Bennyg78

Nice sessions and report, I saw a recent video of guys catching heaps of flatties near Karuah boat ramp.

Well done , that’s a lot of pedalling in the yak

Hi Stu, Welcome aboard I’ll have to tee up a session when I’m back up the coast

I have been holidaying up the coast with the family, and been heading out each morning for my fill of topwater addiction until a relo got the spicey flu and we all went home in the 31st December. I have a few spots I hit up there for my topwater fishing, one spot right near the central coast stadium produces fish constantly. I hit that up twice and got a nice 31 cm bream (pictured)and tailor on the slippery dog. The next day I decided to flick around my local water way around davistown (where I stay). I was a bit late getting up and the tide had already shrunk back on the run out, I wasn’t having much luck when on the last cast I managed to a chunky 37 cm Tailor(pictured) The next day I decided to hit some of the lagoons around the coast, I managed to snag a few small whiting but the absolute highlight was to come next. I had a sugar pen tied on and was casting around, I saw a line of reeds on the bank and thought I’d cast out and work it back inline with them. When I did, I had this huge suck suck hit from the water, but missed the hook up. I thought it might have been a monster bream. So I thought I’d cast back out and see if it will hit again. Working that lure back twitching that lure then the suck suck and a good hook up, I had managed to get my first top water flattie which was awesome. The fish would have been lying in about 30-40cm of water. It wasn’t a massive one at 47cm but the hit was awesome and I was pumped to tick it off the list(pictured) Happy new year all

Well done Welcome to the hobie world

Good job Mike, might have to join you at meadowbank one morning

Go the Derek badge!!!!love it

Hi all, I had been talking with @DerekD about getting out for a flats session together to have a bit of comparison of our longer rods and friendly competition for casting distance. The plan was to meet at one of our spots around Manly and have a flick in the morning chasing the usual suspect like whiting and bream. Derek had planed to get there around 7 am, whilst I was keen to get there early as I was family free for a few days( that means lots more fishing time). The weather looked like it was going to be hit and miss with rain about, and this proved to be how our day would unfold with rain on and off ans strong SE winds blowing. I got down there at about 5.40am and rigged up one of two flats rods I had in the car. Rod 1 is a Daiwa infeet 752 rod paired with Daiwa infeet x reel, i went matchy matchy with Daiwa slippery dog and began casting and working the lure back . I managed to hook a smaller bream which I watched look at my lure for what seemed like 30-40 seconds before having a crack. A few casts later and bloody bird flies straight across my line and there goes my fave colour slippery dog, at this point Derek turns up and so does the rain . We retreat for cofee and talking all things fishing. After coffee and breaky we have the great cast off,to which Derek wins. I do concede that its not the equipment at fault but rather the operator (me). I was definitely close but short by a few metres. We then get pelted by rain and wind which is proving to be no fun, Derek suggests we hit Manly Dam for some bass. I am super keen as I have not fished for freshwater species before. So off we go to the Dam,whilst I am re-rigging my leader Derek lands 3 bass on a Celta. Derek talks me through how to work them which took some adjusting. After working around a little bank I land a couple of small agro bass on the Celta. I then switch back to topwater and whack on a sugapen and land a small bass. We then call it a day... well not really. We did Fish in the arvo in the saltwater too but it was super windy and the fish seemed to be asleep. I finished off the day with a refreshing beer to celebrate. P.S I may be off to the shops to buy some celta and spinners.

That’s a cracker of a session

I would have loved too but had the family in two so didn't get a chance. We were in busselton and the jetty there is 1.7 km long and covered in squid ink from start to finish from people jigging for squid, the local tackle shop guy was telling me about the sampsonfish they get running along the jetty... so maybe next time

It’s a really lovely spot with a variety of options from flats to deep water to the boats moored( if you can cast far enough). My tip would be to get there early to avoid the crowds and the people with dogs in the off leash area

Hi all Apologies for the late report, not long back from family holiday in WA. Anyway before I went away I was keen for a top water flick using a new rod I had won in a competition a miller rods flats freak. I decided to head to Clontarf beach and hit the flats early, my plan was to hit the big sand flat on the early parts of the run out and wading and walking the flats and make my way slowly round to the beach. I got to the sandflat at about 5 am and rigged up a slippery dog 60 and began to wade out, I could see lots of activity in the water by the way of boils and bait jumping good signs indeed. Two casts out out and I was onto a nice bream realising I had forgot my phone and brag mat, quick release and hes back in. A few more casts and some decent hits but no hook ups. Anyway during this time I am constantly walking and casting walking and casting, I hook up to something and it feels kinda weird, I reel in and I have caught my first top water Mullet,😁 Weird indeed. I keep casting to no avail, grab a quick coffee from the cafe which is now open and move to the beach grabbing my phone and brag mat on the way. I decide to keep the slippery dog on as it was getting some decent attention from the fish before and I need to head home about 7.45 am so time is of the essence First cast past the ocean bathers and almighty boof my lure gets hit by something hard and after the that nice whirring sound of the drag running and a short fight I pull in a nice aussie salmon, quick photo and release. At this stage I am so pumped I call @DerekD to express my excitement very early in the morning (7am)., luckily hes up and I didn't wake him. Straight after our call another cast and another big water explosion and I have another Salmon on. I did try to release this one but not too sure it was doing so well when it swam off. To complete the session I had this agro Taylor come and smash the slippery dog on the other side of the Baths on the way back to the car. What a cracker of a session and the Top water addiction grows and continues!!

That’s a great read man well done @robthefishermanand @DerekD. Such a great community

@Bluebenbombi find the fc rock leader gets a bit weird after it’s been exposed to the weather for a session or two

I have seen the baby goat in the shops and was curious as to how it would be fished, do you just hop it like you would with the minnows?

nice fish, id love to tick off some trout some day!!

