After a busy weekend breaming the Hawkesbury, swoffa and I decided to hit the water yesterday in search of green pastures east of the Harbour Bridge. Both of us are relatively new to the bays, so it was just going to be a bit of an exploration day on the water . It turns out that this section of the harbour has some serious potential with not just bream . Just as we suspected…
A gentlemanly start of 7am was the call and the harbour was at its most beautiful. At least we had the weather on our side. We cruised up through the harbour and sussed out Woolloomooloo Bay for a couple of 27ers and then moved on to Elizabeth and Rushcutters Bay where swoff became unstuck on a serious pontoon dwelling fish . This was to become the norm, as the east harbour bream spots are inhabited by some seriously “bigger” fish.
Next spot was a channel marker in 20-25 metres of water, which was showing up fish as we passed by. First cast saw me ripped to shreds by a suspect king. After a few more casts swoff landed a XOS tailor (51cm, swoff?), which was being shadowed by 3 rats. This got me into the action with a 55cm king, which was an unreal battle as always.
After the immediate action we focused on bream and fished deep, where we found some good concentrations of fish. Swoffa’s bass minnow was belted first up and a lovely looking 35er surfaced. We spent the next 5 minutes trying to get the bugger to swim as the depth changed had distended its swim bladder. A bit of surgery with a straitened jighead and a crimped barb did the trick nicely and he was back down to the depths on his merry way. It’s a terrible feeling watching a bream of any size struggling around on the surface. So we were chuffed to get the fish swimming again .
Another big tailor and a decent bream kept me busy for the next few casts along with swoffa being busted up one more time. 6lb leader doesn’t get you very far when fishing marker buoy chains. A few more 29ers hailed the call to end a lovely day on the water. More perfect conditions on the harbour I have not seen in a long time . Off the water by 2pm.
Cheers,
Andrew.