Great few days on the Hawkesbury
Easter 2011
Hi there Raiders, just wanted to let you guys know about out trip up the Hawkesbury over Easter.
Launched my boat at apple tree bay abound midday and hurried to brooklyn to meet the rest of the gang. and get our house boat to act as the mother ship lol.
The weather was not the best , so we began catching live tailor and yakkas as we were pretty keen on nailing some rather solid jews.
First spot we tried was opposite shark rock point were we have had much luck in the past. This time only a few around the 60-67cm, this was in the early afternoon when the tide was pretty ordinary. Were running low on fresh and live tailor as we seem to be getting sharked quiet a few times when on the bottom trying for jews. the ratio was about 5-6 sharks for every jew. So we decided to travel down the Jerusalem bay as the house boat was getting a little rough.On our way down i noticed a small runabout with an extremely bent rod, as i got closer i could not believe what i saw come up in the net, it was a snapper of about at least 4 kg,s as i approached the very excited angler. He could not believe that such a fish could be taken here (on servo squid). I must say i was very pleased and excited to give these areas a try. It was on a high tide. so we let down a variety of baits including fresh squid, pilchard, and the sneaky live tailor. after bringing up a few barley leagel snapper. the tailor came on strong for about and hour. When they finally went. Mick hooked up to what would have been a 3kg trevor on the smallest bait rod we had mind you. The poor Diawa luvious 2500 didnt know what hit it lol. Needless to say he had some fun on that one. We also decided to put a live tailor out not expecting a great big jew but more likely a shark for some sort of excitement.. But this was no shark run. The fish spat it after about a very fast 5 sec run, I have caught a lot of sharks around these waters and could tell by the run it would have been a quiet a decent jew which was good to know, After we inspected the bait it was in perfect condition which more or less confirmed my theory that we may have lost quiet a decent jew as they are more likely to spit it out as experienced jew fishers will know, unlike small sharks the have a tendency to rip them to bits and take off with your hard made rigs lol.
As the night fell we were able to pull chopper tailor up all night and a few yakkas. as the day turned to night the action didn't stop till around 11pm landing some nice hairtales. also managed to raise a couple of blue swimmer. and by mid night Jerusalem bay was fairly dead till the first early morning tide change where we managed to get a couple of small jewwies which were released instantly. so if any one is interested in giving Jerusalem bay a go. i suggest at least 200m from the entrance of the mouth on the left about 20-30meters from the rocks. we also had a 20cm live tailor taken but lost it at the boat, it looked to me as a large bonito or small mac. we also noticed the place came alive with squid at night. so it may be wise to keep a jig handy.
We also had some luck at Elanor bluffs on the run out. producing a rather large flat head, before heading to the train bridge the next day on a rising tide. managed to get a couple of soapies around the 48cm mark. although i do believe our bait may have been letting us down this time as the squid was getting quiet on the noise.
We didn't get a chance to try Juno or Flint and steel, If any one has any tips for these locations, i would be very appreciative for your input.
Thanks Guys