G Dog

Just around from Box heading north towards Kilcare. Quite a spectacular show. Cheers, Casso

Hi Raiders, Headed out early Sunday morning for a light gear spinning session with my daughter, who is is new to this type of fishing and my son in law who wanted to break in the new rod we bought him for Christmas. Happy to report it was a great morning with a lot of fun and action on schools of Bonito and Tailor, with my daughter thrilled to bits at having caught her first ever Bonito and my son in law breaking in the new rod on both species. A bonus for the morning was a sideshow out on by a large pod of Dolphins. Great to see what nature can provide at times. All the best. Casso.

Hi all, I’m new to this site and this is my first post as part of the Raider family. On the weekend I had my brother in law and two nephews come up to the Central Coast from Canberra for a day of fishing out in my boat on Saturday. My brother in law is a really keen fisho but since moving to Canberra from the coast 13 years ago doesn’t really get the chance to to get out very often and the two nephews have only been fishing in a boat once before, so they were all chomping at the bit. When we got up early Saturday morning the day didn’t look too promising as the wind was already blowing it’s head off, and by the time we got to the boat ramp it was blowing even harder. Anyway we launched the boat and motored on out. Once in open water, we decided to start the day and stay out of the wind by trolling in the lee of the headlands which proved to be a good move, as only after about five minutes one of the lures was hit and my youngest nephew, being closest to that rod, and with some friendly advice from his Dad, managed to land a nice Australian Salmon. To say he was stoked is an understatement. We were in quite comfortable conditions due to the wind protection given by the headland so we continued to troll. After another short period one of the lines was hit again but this time we were outdone and broken off by something big and judging by the frayed line and the type of structure we were trolling over, my guess is the culprit was a King. We continued to troll for about another half hour without luck so decided to brave the wind and head on out and try our luck on one of the close in reefs, but on the way out our attention was diverted by some frantic surface activity, and as you do you just have to investigate. We thought all the commotion was probably caused by schools of Tailor but once we got close we saw they were Bonito. As I was positioning the boat in front of the school, the brother in law and nephews grabbed the light gear and started casting metals into the melee with instant results: triple hook up! The young blokes couldn’t believe how fast these little torpedos could travel, and after some instruction on drag control managed to land their fish. The best part of the session was seeing a lure being retrieved and hit with gusto by a hungry fish only a couple of metres from the boat. Up until now I had been playing driver, tour guide and entertainment director, but with all the fun going on around me I just had to be part of the action so grabbed a rod and joined in. I actually don’t mind Bonito fillets on the Barbie, so we kept some fish for that night and released all others. The morning wasn’t even over and the nephews were already calling this the best day out they had ever had. The wind was still blowing us around a fair bit, and although the surface action was still happening, we decided to get out of the wind and go and have some morning tea in more sheltered conditions, so we headed over behind one of the local beaches. The conditions here were ideal, but we didn’t get a chance to start coffee break, because just as we pulled up a large bait school broke up near us and scattered in all directions. Before you could say fish, the brother in law and two nephews had already fired off their casts into the school and each landed a Tailor. These fish provided the crew with a lot of spinning action over the next hour or so, but were only choppers so all were released, although I did manage to pull one over legal fish to keep for that night. Strangely enough, by late morning the wind had dropped right off so we thought we might move back inside to the sandflats and try for some Flathed, as from all reports there have been quite a few around lately. We arrived back inside, reached a spot that looked ideal for drifting and rigged up with a combo of pilchard baits and plastics. My line had only been in the water for less than one minute when my pilchard offering was hit and our first flathead landed. The kids then also hooked up with the result being a flathead apiece with one released. My brother in law couldn’t believe what was happening and not to be outdone, in quick succession landed two fish on a plastic, one of which we kept for the table. After several more drifts the current started to slow and so did the bite, and with everyone having had such a fun day we stowed the gear and headed home with the anticipation of a great cook up for that night. My brother in law phoned us when he got back to the ACT and said the boys had not stopped talking about their big day out and were already planning their next excellent adventure. All the best, Casso