COMPARISONS are a big part of everyday life. Those we mostly come in contact with deal with material things, which we’re force fed by the various media.
Making bucks is the name of that particular game. The competition for dollars has become so fierce that in many instances it’s gotten down to the old shootout scenario – flyoffs between F18s and F16s with Opera House price tags per machine, teenagers forgetting about their pimples for a few seconds while they do the Coke and Pepsi test, and even Daiwa pulling down their Sealines bit by bit and saying it’s a better reel than Penn’s Senator series.
By now, many of us have built up an immunity to that sort of comparison. However we always seem willing to have our imaginations fired by comparisons of the intangible kind. Those things, living and inate, that may belong to different ages, are many miles apart or, for some other reason, cannot be placed side by side and measured with the same yardstick.
As fishermen we’re always dealing with comparisons between the various sportfish we seek. We all know some fish are better performers than others. These variations are allowed for by formulas within the competitive framework of various fishing organisations. However, sets of figures that say all fish are not equal do contain some degree of guesswork.
It’s around these unknown or uncertain areas that the arguments have long raged.
Fishermen want to know what is biggest, which is fastest, which is the most difficult to hook and so on. Most of all, they want to identify the one that is toughest to land.
In saltwater the answer to that last question is undoubtedly that Caranx fish known variously around the globe as ulua, grand carangue d’Afrique, turrum and lowly trevally. The consensus amongst credentialed angler that if these magnum trevally (now given the IGFA designation of giant trevally) attained billfish proportions, fisherman’s clinics specialising in hernia and ricked backs would be a very profitable enterprise.
As for river and lake fish, anglers worldwide are not so unanimous – mainly because the great freshwater fish of the world have not been fully catalogued. Few anglers anywhere can boast more than a handful of eligible species.
These things are now changing. The International Game Fish Association has expanded its scope to include data and record keeping responsibilities for freshwater gamefish. This important work has covered a lot of new ground in recent times.
Barramundi are one of the newer additions to the IGFA species list. But there are still gaps. When it comes to what is the greatest freshwater gamefish, the sentiments of many anglers lie with the salmon. These occur as natural sea-run stocks that return to their native northern hemisphere rivers to spawn, populations that have been successfully transplanted into similar habitats in other parts of the world, such as New Zealand, and those managed in put-and-take, land-locked fisheries.
There are many species of salmon, some of which grow to 100 pounds. The best of these is said to be the Atlantic salmon. Hard times have fallen on this fish in its native range, and it may well be that its future could be in the balance. A disease free stock held in hatchery conditions down in the Snowy Mountains may hold the key. Salmon are motivated by powerful instincts that will drive them up waterfalls on their journey to the spawning grounds. These fish are in prime condition when they return from the sea. Anglers see them as silver streaks that will strip a reel with the speed of an ocean gamefish.
The salmon is a noted clean fighter, making sizzling runs, often ending with spectacular leaps, and using the current at every opportunity in the attempt to break free.
The final outcome may often be dependant on the athletic ability of the angler. He might have to negotiate those often treacherous river stones with the speed of an Olympic steeplechase runner to stay in contact with those first furious rushes. From there it depends on good rodwork.
There’s a steely torque in their body that will break a strong man’s grip. The fish is all muscle. No other fish that I know of has as large a cardio-vascular system.
Ironically, these great fish die a slow lingering death once they seed the next generation. Few people fail to be touched by the pathos as the salmon completes its life cycle. Quite a fish.
Members of the pike family grow to a size worthy of discussion in this context. The largest of the clan, the muskellunge (a handful of which have bettered 60 pounds) is a lake fish from North America. Dubbed by sportswriters “the fish of 1,000 casts” it is, strangely, quite a wary fish in spite of all those teeth and fearsome looks.
When hooked it doesn’t seem to do a lot. Some top water bounces with the musky getting its snake like body hallways out, and not a lot of stress on the pinion gear of the ubiquitous ABU 6000.
In fairness to the fish, they’re being yanked on solid string – needed to manage the heavyweight plugs and spoons muskys like – and I suspect, to provide the special effects that seem to be part of many musky action shots doing the rounds. The Nile perch is the flag carrier for the Lates genus. This barramundi look-alike is the fish under consideration for our waters … At considerable risk in many minds.
In its native habitat – the lakes and rivers formed by the Great Rift Valley in central Africa – the Nile perch grows over 100 kilos and is fished for with marlin tackle and lures the size of model boats.
The superlative tigerfish also comes from the Dark Continent and has an overlapping range with the Nile perch. It is a beautifully marked yet savage predator armed with a cluster of large, interlocking teeth that will leave their imprint on a metal lure.
Tigerfish are powerful fighters and leap repeatedly. Their mouths are almost devoid of soft spots – consequently hooks are often just entangled in the fangs and are shaken loose when the fish takes to the air.
Aerialist fish with hard mouths are hard numbers to keep a perfect score on. Those that we have in Australia – the tarpon in tropical creeks and waterholes, those giant herring around the hotwater outlets at Lake Macquarie and elsewhere and even the marlin in offshore waters – are all able to shake free lures that fail to get imbedded in their armour plated mouths.
