Lake Macquarie Session

[Mick Baker]

Hi there, I fished Lake Macquarie Saturday afternoon of the long weekend,it being the final round of my club comp for the year.I arrived at the ramp at Swansea about 12 pm to be greeted by a stiff SW breeze that felt like it was coming off snow.
In our club comps we have a bag limit of 5 fish per species so it means that you realy need to fish for a number of species to gain a reasonable point score.I had planned to start by looking for a few mullet as they are usually a reliable standby. After an hour and about 5 changes of location without a fish sighted,a change of plan was called for.
I moved up onto the sand flats and began fishing for bream and whiting,using live blood worms, shelled prawns and strips of frigate mackeral for bait.I spent the rest of the afternoon moving around all of my usual marks without losing a single bait to a fish. Whether it was cold water or the recent constant wet weather and fresh in the lake I don't know ,but even the normal plagues of bait stealing toads seemed to have diappeared.Things did not look good.
My next option was to move back into the channel and hope for a few tailor to come on after dark.I anchored up,set a rod with a strip of mackeral for a bream and sat back to have a warm coffee and a snack while waiting for dark. Just as the sun touched the hills in the west there was a shower of bait fish on the shallow flats about 50 m behind the boat and tailor began chopping on the surface. My immediate reaction was to up anchor and race over to have a cast at them,but common sense prevailed.They were only in about 1/2m of water and would probably move out before I could get there. Instead, I threw a couple of frigate mackeral and a loaf of bread left over from my mullet effort into the burley pot and started pumping out a burley trail in the hope that when the tailor left the flats they would come across the trail and follow it up to my boat. The tide had just turned to run in and was carrying my burley along the channel right past where the fish were working on the flats.I carry 4 or 5 rods ready rigged for different species. A pilchard was placed on a four hook gang and cast out unweighted to wave around in the tidal flow.
It only took a few minutes wait before the bait was slammed and a nice tailor started performing on the surface behind the boat.It was soon boated, much to my relief.At least I had a fish to weigh.Frantically I re baited and cast back into the burley trail, not knowing how long the school would hang about.I needn't have worried.Over the next 15 to 20 minutes I landed my 5 tailor and dropped three or four more - not the 2kg plus fish that we had been catching over the previous few outings but nice fish between 45cm and 50cm.A number of times I didn't even get the bail arm over before a fish hit the bait.



While I had been catching the tailor,the rod I had set for bream earlier had slammed down and then bounced back, so I assumed a tailor had taken the bait and bitten me off but I had left the rod in the rod holder rather than spend time winding it in.Now that I had my limit of tailor I stopped the berley and thought about my next move as I cleared away the mess from the hectic tailor bite.Again the bream rod slammed down but this time the fish kept going.Again I assumed that a tailor had taken the bait and I expected to be bitten off despite using Mustad demon circle hooks Which usually lodge in the corner of the jaw.To my surprise the fish turned out to be a bream about 35cm. I rebaited the line and reset it in the holder.Apparently the burley had also attracted a few bream, or possibly the incoming tide had brought in some warmer water,and turned the fish on. The ocean water was still quite warm while the lake temp. had dropped well down.With one of the biggest tides of the year peaking in a couple of hours,the tide was now really racing.
The bream had come on the bite and I was heading for my bag limit of these also,with one fish being 42cm in length.I was feeling much happier now.



The next fish to hit really took off and for a short time I didn't think I was going to stop it.Eventually it slowed and I gained a couple of metres but it was much heavier than any of the others. I was using a 2 to 4kg rod with 4kg line and it was a real effort to gain line, fighting both the fish and the current.Thoughts of what it might be began flashing through my mind - ray? but it didn't stop and sit. Maybe a jew or king, both of which are caught in the lake. Slowly I managed to work the fish closer to the boat but every time it would take off again. This to and fro continued for what seemed like ages but was probably about 10 to 15 minutes.There was no moon whatsoever and it was difficult to see the fish,even alongside the boat and a couple of times I tried to net it with the rod in one hand and the net in the other but each time the current took control of the net and I spooked the fish into another run.Finally I managed to control both the fish and net at the same time and lifted the fish into the boat. A large salmon of 74 cm, the first time I had caught a salmon in the lake



I caught my last bream and was very happy to call it quits and head back to the ramp with a few good fish.