Early in the week I received news that Lake Samsonvale, or also known as North Pine Dam was reopening to the public and paddlecraft. With the temperatures heating up and some strong winds hanging around, it was a perfect opportunity to go check out the new facilities at the lake.
I love summer, but not the 4:30am sunrise and the early wakeups to get on the water for the early bite. Luckily Lake Samsonvale is only a quick 20mins drive up the road from my house, and at 4 in the morning with limited lights, it makes for a nice easy drive. I arrived at just after 4:30 and was greeted by fishing buddy Ian, also keen to get among some early morning freshwater fish. The conditions were perfect, a gentle breeze was in the air, the moon was full and lake looked amazing. SEQ Water have done a great job on the new facilities, including a carpark, kayak wash down area and a well constructed launch area consisting of round creek pebbles that won’t scratch up the bottom of your kayak.
Once launched, we rigged up and set some lures to troll whilst heading to our desired fishing zone. We didn’t have to paddle far before getting our first fish the day. Probably less than 200 metres from the launch spot, we hugged the trees and worked out lures through a wooded section of small submerged trees. It was here we spent a good 45 minutes landing about 10 fish between the two of us, all casting small lures – Ecogear & Savage Gear chubby/crank hardbodies. Keen to explore more the lake we headed to one of the nearby inlets to escape the wind and try our luck at some surface action. The lure of choice was the Jackall Pompadour – a lure with an awesome design and action, it’s a must have for any surface fishing. There was no luck on the surface as we worked a shallow weed section with trees and a few lilly pads.
The decisions was made to start trolling again and cover some more ground. A wise decision as after about 50 metres Ian was onto a nice fish, coming in just under 40cm. A few more flicks towards the bank resulted in a few bumps but not hookups. Then as soon as we started trolling again I got smashed buy a healthy and heavy 39cm bass. It seemed the bass were only keen on our lures whilst trolling. Ian landed several more as we covered more ground. Using the fish finder we tried a different approach and sounded up some big fish on the screen. We switched to a jig each and Ian was on pretty much straight away – I lucked out with the jig but when I went back to a lure and trolled over the same patch i managed to pick up another couple measuring 36 & 37.
The wind was picking up a lot at this stage and we paddled up into a small inlet and had some casts but with no luck. The decision was made to head on back to the ramp trolling along the way. This resulted in a few more fish and all up a great morning on the water. Will definitely be back again in the coming weeks to explore more of such a great waterway.