Yowie

Something like that. It does start to slow down from now, and it is cold when motoring against the light westerly wind before sun up.

Some nice flatties there make for a few good feeds.

Fished up from Lilli Pilli this morning. The tailor and reddie took salted fish strips, a few more reddies just under size were eating anything thrown at them. The whiting took a large squid strip on a 3/0 hook, managed to get the hook into his small mouth. Jackets on squid pieces. When the tide started running up, I waded the sand banks along the main channel. The water is feeling a bit cooler now, so the fishing will start slowing down a bit. Not a touch on the plastics, though disturbed a couple of small flatties buried in the sand as I was wading about. Headed for home, cleaned the fish and threw in the scraps. A couple of bream turned up, so I hooked up a piece of tailor belly flap and pulled out a bream of 30cm or so, a fat little bugger. Just hooked in the mouth, so his lucky day, released to be caught another day.

In my early days, a bit of white cloth wrapped around a large hook was good enough for the tailor and others.

You need a fair bit of bait when the little reddies are about.

Some nice blackies. Tried a centrepin reel as a kid, takes a little while to master it (Alvey sidecast is easier)

A good bag of fish, with a very nice whiting as well.

Thanks Krispy. No reports from you for a while, are you still fishing?

A good feed there.

Nice flatties, and some good bait for later on.

A couple of good feeds out of that lot. The tailor will produce a couple of decent fillets.

As you can see, there are a few legal reds here and there, but, there are a lot of undersized ones in between.

Have cut off the fillets, removed skin, bones, black lining - still not nice. I'll eat the reds and blue spots any day.

A great fish there, good work.

Good work there, nice bag of fish (but not the mowies, definitely not for my plate, don't like their taste) They fight quite well, BUT, I throw them back. Good eating size for the larger reddie.

Send me a message when you are up this way, and I'll see what I'm doing.

I have a couple of rusty ones, and one that has never been near water. From what I can remember catching with this lure - tailor, kingfish, salmon, trevally, bonito, Watson's bonito, frigates, small mack tuna, a small unidentified tuna, pike, snook, flathead, jewfish, trout, a couple of little reddies, a small whiting, squid, octopus, cuttlefish, a numb ray (a bit hard to remove the lure as the bastard kept giving me an electric shock, but it wasn't keeping my lure) and a blue swimmer crab (grabbed the lure in a nipper and would not let go until it hit the bottom of the boat) plus some other fish were unstoppable.

I first started fishing from the Yowie Bay wharf as a kid, so I thought Yowie would do as a name. A few of us would head to the wharf after school and pull out a few fish. Very few boats would pull up at the wharf in those days (late 1950's into the 60's). No fancy lures like today, a metal Wonder Wobbler lure was the 'in' lure to own, and it caught many types of fish. No squid jigs like today - an old fisho showed me how to make my own out of a piece of cane, with a few small hooks tied to the bottom and some aluminium foil wrapped around and tied on with fishing line. Many stories can be told about the wharf and people from those days.

Do not catch very many slimies up river. The fillets used were from one I caught outside last month while fishing for flatties.

Thank you all. Crumbed and pan fried reddie fillets tonight, kingie fillet on the BBQ tomorrow night.

Thanks Wellzy, Tried a different spot I have not fished for a while. A few legal reddies (or pannies) in the deep water, but only just legal. Happy with the kingie, they fight hard on a hand line.

Before I headed out this morning, I threw out a line at my mum's place in Gunnamatta Bay for the bream. A dark coloured one at that. A few of them in Gunnamatta are also dark coloured, they must have spent some time inside the bay in the deep water and not moved over the shallow banks where the colour will turn a lighter shade of silver. (not too noticeable in the photo, but the skin and scales were a dark golden colour) Started fishing early near the mouth of Yowie Bay. Pulled out the tailor and Watson's bonnie on fish strips, the legal sized reddies took a liking to squid strips, whereas the undersized reddies ate anything going. The kingie grabbed a small strip of salted slimy, fished on the bottom with a 12 pound hand line. It took off slowly until I tightened the line, then it took off like a rocket. I suffered a burn mark into the skin on one finger, so had to swap the line to the other hand. The bugger swam around another line, so I had to retrieve around that line, then somehow a knot developed in the line about 15 metres up from the hook, so every time the kingie pulled the knotted line into the water, I had to reduce pressure so as not to snap the line at the knot. Took a little while longer than normal to land the fish with the knotted line. Headed to Salmon Haul Bay where I pulled out 2 average sized squid on a jig during the first few casts, but many casts after that for nothing, so headed home. Cleaned the fish, threw in the fish scraps and bones, and a few more bream turned up, again rather dark coloured.

My neighbour was fishing south of The Hump a few weeks ago, in 120 feet of water he said, and his son pulled up a 68cm dusky. Did not release it as it was not looking too good after coming up from that depth, so he kept it.

Good work, plenty of fish to keep you going.

Jim, Just a matter of going out, keeping at it and the sickness feeling disappears eventually. I have bounced around in my 13 foot and now 14 foot tinnies. A couple of times the waves have been bigger than the boat ( worked that out by motoring up the wave and down the other side - not for the faint hearted) Never tried any medication, just harden up a bit to get used to it (no, not a fairy floss tablet, take a teaspoon of cement powder with your water for the softies) As for reddies, just the occasional ones caught, many undersized. Others catch more reddies than me, but I am happy with a feed of blue spot flatties. Dave.