The Tuross lake system is where I mostly fish. About 12 years ago our fishing correspondent, Peter Gill, showed me the way forward by introducing me to the use of artificial baits or lure fishing. Gill of course is famous for the purchase of any new novelty lure, any shape size or colour, he just has to try it. He famously entered a fishing shop in Queanbeyan and asked the owner, ‘what’s the best lure you’ve got to use in the Tuross Lake system’. The owner looked him up and down, reached under the counter and said gently, ‘Don’t tell any one, but this is deadly. It’s called the Tuross Trembler’. Gill parted with $15.00 and rushed to the coast. It never caught any fish, period. Lure fishing is a fashion business, a new one for each season and the old favourites are discontinued.

Years ago I lucked in. We found that the lures made by the U.S. Company, Mann’s, worked very well at Tuross. The style known as the stretch five was best of all.

Now every fisherman has a dream. It’s this. Imagine opening your tackle box, knowing you had a lure so deadly that it would out fish every one. A lure so powerful, so deadly that you knew, as you flicked it across the water, that even the most highly skilled could not compete and in fact would be in awe of your genius. Well this happened to me at Tuross. This lure became so precious that in later years it was only revealed at the end of the day if we had no fish for the evening meal. It never ever let us down. Not once in ten years did we eat red meat.

The lure that did it for me was the ‘Golden Perch’. This lure in its day out fished everyone by a margin of ten. It became and still is legendary. I lost the first one, as you do lure fishing. My fishing shop had no more, in fact it was discontinued. The new colour models had arrived. Searching high and low found some in a shop in Bundaberg where they were also highly regarded and were known as ‘red dogs’. Then a call from a fishing tragic. He had located three in a shop in Bairnsdale. I have one left as depicted.

Alas, maybe my skills are less or the Tuross fish are sick of its sight or whatever but it seems to have lost its fishing power and the new best thing is ‘Scarlet O’Hara’. That’s fishing and I love it. Turn to the articles from Peter Gill if you want to learn. He is the best.