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Cone Finally Masters VIC’s Lake Blue Rock

Mitchell Cone had finished in second place the first two times he visited Victoria’s Blue Rock Lake - losing to mates Matt Langford and Mick Johnson in previous iterations of this event in the 13 Fishing BASS Pro Series on the picturesque Victorian impoundment. In fact, he’s led the event after Day 1 on all three occasions.

The Narrabri Basser finally took the top spot on his third attempt, along with $2,100 cash and a perfect score of 100 Angler of the Year points. He was nearly a kilogram ahead of two-time Grand Final winner, Braden Schuch at the end of the two days of fishing.

Here’s how he did it.

Cone has been refining a pattern ever since he’s been visiting the Victorian lake which has a great mix of open water and timbered habitat. He fishes shallow in the water column, finding bass in Forward Mode on his Garmin LiveScope and presenting a black Gulp! to them on spinning tackle.

These fish sit between 5 and 8 feet down in anywhere up to 100 feet of water and relate to structure in the form on drowned trees - especially those with some sort of horizontal structure.

“Last year I caught plenty of fish that were just roaming in open water, but this time, I had to target bass sitting on the timber. The more bass I could see on it, the better they would bite,” Cone explained.

He’d see the bass on Forward Mode on his Garmin and cast a black Gulp 3” Swimming Mullet rigged on a Bassman 1/4oz jighead with a stinger. He reported that 60% of the bass he landed were hooked on the stinger.

He fished the bait on a Millerods XLFC rod paired with a Daiwa Kix spooled with braided line and 6lb Daiwa X-Link leader.

He also caught a few fish in the shallows on an OSP Dunk that he cast on a Millerods Twitchfreak M and a 10lb leader, but all of his key fish came from the timber.

“It was good to finally get the job done on Blue Rock and not choke on Day 2,” Mitchell remarked, “and leading the BASS Pro AOY after the first event is a real bonus.

SCHUCH CONTINUES MOMENTUM

After winning consecutive BASS Pro Grand Finals, Braden Schuch continued his momentum into 2024 with a solid second place at the Blue Rock opener.

“I’d always kind of known what would win at Blue Rock for the last couple of visits, but I went and fished my way. This time I committed to throwing that black Gulp! and it paid off,” Schuch said.

Unlike Cone, Braden found that the fish roaming in the open water were quite receptive to targeting with live sonar - in his case, a Humminbird Mega LIVE that he set at 40 degrees in forward mode.

He never fished water shallower than 40 feet and like Cone, his suspending fish sat between 5 and 10 feet down.

“I’d cast to the fish that I saw in the beam and sometimes they’d spook and other times they’d follow the bait, I usually needed to vary the retrieve slightly to get them to commit. This might have been a quick stop and drop and other times a quicker twitch to get that reaction,” he said.

Most of his fish came off the end of a long point a couple of kilometres up and into the trees.

Braden fished the bait on a 1/4oz Daiwa BaitJunkie jighead with a light #1 hook that he threw on a Daiwa Infeet S 722 LRS and Daiwa reel matched with 0.8PE Expedition J-Braid and a 8lb X-Link leader.

On the final day he dropped leader size to 6lb to tempt the pressured fish.

GOLDIE LOVES THE BACK OF THE BOAT

2023 boater, Victorian Corey Goldie, decided that he’d spend a year fishing from the back of the boat to make some content and help new non-boaters get started.

His plan started the best way possible with Goldie taking a win at his first event as a co-angler, anchored by a 51cm bass that weighed more than the rest of his bags added together.

He caught his fish in two ways - earlier in the session with cicadas on the surface - specifically the DUO Shinmushi. He’d cast the bait as close as possible to the bank and shake the lure in the spot.

The topwater bite was elongated by the steep banks upriver which kept the banks shaded for a long time.

His big bass came on a chatterbait in the form of a HotBite Spectre rigged with assist hooks. The threw the lure straight out of the back of the boat into a timbered area and it got smashed on the slow roll.

“We were pretty excited when that fish hit the deck,” Corey admitted, “It’s a true Blue Rock unicorn and to catch it in a tournament was amazing.”