Sydney Harbour 24-01-10

[happygilmour]

Hi all,

With last weeks weekend trip to the hawkesbury it was time to check out the harbour. Conditions were unsettled with showers and overcast conditions greeting me as I woke in the morning.



A solo mission was planned and after some research a suitable ramp was found Tunks Park, Northbridge which gave me access to middle harbour and the spit bridge.

Plan of attack was similiar to last week with kingies, bream and flatties the target species on lures.Within 50m of launching the shoreline looked promising for bream with nice oyster encrusted rocks entering into a small bay.



Out come my newly aquired Owner cultiva mira shad and with in 15 min after a long pause the line came tight and short struggle to the boat. A nice bream came aboard and i instantly thought of Pete who would be happy with my success.

At 24cm it was underize by 1cm so was released to terrorise the local bait population.

As i turned the corner and into the bay i could see surface activity and instanly cast to see what was there. Besides heaps of very large muller whitebait was being hit.

Hoards of small chopper tailor were harrasing the bait so i left them alone as i didnt want my new lure bitten of by a chopper!!!

Further up a I came across an nice rocky point that had a nice current flowing over it and back eddies. Knowing bream would be sitting in the back eddies i cast eagerly and was instanly rewarded with another small fish, this time a small squire


You never get tired of seeing the awesome blue spots on the juvenile squire. A hoard of small bream followed my lure over the next 20 minutes but couldnt get them to commit.

A change of plans as i motored down the the spit bridge. The spit is well known as a kingie spot although due to the heavy fishing pressure they are extremely fickle and only take live /fresh squid. A few drifts I had 2 follows to the boat casting a large 160mm flick bait ripped to the surface.

A change of tactics wa decided and i headed over towards the inside of middle head to some kelp beds that hold squid. I arrived to see bait and small barracuda holding and searched high and low only to discover that i had left my new exspensive japanese squid jigs at home

With no squid jigs I then headed towards the headlands that define the entrance to middle harbour. With a big swell rolling in i trolled some hardbodies hoping for and kingie,tailor or salmon.





With no activity I decided that i would go exploring the middle harbour reaches and run all the way up middle harbour to the upper reaches to identify future locations to fish. A solid 40min run(numerous 6kt zones) the arm became a mangroved lined creek past the Roseville bridge, that i more accustomed to fishing.

Soon I was getting hits from what I thought were small bream before coming tight and pulling the hooks. Soon enought I was on again and this time an small flathead appeared.



Further down some small creeks came of from the left only just wide to fit the boat down. With the tide falling i knew there would be fish moving out towards the mouth of theses creeks.


Casting an lure hard up to the shaded area in the rocky structure in the below pic, I instanly came tight to another small bream.




Time had flown so it was time to head home content i had caught some fish, although undersized it was good to land a few fish on light string.

Looking forward to more exploring!!!

[Stingray]

Great stuff Happy,
looks like you are settleing in to Sydney quite well, I'am sure it won't be long before you are posting pics of big kingies.

Cheers Stingray.

[goob]

good on ya happy, sorry i got your message late. just a tip though, we only measure bream to the fork in tourny's down here, the rest of the time we measure to the tips. so that 24 was more like a 27 and would have been legal for ya. I'll give you a yell when my trailers done and we'll line up a bream trip.
cheers clint

[happygilmour]

Hi Jeff,

wont be long before the kingie comes, will just have to change my tacktics and get some live squid or yakkas. I have caught them at the spit bridge 10 years ago on live squid.

Clint, great to have a chat the other night. Look forward to catching up for a session. The harbour is a good fishing destination considering the population and pressure it gets. Does anyone down here use the mullet for bait????. I saw 100's swimming around and most were the 30cm-50cm models that scream big jewie/kingie bait!!!!

Thanks for clearing up the measuring rule as well, i thought nsw measured to the fork and not tip. Doh!!!

Cheers

[Talina]

You just can't keep a fella away from the water no matter where he is!!

Good to see you gettin a couple....I bet you having barra withdrawls though!!

[happygilmour]

Talina,

miss the red eyed silver bucket mouths but I am enjoying the new challanges of new waterways and species. Right now my focuss is to get some good kingies on lures but at this stage live bait will be the most effective way. Might have to travel to places like jarvis bay for kingies on lure.

As for the bream, they are a fussy lot as well on lures, plenty of lookers but not so many commiting. Still not really greared for bream but over time will get some stuff.

When are you hitting the water again?

[Talina]

Not any time soon I dont think....We've had localised flooding here today & predicted strong winds all week. King Tides (4m) & 25 knots on Saturday should be very interesting!!

But come next Monday the 1st, we might as well give these barras out the front a go...Its that time of the year

[goob]

aaron, when one of us has our boats back on the water and the weather is nice to us, i'll take you to spot X out of the hawkesbury where kingies on lures is usually a pretty good chance

[happygilmour]

Clint,

I love spots with an X in them

Look forward to catching up soon.

[ffejsmada]

There's some very fishy looking spots there hey Happy?
No doubt you'll sort it out.

Jeff.