The British Raj period in India probably marked the golden age of the mahseer. Pukka Sahib anglers, escorted by a company or so of the Khyber Pass Rifles, would sally forth to the fast flowing rivers of the Himalaya foothills and return with enormous quantities of these very big and powerful fish.
An even greater toll has been taken on the mahseer by the hydro-electric dams now sited on those mountain rivers.
In spite of its predatory appearance (something between barramundi and carp) the mahseer has a chink in its armour. It prefers dollops of pudding bait that are moulded around the hook and settle on the bottom.
This puts the fish in the quiche-eater class along with other river giants such as the sturgeon, various gargantuan catfish and the Alligator garfish of the Mississippi.
In South America there are fish the size of logs that wait beneath jungle trees at the riverside for fruits to be shaken free by the monkeys rummaging above. Even the feared piranha is sometimes a vegetarian, and will chomp away at berries and figs that end up in the river.
But for the backdrop – tropical rain forest as against tundra – the South American dorado could almost be mistaken for a salmon. In appearance and habit both have many things in common.
Dorado is the Spanish word for gold, and the fish not only looks the part, but delivers the goods on the end of a line. Accounts of dorado fishing (which are hard to come by) suggest it may have no peers as a freshwater sportfish.
The peacock bass is another noted puller which ranges from Central America through the Amazon region. It has also been transplanted into warm waters north of this range into largemouth country.
The millions of anglers involved in the US bass scene nowdays have access to the peacock bass through these stockings and fly-in fishing camps established on the natural range of the fish.
Good as they are peacock bass seem to suffer a size problem. Records show they don’t appear to get much bigger than the largemouth bass. Any student of freshwater fish sizes knows that the first angler to take a 25 pound largemouth should end up a rich man and be immortalised by the mega-buck bass industry in the States.
The various trouts and chars also fit into this middleweight class of gamefish. The slow growing lake trout, which has reached 100 pounds is the exception.
It is unfortunate for the lake trout that its growth rate hasn’t really been able to keep up with the fishing pressures made on its stocks. The lake trout lives in the depths of snow fed lakes where life proceeds at a time capsule pace. It has also suiiered through exposure to residual pesticides – insideous DDT has found its way even into these remote waters.
Our own land of drought, flood and bushfire is not very well off in terms of rivers. But in spite of scant water resources we have a diverse range of freshwater fish, the majority of which have stocks in fair shape.
The Australian indigenous fish have evolved to the harsh and widely fluctuating extremes the country sees. The largest of our freshwater fish, the Murray cod, which can weigh more than a grown man is a true super heavyweight amongst freshwater gamefish.
It is a very territorial fish, liable to swallow anything that ventures too close, or whatever it might come across while hunting. With a mouth that can take in a football, the cod has no natural enemies.
As a gamefish it lacks the speed of other species, but has the low range pulling power to make it a slower, yet stronger fish. Sometimes it escapes capture through its sheer bulk.
For a fish to qualify as a great gamefish, landing it should involve a reasonable measure of skill. Fish that are easy to catch never earn the same respect as those that frustrate good anglers.
The qualities that make a fish great are its strength and courage. Environment also comes into it – habitat is an essential consideration when comparing sportfish.
With 80s vintage tackle and sound technique the wildest fish can be tamed in open water. Fish that fight away from the tight spots buy time for the angler. Unrelenting pressure from the tackle does the rest until, finally, a fighting spirit must yield.
Amongst the snags the odds on getting the fish shorten dramatically. Stressed fishing line can appear to have the tensile strength of cotton in badly troubled water. It can be all over before the angler has recovered from the shock of the strike.
No fish has a tougher environment than the Papuan bass. These giants of the Lutjanid tribe are found in the steamy, overhung jungle waterways that flow into the Gulf of Papua.
Those rivers, swamps and myriad connecting water highways are laden with dense cover. It’s water that puts the acid test right on anglers- both physically and on their choice of equipment.
To come to grips with the Papuan bass one has to meet it on home ground. Amongst the tangled remains of spent jungle trees the stupefying strength of the fish can produce dire catch averages. No fish from ten strikes – and ten lures down to boot – is not unusual.
It’s strange that this most powerful of all freshwater fish, while on our northern doorstep, is not found in Australia. After all, the rest of the Lutjanids from the lndo/Pacific region are present in tropical Australia.
A possible explanation lies in the nature of the Papuan rivers. While less than 100 miles, as the crow flies, from Cape York, their outflow is many times that of our rivers. At the peak of the dry Season, when our rivers have stopped, Papuan streams thundering down from the 15,000 foot high Owen Stanley Range and other catchments still defy the best of oarsmen.
These giant bass appear to be purely a river fish. There is no evidence, as there is with other Lutjanids, that Papuan bass head to sea at some stage of their adult life. Nor is there any indication they migrate upriver to any extent.
It is possible that the Papuan bass could reach a size rivalling that of the West Indian cubera snapper (Lutjanus cyanopterus), largest known member of the family which has been recorded at around 120 pounds.
