a "kill and weigh" comp, and most of the fish in the 2018 comp were over 400mm and up to 490mm (not weighed, as it is now catch-photograph-and-release). There are far northern streams where you can catch sooties, barra, jungle perch and mangrove jacks in close proximity in the upper reaches, but nowadays crocs are an ever-present risk in those same places.

IMG_20180304_182755.jpg

Link to post
Share on other sites

That is some good size fish , when camping on Gordonvale river just out of Cairns , some 30 years ago we would use a clear bubble float , with a metre like trace just using bread as bait , caught some nice fish but all around 25..30 cm good fun on a light set up , we caught bigger models up at Chillagoe QLD ,in some water holes we stumbled across great fun cheers .  great read . 

Link to post
Share on other sites
8 hours ago, lofty64 said:

That is some good size fish , when camping on Gordonvale river just out of Cairns , some 30 years ago we would use a clear bubble float , with a metre like trace just using bread as bait , caught some nice fish but all around 25..30 cm good fun on a light set up , we caught bigger models up at Chillagoe QLD ,in some water holes we stumbled across great fun cheers .  great read . 

The bloke I went with was a Parks'n'Wildlife ranger at Chillagoe for 15 years and used to chase them in the Walsh River. He told of very large waterholes there. I've never been out that way.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...