Fish of course! Despite feeling like absolute garbage when I woke up at 5am on Friday there was absolutely no question - I've been stuck at home for the best part of two weeks, I need some outside time, I need to go fishing.

Kurwongbah was the easy choice, I really needed a water way that didn't require a lot of brain power (I was experiencing the COVID fog...) and to be completely honest, everywhere is fishing so badly at the moment it seemed kinda pointless to put myself through a long drive somewhere new.

Despite BOM's prediction of 'light winds by mid morning' it was freezing cold and blowing a gale when I arrived at the late. Another bloody kick in the pants, I've literally been up every morning this week gazing at clear blue skies and completely still trees... But hey, what can you do?!

As with all the sessions over the last couple of months, it was incredibly tough going. The weed has receded a lot from it's absolutely crazy takeover but there's still a lot about which makes finding fishable water a challenge. I kept a keen eye on the sounder but it didn't reveal any fish until I got much further up the lake. Not surprisingly, the windy conditions weren't really ideal for worm fishing and the 5 bass I managed to scrape were all caught on the gangbanger g2 or the Rapala Rap-V Blade 'Halloween'. I only had one fish on the worms, an absolutely blistering take completely out of the blue along the bay near the dam wall.

I decided to call it a day around 2pm feeling pretty sorry for myself - 5 fish from around 6 hours of fishing is a pretty poor result! But it does give you an idea just how tough it is at the moment... And despite the wind it was glorious to be out on the water, it really lifted my spirits after the misery of the last month.

But I'm home now, still testing positive for COVID, still feeling like crap, still can't talk... Good golly, I hope this is over soon!

I now have a new found respect for match fishermen... They sure make it hard for themselves!

It was really, really hard fishing! For a lake that I regularly pull somewhere between 5 and 20 fish out in a 3 hour evening session, I really struggled... The rules state no floating baits (darn it, my favourite method gone!) and only one rod/pole out at a time (double darn, I love to have a 'sleeper' rod out and a 2nd catching loadsa fish!).

Having arrived at the lake at 8.30am and had a walk round and a bacon bap, I could tell it was going to tough going: it was already really hot and all the fish were up on the surface, leaping around and generally enjoying the sunshine. We did the draw, I got peg 1 (right in the far corner of the car park bank) and we headed round to set up.

My 1st fish fell to the pellet waggler at around 11ish - an hours solid feeding for 1 fish?! I persevered but the fish were just headbutting my float rather than sinking all of a foot under the surface to get my bait. If only could put out some doggy mixers! I kept at it, bouncing between the 2 rods, keeping the bait going in little and often and tring to 'keep busy' rather just sitting in the sun.

By 2pm I was really getting desperate... One 3lb carp in the keep net was not going to get me anywhere! The clouds had come in and although it was still very hot, the fish wernt quite as active on the surface. So I decided to go for an all out for the method approach, switching both rods and getting them going in onto two spots.

And somehow, I managed to get into the fish! It seemed they were happy to feed on the bottom and I managed to pick off 3 in the space of 20 minutes. Luckily, one of them was a double and according to Tyler, that put me back in the running! After a couple of lost fish though, the swim went dead... I kept at it, got one tiny roach who decided to hang itself on the feeder but they really weren't interested.

The 'all in' came round at 4pm and I instantly got the doggy mixers going in - I was desperate to put some fish on the bank, even if they didn't count towards the match! There were so many fish up on the surface and as they'd be taunting me all day, it only seemed fair?!

It took all of 5 minutes to hook into a decent size common ;) If only the match allowed surface baits eh?!

But the weigh in revealed that I'd actually come in 3rd - result! The word up and down the bank was it'd been a tough day all round and to score a place with 17lb of fish goes to show just how hard it'd been. Congrats to Norman Sterry and Craig Miller for nabbing the top 2, well placed.

What I did't expect was prizes - who knew?! I had no idea... Even managed to win some Guru hooks in the raffle, so went home with some new toys, one of which was a rig box (which now means I no longer need to use a toilet roll to manage my rigs...). Amazing stuff.

A big thank you for Tyler Szmaglik for organising the event and prizes, you've put a lot of effort in. And my thanks to Terry Smith for the lend of your keep nets (and for letting me have a go on your pole! It was... interesting...).

Oh, and a mention for Alfred who's been asking to have a go at fishing for ages. He's very good at winding in - just need to work on when to stop...

