It's a tough one Shane.  I'm of the opinion that the fish are spread out over the river and that I should fish the areas I know best and are most confident in.  As such I tend to try to fish as much as I can down stream.  I (by I, I mean James and I as I fish mostly with him) barely go past Narrows these days.  On any given day we try to match the conditions to where we think the fish will be actually feeding.    By staying in the areas we fish most, our confidence in cracking the pattern is significantly higher than if say we moved up and down river trying to crack the patterns of more and more areas.

Sometimes it has come down to finding a 10m stretch in which the fish are on fire for one reason or another in an otherwise shutdown area, but that spot is fished because we know the area well enough to know that "X" conditions makes it fire.

I guess all I'm saying is I tend to maximise my fishing time in the areas I know best and are most confident in, rather than moving around trying to diversify my fishing spots.  I find moving up and down can be a little confusing at times and simply lowers my confidence and causes frustration.

Dave

Proudly Associated with Egrell Dezigns Rods

For me its fishing where other people arent.

Again i was in the same boat as Macca in that i hadnt been out for a fair while (other than the previous social day that was less than productive). Session 1 i hit an old favourite of mine and was fortunate to pull fish. the spot doesnt get a lot of traffic (it doesnt look like a fish holding spot) so after discussions with Szarn i decided to leave it alone until day 2.

Session 2 i went to Herrison island as the fish were in the area and i didnt hear of 2 many ppl fishing it. once i got there i found the water was flowing a little to fast for my liking so i decided to hit the canning as apart from Sewelly, i wasnt aware of any other boats that were stupid enough to make the crossing in less than ideal conditions. There i spent the whole 4 hours fishing a 20m section bagging out and upgrading quite easily.

Session 3 i went down stream as everyone was fishing Perth metro waters. After a quick detour via south of perth as dror was fishing the spot i wanted to hit i was into my favourite winter fishing haunts. Only other boat i saw all day was again Sewelly who at that stage only had 1 in the well (ie before he went to the stables to pick up his ponies). in hindsight i moved around too much instead of sticking where the fish were and trying to upgrade my boarderline fish in the well (which was thrown back in before the weigh in)

the lesson that i learnt from the weekend is the importance of not leaving fish when they are on the chew. a few spots we hit yesterday had lots of small fish and i should have stuck to fishing them until the big ones came. i spent too much time driving around yesterday and in the end i only weighed in 3 fish!

I started the weekend looking at the places I go and catch fish usually.  First spot was belmont flats for not a sniff.  I knew straight away that if this spot didnt hold fish with the amount of brown water, I would be heading back down.  You always need to stop at the narrows, it can go from cold to raging hot in a matter of casts.  From there it was a matter of going to spots I hadnt hit that day.  Right down to clear water to fish that hadnt seen a lure yet.  Session 3 was a combo of the two above.  I know my favourite spot downstream always has fish, finding size ones may be a challenge but usually pull a couple of legals there.  Allowing the overnight break was a key factor in fish hitting lures I belive, and so was the massive flow of dirty water overnight. 

It was very interesting to see how people fish a 3 session format.  I find once you hit a spot hard and pull some fish it wont produce all that well unless something has changed.  The narrows were shocking sunday as they got a flogging saturday.  In hindsight i shouldnt have gone back but that niggling thought of how many kilo fish it produced and maybe theres one more, gets me alot.  However if your certain the spot holds fish then I say hit it until you have nothing new to throw at them.  Being 3 sessions over two days alot of people went to spots that didnt produce as well as it had been, thats why the canning where ev went saturday arvo and did well and sewellys spots sunday did well.  Like ev said, its getting to the spots that havent been fished yet and going for those fresh fish that arent lure wise.

Narrows is always a producer - its just weather you have the patients to fish it all day. you are either going to do really well or really bad!!!

Brad i liked the 3 session format. i particularly like having the arvo session on saturday. i rarely fish arvo's so it was a refreshing change. i can definately smell a 2 session 1 day comp coming up for those that are interested!!!

Its just great when your on a boat but it doesnt feel like there is a boater and non boater but rather just 2 equal people fishing. And your nowhere near as serious as i thought. I had a ball and it seems there aint a single rock or stick in the river that that we both dont know about. And it was good to watch you get totally  smoked then laugh about it.

shhh szarn - if you keep saying things like that people might start to think boaters are actually reasonable people, just think what that might do to the sport .......

i did notice we seamed to find more fish around colour changes in the the water, somthing which i havent really noticed previously.

i'm in two minds about fishing "fresh areas" - my gut feel is that you want to be the first to show the fish a lure, but how many times have you followed a boat up a stretch or into a snag and pulled good fish? pleantly of times for me. it depends on the spot i guess, any of the big bridges can switch from not to hot (like yatsey said) in a blink but orthers can shut down with a heavy jig head landing....

Shane.  When your not sure where to go just take a blowie proof plastic  and give each open spot 20 casts ,  each snag 5 casts and  in open areas move 1 km at a time. If its a team event  you take turns with one holding the boat while one casts then only drop the kota if you get a good tap. This way you cover max area and you are sure to stumble over a bream sooner or later but above all else DONT SPOOK THE BREAM BY FISHING TOO CLOSE.They will shut down in a second . The fish above the narrows are used to the dirty fresh water so dont seem as bothered when the colour changes  The fish lower down are used to the cleaner water so when the dirty fresh hits they shut down until they get used to it.    If you get snagged without having placed enough casts at a good snag etc  SNAP OFF AND DONT GO IN. A plastic lure and jighead are not as valuable as that big bream that might be sitting on that snag. When you do have to go into a snag and you have a lecky with electric steering  DONT TURN THE MOTOR AFTER YOU DRIVE INTO THE SNAG. Start moving the boat into the snag on LOW POWER then after the boat has enough speed to reach the snag but is still 8 meters away (i like 10 or more) you turn  the motor 180 degrees. As the boat slowly reaches the snag you hit the throttle which is still on low power and gently pull up to a stop. You pull the lure off the snag and throttle on to again gently move the boat back away  to a safer distance. And i have heard how noisy an electric steering lecky is underwater although it wasnt planned at the time