How to Catch Australia Bass

By Georgia Poyner

South Coast Australian Bass fishing 

Australian Bass have to be my all time favourite species to target. Their aggressive feeding nature combined with stocky build make them without a doubt one of the best fighting fish, punching well above their size. Added with the fact they live in some of the most spectacular country, is why these fish have my heart.

Australian Bass are unique in that they inhabit both fresh and salt water environments. During the cooling winter months, fish migrate down stream towards estuaries to spawn. As the weather begins warming back up, the fish push back upstream into the fresh.

Each system is different in the timing of when the fish migrate, with influences such as rainfall and temperatures varying this. A good understanding of how these factors effect the fish in your specific system play a huge key into catching consistent. 

Like a lot of freshwater species, bass can be very sensitive to barometric changes. A low pressure system can have the fish shut down and not wanting to feed. I get excited by a big pressure change – usually hot muggy weather before the lead up of a big thunderstorm. These conditions often trigger ant hatches which can put bass into a feeding frenzy. 

Surface fishing is by far my favourite form of targeting bass. Their explosive surface boofs are epic and is what keeps us south coast anglers content from not having barramundi to play with. Generally speaking, surface fishing for bass is most successful in the early morning & late evening into the night.

For bass fishing, i predominantly use my 20 TD Black Pinster which is paired with a TD Black 2500 S-C and 6lb J-Braid 8 PE. I find 10lb J-Thread FC to be sufficient for most of my bass fishing situations although I’ll usually have packed with me 8lb and 12lb leader incase.

Frog Time

This year I’ve been having a huge amount of fun using the new Daiwa Bait Junkie Kikker Curly. The frog imitating soft plastic is a weedless and weightless lure. Despite being light I have found casting with it to be easy & accurate.

Being weedless it’s also very forgiving when punching over and under snags, or into reeds where the bass dwell. Whilst I do majority of my bass fishing for wild, river fish, earlier this year I fished some private dams for them.

This particular dam was very shallow and full of long reeds, making the Kikker Curly ideal for the situation. Burned across the surface, the wriggling legs of the frog plastic certainly did the damage on some huge stocked fish that put up a hell of a fight on the Pinster. Just goes to show that regardless of where you catch these fish,  their stubborn, angry  nature never changes and they’ll definitely always have my respect.