Hawkesbury exploring

[happygilmour]

Hi all, with the successful move from Townsville to Sydney I was super keen to give the boat a run and wet a line. I lived here 10years ago and at that time didnt own a boat so i had only fished the hawesbury a few times.

With a little research I developed a game plan for the day. I planned to launch at a ramp called Appletree bay in the Ku-ruig-gai chase national park. Its part of the cowan arm of the hawesbury. The hawesbury river is massive with many arms and feeder creeks. The cowan is famous for its very deep sections and pristine cliffs and bush with little development due to the national park.



Launching in the morning the area was beautiful and it was hard to think we were 40km form sydney. 200m from launching i could see some birds working and small surface activity. A quick throw of a metal slug confirmed mt thoughts and a small tailor was hooked before throwing the lure in a jump.

Wanting to fish the mouth for a kingfish we headed of on our 20min run to the mouth. Barrenjoey headland is the sounthern headland of the hawkesbury and is a sandstone rugged cliff as seen in these pics.


We trolled hardbodies at varoius depths but we had no hits after a few passes and no bird activity. Next location was lion island which is towards the northern entrance of the river. Same results here so we ran back to the cowan to cast for some bream.




The cowan has some serious features i was not accustomed to fishing. the edge would have 2 meters of oystered covered rock before steeply cliff like falling into deep water. I cast a Viking crank minnow and soon enough had some leather jacked and small bream intrested but couldnt get them to commit


Soon enough we had a massive storm front roll in with lightning,thunder and wind heading towards us through the valleys so we high tailed it back to the ramp and pull out early.
Was amazed to see over 200+ trailers at the ramp. This place is busy!!! I plan to go back and target some of these bream etc when i am better equiped and see if these deep sections hold jewies.

Till then chow!!

[Two Utes]

It look like you've settled well in Sydney mate, and l'm sure there will be many exploratory trips coming up. Enjoy!
Is it worth having a go at jigging with slugs for those yellow tail king fish?

[happygilmour]

Hi Joe,

Much more exploring to go thats for sure. Its fun and challanging thats for sure. After living in the tropics i need to downsize stuff and get more light spin gear.

If i saw some action the slugs could ba a goer. They love live squid!!!

[Stingray]

Hi Aaron,
Good to see you hitting the water. we just got back from down there last week and boy your not wrong about the number of boats down there,nothing like the old NQ. Maybe there will be a few less when the holidays are over. Nice photos, it truely is a beautiful place that Hawksbury river, I will look forward to more reports from you soon.

Cheers Stingray.

[adidaspeteman]

Hey Azza, nice photo's mate. I'm sure you'll start smashing into them fish soon.

[Talina]

Geez Aaron, that place looks neally as nice as NQ (& I did say Nearly)

Good to see Bri out ont he water also, I suppose she doesnt have to worry to much about rough weather & peircing hot sun down there!! Good to see she hasnt lost the fishing touch either

[happygilmour]

On the low down Talina, Briohny out fished me as usual!!!!!

Hopefully she will land a few nice fish over the next few months