An Australian First
I’ve featured underwater carp footage from the UK, Italy and even Russia, but it pleases me immensly to be able to post some film shot on my home soil. As well as it being filmed in a lake I’m familiar with, and have actually fished. I know it’s early days with this project from OzCarpCam, and I can appreciate the difficulty in filming on a massive water like this. Canberra’s man made Lake Burley Griffen is something like 36km in circumference I believe, its a huge water to take on as an angler or underwater photographer.
I, like many other Oz carpers no doubt will be watching the progression of his filming very closely. It’s renowned for being a prolific pastie water, its chocker’s with Dustbuster sized commons. But I’m convinced there are some monsters lurking out in its depths, though, I’m still waiting for someone to post a photo or YouTube clip of one, to finally dispell any doubts as to the potential of this lake.
Three mates and I flew over in 1994 for a ten-day session on the lake, which proved to be a lot harder than any of us had imagined. Access to the lake is not that easy, if you want to get away from seething masses of joggers, dog walkers, mad old ladies feeding ducks, cyclists and public spirited citizens offering an abundance of free advice! Once at the waters edge you then have to contend with the gazillions of dopey black swans, canoes, yachts and other watercraft, not to mention wading through a plethora of pasties first in order to catch a mere double!
However, if some hard evidence were to surface of say a 50lb+ LBG carp being captured, I wouldn’t be that surprised. During our short day we all got smashed up more than once, on unstoppable runs. This could be attributed to big Murray cod picking up our baits, I really don’t know? But I’d like to think these occurrences were not all due to takes from cod? Hopefully, future filming underwater may reveal some of the lakes secrets???
Happy hippo hunting 
Saw one recently in the shallows repeatedly “taste” the water right in front of the bait and leave and then came back several times to conduct the ritual before summoning up the courage to gobble it up, needles to say when he did he thrashed about much more than the other catches of the day.