After reading all the reports on Fishraider about Jew fish being caught at the moment I got the pass for the night from the Mrs. I put the kids to bed and headed out for a fish on the Hawkesbury with a mate. Got on the water at 7:30pm at Mooney Mooney raced down to Patonga to try to get live bait but was a bit late and only managed to get one yellowtail before it got too late.
So we set up under the Mooney Mooney bridge with the livie on one rod and a squid (purchased before hand, still trying to work out how to catch them alive)on the other. On arriving I had 5 beeps on the sounder and I was sure it was a school of Jew fish. We had tryed to time it to be there an hour before and after the 9:30pm low tide so I was very excited and figured there was a good chance I could catch my first decent size Jew fish. By 12am my mate got bored and started casting a blade. Within minutes his rod bent over and we were very excited as it looked to have some weight although his catch was not putting up much of a fight. Within minutes he had pulled in a rope. He pulled it in and to our surprise a long chain and sand anchor were attched. Sadly because of his catch and some previous trips where we have caught nothing we were actually calling the night a success.
Although we were tempted to leave we persisted it was 1pm and the current had picked up so I decided to check my bait again as I had not seen my rod nod to me in some time. Clearly I had left it too long as rigamortise had set in and the livie was long gone. I buterflied the yellow tail and added a little squid and put it back in. At 1:50pm I saw my line twitch this was the first real bite I had had all night so I took my time before i set the hook. Bang the rod bent over and there was some weight to it too. The fish got closer to the surface and I saw a flash of colour my initial thoughts were I have caught a small shark. Then as it got closer it looked to wide so I assumed I had some sort of ray. As it broke the surface my heart skipped a beat it was a flathead and it is huge. I immediately gave it some more line as i did not want it thrashing its head. Too late there was a big thrash and splash as she dived back down. It was at this point that I realised she was too big for my net. I grabbed for a towel as i did not want to hurt her which I wet and used to grab her tail as my mate tried to get her head in the net. We heaved her in and sighed a breath of relief. We got a couple of quick photos on the brag mat she was 87cm. I put my hand in her mouth and slide her off the mat into the water I turned her into the current and swam her a little and she bite down so I let go and she swam back down to the depths. She is such a cool fish and it was such a cool way to start the years fishing.
It is now 5am in the morning and my kids will be up in an hour but I had to tell the world don't think i can sleep anyway still shaking. The rod and reel I caught her on is next to me in the photo so hopeing you may consider it for catch of the month because for me it was the catch of a lifetime.
