Australian fishing brand Tackle Tactics TV has released a Baroon Pocket Dam session with presenters Declan and Justin that turns an early-morning Queensland bass bite into a detailed masterclass on finesse soft plastics, with the ZMan SlimSwimZ and the new 3/8oz Demonz jig head doing almost all the work.
The session, filmed on the South East Queensland dam and uploaded about ten days ago, opens with Declan landing a "cracking bass" on a 3/8oz Demonz jig head paired with a 2.5-inch SlimSwimZ. "A beautiful bass. Great start to the morning. There's such healthy fish in here," he says on the mat. Moments later Justin doubles him up, using a 3/8oz head with a 3-inch SlimSwimZ in Gold Rush and a jig spinner. "We didn't teach you any bad habits, so it's all good," Declan jokes after the second fish.
The pair quickly converge on a single conclusion about their go-to plastic. "If I could only have one plastic in my kit to catch a bass, yeah, that SlimSwimZ would be the one — two and a half or that 3-inch," Justin says. Declan agrees, and the rest of the session is spent adjusting presentation around the same plastic rather than switching pattern.
The retrieval pattern that works best is a deliberately slow roll across the bottom. "I was just absolutely dead-slow-rolling that little SlimSwimZ through there — would have been going past a bunch of different fish's heads and one has eventually clunked it," Declan says after a third fish. As the school shuts down, he shifts to a subtle shaky-jig retrieve on the way up, which he credits with unlocking several extra fish. "Especially once you've caught a few, they can definitely shut down. Get a bit of lock jaw. But the old SlimSwimZ that's managed to convince another one out of that school to eat."
A brief cameo from an invasive Mozambique tilapia — "Mr Tilapia. Tilapia. Here we go. Here's something a bit different" — is used to show viewers what not to return to the water. "Those guys we don't want to put back in the water. No, we'll dong him on the head and chuck him on the bank."
The presenters use most of the video to cover rigging and jig-head selection rather than location. They walk through the new 3/8oz Demonz jig head — designed to get finesse plastics "down deep in amongst the fish" — and through the role of the jig spinner: clipped onto the jig head with line tied into the centre loop to put a blade above the plastic without the full profile of a spinner bait. They also plug the 7'0" and 7'6" 2-4 kilo Black Mamba spin rods, 2500-size reels, 10lb Platypus Pulse X8 or Bionic X9 braid and 10-15lb Platypus Hard Armour fluorocarbon leader.
Location advice is kept general. The presenters tell anglers to focus on points, drop-offs and the shallow bars near them, and to use Navionics or Captain charts on their phones if they don't have dedicated sounders. "You can get Navionics or Captain and they'll give you a good idea of those contours and which ones to sort of focus your attention on so you're not looking through the whole lake to find a fish."
Their wrap-up confirms the dam's reputation as one of the more consistent public bass fisheries in South East Queensland. "There's a lot of dams in South East Queensland that have got bass," Declan says. "These ones were the only boat out here this morning. Baroon Pocket Dam — and it is an absolutely beautiful dam."