Episode 144: North Pine Dam Bass With Chris Anderson

Chris’ Top Tips For North Pine Dam Bass

• North Pine Dam has only recently been opened to the general public for recreational fishing. As a result, there are a lot of big (50 plus fork length) bass that haven’t seen many lures, so they tend to bite freely.
• Chris has noticed that schools are just starting to become wise to lures, so unlike a couple of years ago not every school is feeding.
• Be flexible and try a lot of lures if the bite is slow. Or, if you’re on a school that’s not feeding, try moving to another school and come back later.
• North Pine Dam has lots of structure from weed edges and weed flats to timber, islands, submerged rises and so on. Chris recommends trying the weed edges first and if they’re not on the chew move on to timber or other structure.
• If there has been recent rain, areas around the creek inlets are a great place to target.
• Chris finds that bass bite well at North Pine Dam on pretty much all conditions, but cloud cover helps and periods around moon rise and moon set often give a hot bite.
• During the spring time Chris finds the fish are often feeding on yabbies, so the jig bite is often hot.

Chris’ Tackle For Bass Fishing

• For jig fishing Chris like to use high speed baitcast gear with a medium/heavy rod for its directness.
• When fishing schools he likes to use spin gear for the longer casts and the ability to throw lighter lures.
• Braided lines are best, keeping them light allows for longer casting.
• Go for a 4-6lb leader for fish in open water and 10-12lb fluorocarbon leader, about a rod length if sufficient. Try to keep it as light as possible as the increasing pressure on these fish can make them leader shy.

Chris’ Best Bass Lures For North Pine Dam

• Paddle tailed soft plastics (Chris Likes the Damiki Armor Shad) on a 1/4oz jig head. Cast long, allow it to sink and slow roll it back at whatever depth the fish are holding. If the fish are pressured Chris will add subtle twitches to the slow roll, but avoid using large hops or rips. Chris doesn’t get a confidence boost by adding scent to bass lures and prefers to simple fish them without scent.
• Chris’ second lure choice is a skirted jig with either rubber or silicone skirt in either ¼ oz (around the timber) or ⅜ oz weights (in the deeper water). He uses these to imitate the yabbies that are prolific in the dam. There are only a handful of jig available in hook sizes suited to Australian bass. The Damiki touch jig and the locally made Sharp Point Jig are good options but Chris also makes his own at times. He suggests that brand is not important and checking online at places such as eBay usually turns up suitable jigs at around $8 each. The large 3/0 hooks used for US bass jigs are too large. Colour is not super important, but dark colours that mimic the yabbies give consistent results. Let these sink to the bottom and slowly crawl them along – football style jig heads are great for getting a natural walking action. Pick places where there is no weed, just a clay bottom.
• A trolled crankbait is a great option if the fish are shut down. Medium sized (40-65mm) deep divers are best, preferably diving to around 5m. White lures seem to work well. Chris likes his Grumpy deep diver and simply slow rolls them with no pauses.
• The Fish Arrow (white with silver belly) on a hidden weight hook works well when allowed to sink down and then slow rolled back through the fish.