Episode 93: Brisbane Bass With Tim Morgan

Tim’s Top Tips For Brisbane Bass

• Lakes Wivenhoe and Somerset are the tropy bass fisheries of SE Queensland, but there are numerous other bass fishing opportunities within a couple of hours drive of Brisbane. These include smaller impoundments such as Lake Baroon and wild river bass fisheries such as the Maroochy, Noosa and Nerang rivers. There are many more, so get a good map or check out Google Earth.
• It’s important to slow the fishing down, especially if the bass are not biting aggressively. 
• Lake bass can be targeted all year around, but river bass can’t be targeted during the winter months when they’re spawning.
• The top end of the Noosa River fishes well top water all day, as can Lake Baroon at times. 
• During the winter/spring is the best period for targeting trophy Somerset and Wivenhoe, but these fish feed extensively on bony bream, so fishing deep with spoons and other offerings works best.
• If you find fish, stay on them until you “Crack the Pattern” and figure out what’s working. Once you’ve done that you’ll usually find more fish come easily simply by repeating what worked the first time. 
• Maroon Dam is well stocked and is the #1 place to go and target bass. The fish are usually smaller here than Wivenhoe and Somerset, but they are plentiful and are reliable.
• Sound around and find schools of fish in deeper water, then fish the shallow banks and points closest to where the fish are schooled and throw spinnerbaits and jerkbaits. Or fish the deeper water with spoons.
• When you’re sounding around looking for fish, try trolling a lure and you’ll be surprised how many fish will come that way.
• Bass can be inactive for long periods, so sometimes it;s necessary to stay on a school of inactive fish for hours until they fire up. You might then get a short, hot session.

Tim’s Preferred Bass Tackle

• Tim prefers spin gear most of the time when fishing open water but will switch to baitcast when he’s fishing around timber and needs to muscle fish out.  
• Tim uses 2lb Suffix Nano Braid, which is super thin for its strength and allows him to get jerkbaits down deeper, plus doesn’t impede the action of the lure. Around timber he goes heavier to get fish out of cover.

Tim’s Best Bass Fishing Lures

• The Rapala Skitterpop is Tim’s go-to lure for topwater bass. It’s a small balsa bait that is very effective when cast out and allowed to sit for a few seconds before being worked back. Be sure and leave plenty of pauses in the retrieve.
• The 5cm Rapala Shadow Rap Jack Deep is a great bass lure (also great for barra and jacks up north, flathead in the estuaries etc). This lure was designed by Rapala for Australian conditions. Wind it down fast for 8-10 turns, then pause for 3, 5, 10 seconds or more. Bites invariably come on the pause, so it’s critical not to just crank this lure back at constant speed. 
• Jason Erlich’s Gangbanger spoons are the bomb for slow fishing forbass suspending deep in the trophy fish storages. If bass are suspended at 20 ft in 50 ft of water, for example, move the boat into 20ft of water, drop your spoon in and count how long it takes to hit bottom. Then return to the fish and count the lure down to fish it at the correct depth.