I spent the weekend at Wallaga Lake. Didn’t get much fishing in, unfortunately, but did get 3 nice salmon this morning (Sunday 3 July) and dropped a bunch more.
I fished the lake on Saturday for about 20 minutes or so, but the absence of baitfish, touches and the temperature of the water (cold) all combined to make me think the lake has definitely entered the quiet period. For the next few months, I’ll be focusing on the warmer parts of the lake and on species such as bream.
The highlight of the weekend was trialing my prototype clay lures. Mum had fired them for me and I was impressed with how sturdy they looked. On picking them up, I was interested in how light they were, and the profile of a 30 gram clay lure is about the same as the profile of a 60 gram lead lure, if that makes sense.
Nonetheless, I grabbed a selection and after catching a few salmon figured it was a great time to give them a go. I selected a long, white clay, popper style lure, which I had designed to be fairly heavily weighted towards the back and cylindrical in shape with a small cupped head. With the help of a stiff north-easterly, it flew nicely through the air and I was getting a similar casting distance to a 40 gram knight. After about three casts I felt the telltale thud of a good fish. I was chuffed!
However, after a few seconds I felt everything go limp and wound in my line, without my new favourite homemade lure. On feeling the line, I felt that it was very abraded. I tied on another lure, which was achieved by threading the line through the central hole I’d made in the clay and attached a large single hook. A few more casts and I was on again. I really really really wanted to get a photo of the ‘pudding’, but after a few minutes the line went slack and I wound in the similarly abraded leader. The clay was obviously cutting through the line, so it looks like it’s back to the drawing board to figure out a solution.
One solution is to use a heavier leader, but it’s more of a bandaid than a cure. I think I’ll need to use some wire or something, but am not convinced, as they’re meant to be cheap and easy to make. I’ll figure something out. I might resort to using heavy mono, which should be far more abrasion resistant.