I was on the water by 6am and as I had to be off by 11am so I wasted no time heading up the lake and around the corner to a productive spot. The first thing I remembered was how accurate you need to be with casting! Kurwongbah is pretty forgiving but Enoggera requires you to get that lure right on the edge if not in the lily pads to stand a chance of tempting a bass to come out and strike...

My first chance came surprisingly early with a fish grabbing at the lure as it hit the edges which sadly didn't result in a hook up. But it was a couple of casts later that I got my first decent hit. And what a fish it turned out to be, I've never seen a bass like this before - it was a deep as it was long and the tummy on it!

As usual with Enoggera, the spot went dead after that one fish so I began moving down the margin. This side of the lake has been by far the most productive to date and true to form I managed to pick off a number of fish including yet another weird one. This guy looked like he'd ran into a wall, defo a face only a mother could love!

Working down the margin continued to produce fish but the wind that had been gently blowing me along began to pick up and with limited time I decided to head over the lily pad rafts at the far end of the lake for a go. This are is great if the wind has got up as you can anchor yourself in a set of pads and cast around to the others with minimum disturbance. I swear that 9 times out of 10 you get a bass from under where the lily pads you're sat on rather than the ones you're casting too...

I managed to picked one more off from my favourite margin on the way back up the lake before calling it a day. So not a bad session! The fella right at the beginning was defo 'fish of the day' and it still puts a smile on my face when I think about him, just the weirdest looking bass ever!

If you're after some tips about how to fish Enoggera, check out the videos from PTPFishing on YouTube - Peter is a bit of a guru when it comes to this place, I wouldn't have caught half the fish if it wasn't for his advice!

Amazingly, despite it being the King's birthday long weekend I pretty much had the entire lake to myself! I guess with so many sporting activities going on, everyone was either otherwise engaged or (more likely!) had blistering hangovers... Lucky for for me the only sport I'm interested in is fishing!

With sunrise at 6.30am it wasn't a crazy early start and as predicted it was a nice sunny warm morning. It didn't take long to find some fish, good old 'Toga Point' producing a number of small bass pretty quickly. Interestingly no takers on the worm rod but that may have been explained by the amount of surface activity, the water was alive with all sorts of things jumping and showing.

Once the bites dried up, I headed onto 'Fence Bay' and again was rewarded with a small bass but sadly I have a feeling a couple of cormorants patrolling the water had put the fish on edge... So I didn't hang around and headed over the way to 'Stag Bay' where again it didn't take long to find some fish. Again, nothing big which was no bad thing as somehow my landing net had fallen out of the kayak when I paddled out of 'Fence Bay'.... Far out, lucky for me I'd put segments of pool noodle on the hoop so it was floating and easy to find again.

By this time the 'Kurwongbah wind' had kicked and my flat calm morning was gone. The fishing did improve though as I made my way along the bank, picking off a number of decent fish. I sometimes wonder if a bit of water movement and noise gets the fish fired up?

The other change was the appearance of a water ski boat... The wake from the boat coupled with the waves generated by the wind was making things a little harder so it was on again to my favourite spot, 'Kangaroo Point'. The fish were defo getting bigger and despite the wind increasingly getting on my nerves I was having a ball.

I stuck it out for a while longer before making my way back down the lake, stopping in at 'Toga Point' for a couple of fish before calling it a day in 'White Tree Bay', even managing to pick up a couple of fish during the outro for the video.

Time was marching on by now and as it was already 2pm I decided to call it a day. Such a cracking time on the water, it was interesting to see how the conditions changed the fishing and how things are changing with the seasons. Gotta love a good session at Kurwongbah!

Unusually for me, this was going to be an afternoon session at Lake Kurwongbah and with only 3 hours on my hands before sunset, I wasted no time paddling up the lake. A quick stop at 'Toga Point' didn't yield any fish so I quickly moved onto 'Fence Bay' and was rewarded with a cracking bass on the 1st cast! Luckily for me, there were a number of fish around including a quality 34cm bass.

All in all I picked off 5 decent fish in 6 casts, which was a bit of a result. I was fully expecting to pick up some more on my way back to the landing station but sadly there were no more takers, despite the conditions looking bang on. Perhaps Kurwongbah bass are morning rather than evening biters?! It was great to see the sun go down over the lake (makes a change from seeing it come up!) and I headed home a happy angler.