Hi Raiders,
Im a first time poster, long time reader.
Thought id share a few successes with you all from last weekend. My dad and i have fished the Hawkesbury our whole lives, it's an exciting time of year now as the flatties are moving in. So, with the horrible conditions we had most of the weekend, we saw only a few hours of opportunity to soak a line on sunday arvo. Launched the tinny from brookie after lunch and punched straight to our troll stretch to kick things off with a few inshore pelagics - Not to be though. It seems the bonnies have moved on, they've been getting fewer and fewer every trip these last weeks, until nothing now. Only managed to hook up to a lone salmon, which threw the lure, mid-air, in spectacular fashion.
So we moved to our next port for a drift for a few flatties. My old man using bait and me, soft plastics. Within miniutes my dad is into a fish - wrong species, tailor. Not long after though he is on again, this time a flattie. And for the remainder of the tide hook ups are a regular occurance, with the duskies playing ball. All up we managed well over a dozen in the range 38 to 42 cm, with a couple of 55 cm models there too(8 were kept for tea, all others were released). Maost taken on fresh bait, only a couple on SP. The highlight of the arvo was the 84 cm, 4 kg Dusky my dad managed to land. What a beautiful fish, it's great to see these big girls are still around to spawn. After a few photos, she to was released to fight another day (and make lots more babies!)
One disappointing note though, was back at the ramp, where another boat proceeded to empty an esky of undersized bream, whiting and a jew onto the cleaning table. We pointed this out to them and of course got the big defensive speil back. When i pointed out the jewie, the bloke said he measured it and it was fine - 400 mm. What a clown, how can these guys have fishing lisences and not know the bag and size limits. Such a shame to see, esp. when most of us work hard to protect our sport. Something has to be done here, as it's not the first time i have seen this sort of thing. Ive not once seen a fisheries inspector at brooklyn ramp either???? Where are our lisence fees going??????
Cheers