According to what anglers know – and that’s about all anyone knows on this fish, which has not been the subject of any comprehensive scientific study – the Papuan bass seems restricted to specific reaches of rivers and feeder creeks around the upper limits of the tidal influence. Juvenile fish are encountered down in the brackish water. However big fish seem rare that far downstream. To survive in an environment that can rage for months with water moving faster than a man can run, a fish has to be a very powerful swimmer. Although this comes as the understatement of the year for those that have experienced hookups, it’s not till you physically check out a Papuan bass that their role becomes clear.
There’s a steely torque in their body that will break a strong man’s grip. The fish is all muscle. No other fish that I know of has as large a cardio-vascular system.
This blueprint for power and apparent limited distribution dovetail with the theory that the fish evolved in the swift flowing rivers pouring out the underside of the New Guinea land mass. The fact that it is often encountered on midstream logs-right in the teeth of the current, also tends to bear this out. Papuan bass are often referred to as black bass. This name comes from the Lutjanid characteristic of rapid colour changes when stressed. In the water, the fish is a light olive green with metallic tints to parts of its body. They are in the form of tawny bands running vertically down the body. These become much more pronounced on fish removed from the water.
Once this occurs the pigment change is rapid. Before a camera can be readied, the natural colours can fade and the fish takes on a gunmetal hue that increases in intensity for some hours.
Opinions as to how big the Papuan bass grows seem to be based more on opinion than fact. Bass approaching 20 kilos have been taken on rod and reel – God knows how!
Larger fish have been netted and taken by other means – particularly an ethnic Chinese tactic around Port Moresby. It goes like this: The Asian anglers go out to the Laloki log jam and lower live baits down cracks in the half mile long timber raft. On getting a strike they let the fish run on very heavy line. The bass is close to home and usually doesn’t go that far before holing up. Then, armed with a speargun, one of our Oriental fishermen follows the line down and zonks the fish. Simple as that, although every now and then one is taken by a croc or drowned by a bass when he fails to get a clean kill.
It is possible that the Papuan bass could reach a size rivalling that of the West Indian cubera snapper (Lutjanus cyanopterus), largest known member of the family which has been recorded at around 120 pounds.
The cubera snapper is generally a fish found on inshore reefs around central America. Corning from easier fishing water and not being quite as powerfully built as the Papuan bass it probably isn’t quite as difficult to land.
The Papuan bass is mostly a bottom fish, spending much of the time laying deep in heavy snags. However, during specific stages of the tide -the first of the run out – they will move about while feeding.
This means that at other stages of the tide more strikes can be taken bombarding the deep cover. When the ebb begins – and increases the run in the river, allowing swamps and creeks to drainfish will congregate around junctions to prey on the passing fish traffic. In this feeding mood, bass will rise and hammer the sort of lure designs popularised in our barramundi fishery.
They’ll also hit surface lures leaving a hole in the water the family car will fit in.
For the rest of it the fish hang deep and it’s very much a matter of getting down to them. During these sessions the attrition rate on lures – both by fish and snags – is frightful. But that’s what you’re up against.
For deep fishing the Cotton Cordell Spot in the larger sizes is unsurpassed. It’s a noisemaker lure, and has a fair degree of natural snag proofing – once you get the feel of the things you can trip them over most obstructions without a hang up. Fished with a slow sink and draw – which tests ones perseverance, particularly if he’s ever been exposed to high speed lure work – the technique gets results in conditions where the bite has shut down.
The rattle this type of lure sends out makes it easier for fish to find in those zones of a river where suspended silt has filtered out most of the light. In addition to Papuan bass, the system also works well on barramundi, Murray cod and yellowbelly.
Flies get hit in bass water with a force that creates a burn as the flyline is ripped through the fingers. Again, it’s the deep and slow retrieve that seems to get best results. For this type of fishing I tie an overdressed Deceiver that’s commonly called a “Barra Bomb”. I feel the pressure waves these heavy dressings make talk to the sensory organs of river fish. Under the right sort of conditions large flyrod poppers would get the same sort of treatment as the bladed cigar lures from Boone that I found so successful. Tactics? Hang on and hope. The rule book goes out the window with Papuan bass. There’s no real answer to the brutish strength of the fish. Not with sportfishing tackle anyway. One of the very real problems is that a fisherman can arm himself with elephant gun tackle and find it’s useless when the fish can drag the boat. Help can be enlisted from the current. Trollers use it to get that vital few feet the instant a fish strikes. To a lesser degree that same trick can be utilised by casting upstream, however working with the current doesn’t favour optimum lure action.
Bundaberg newsagent, Mal Meadows, who reckons he’s caught more Papuan bass than he’s sold Casket tickets devised an interesting method during his stint in big bass country.
He’d secure his boat upstream from bass snags and let out a pair of minnow type lures which were positioned close to the sticks. The current would do the rest.
It will be some time in the future – if at all – when the Papuan bass gets its due recognition as the world’s toughest freshwater fish. This can only come through contact with many more anglers than the comparative handful who have sampled the exquisite, arm-wrenching, knee-trembling pleasure of it all.
Papua is in a state of flux. There are many problems in that land of mountains and mystery. These need to be solved before anglers without inside help can get to the bass rivers … and sleep soundly at night once they are there.