Great report and look at the colours on that flatty Looking forward to hearing more about your fly casting progress

Just the one mate, but I do have a few different ones laying about the house so depends what I bring. @DerekD definitely got me hooked on it when I went through the learning process with him

Hi all, Welcome to top-water anonymous. I have an addiction to top-water estuary fishing. I had gone for a few top water sessions this month as the water was warming up but nothing had given me the hit I was craving until today. Before leaving I had a tough decision to make do I take the Miller rods flats freak rod I recently won or the Daiwa infeet 752 flats rod I recently bought. I went with the infeet rod because I went matchy matchy with a brand new infeet 2500 reel. I really wanted to give them a working over and hell yea they got it. I decided to get up early and use the high-tide to my advantage and work some top-water at a little sand-flat on Pittwater. this sand bar has a rocky oyster outcrop, and then to the left there's mangroves and a long sandbar and some oyster crusted rocks. There also yabbie holes all over the second area. I got to my location right on 5.30 am , and tied on a Daiwa infeet 65 mm slippery dog ( seriously I'm not sponsored by Daiwa). I wade in calf deep. First cast out and I work the lure out over a rock bar and twitch, twitch, twitch, pause then I see the familiar swirl of a bream follow but it misses the lure. 2nd cast and I am onto a bream ( the one pictured) and bring it in, photo and release. I then cast wide again and get hit by a bigger model which I retrieve in but lose right at my feet. I have one more cast before moving to the second area and pick up a micro bream. At the second sand bar, should be called whiting bar as they were on the chew hard. Working the slippery dog and on the pause it gets hit by a smaller whiting no photo taken and a quick release. Another cast another whiting small one again. Then a few casts later and I get a 23 cm model throw him back. The great thing about the flats rod is I can get much more casting distance out and this definitely helped get more whiting. Anyway back to the casting and catching, I fire a cast out towards some boats and work it in and on the pause bang this is a bigger fish. ends up being 28 cm whiting which i bring in and keep for a feed. Fanning to the right of the boats twitching and pausing i get hit by another bigger fish being a 34 cm whiting which put on a good fight, which I kept for dinner. And then it was time, as I had family stuff back in the car by 8.00 am A few learnings for me is all the fish I caught were on the assist hooks on the slippery dog, all the fish were caught on the pause contrary to popular belief that to catch whiting the lures gotta be worked in perpetual motion. Looking forward to next month when the water really heats up and so does the top-water action. Ben- your local anonymous top-water addict p.s.Dang it can an admin move this to reports please

Great report and awesome session i have a couple of those vex dead’n lures, really good action on them, very bent minnow like

Hi all, I thought I'd post up a little report on my recent outing in a Yakhunters event at Woy Woy where we were spotted by @XD351 at the boat ramp at Woy Woy. Yakhunters is a community based group that helps support and develop people interested in Yak fishing. They then have state groups that run a series of events for its members at a very cheap rate. These events are great practice for the more serious events like the hobie rounds.and also an opportunity to talk alot of crapola. This event was a fundraiser for Movember and a pre Xmas event (Santa costumes mandatory), it was a teams event where you were paired up with another random yak fisho for the day (great way to meet people). The rules were simple, leave at 7 am and be back by 12pm. Biggest Flathead and biggest Bream were the prizes on offer and all fish catch photo and release. I was lucky enough to be partnered up with an experienced angler from Lake Macquarie, his biggest disadvantage was he had no idea about the area. Luckily I have fished a few parts of Brisbane Waters land based so I had some ideas to plan our fishing. With everyone launching at close to high tide I wanted to see where people would go for their first spot. A large contingent went to the dilapidated oyster racks and tried working them for bream with no success, we went past them and headed to the mangroves around Saratoga en-route to paddy's channel. I put on a double clutch 48 and begin working it from the mangrove edges, intentions were to try and get any bream in the mangroves. On second cast got a solid hit and a decent run and fight, I thought it was a big bream at first (wishful thinking) but turned out to be a 35 cm tailor. My team mate was flicking grubs along the edge, as he was targeting flatties already with some success. The tailor must have been running hot through as I sighted them shooting through the edges along with some huge rays When we arrived at Paddy's channel we hit a hot streak with targeting flatties. We were both using plastics. Me on the daiwa bait junkie minnow 3.2 inch and my teammate on the grubs till. I pulled in 3 with the biggest being 35 cm, my team mate lost what would have been a huge fish but still managed to pull in a 60 cm model. We then decided to drift through lintern channel with not much success until we got to the end of it both of us reeling in two more flatties, but none above the 60 cm mark. By then we decided to head back to Woy Woy va the St. Huberts Island narrows with Tailor snipping us off on our plastics. Back to the boat ramp for a group lunch and presentation. We were lucky to win biggest flattie on the day. It was also great to hear where other people caught their fish, in particular the Bream catches (give me a few ideas for future bream comps up there) In summary, it was a fun day out and if you have a yak and want to try a competition have a look at yakhunters.

Mate I went ok but I was luckily paired up with a very experienced angler who caught us a big 64 cm flattie at paddies channel that won us the flathead division . it was a heap of fun and was raising money for Movember I’ll have to keep an eye out and say hi as my family have a house at Davistown and I’ll be taking the yak out around there a lot in the summer months

Great effort and report, I was up there Saturday as well in a kayak competition. We launched from Woy Woy lions park boat ramp and had some success around paddys channel/saratoga on flatties. A few other guys went to rip bridge and got flatties and bream. There seemed to be heaps of Tailor about in the area atm too.

@robthefisherman Derek will definitely help you, get the technique and gear sorted. Might be worthwhile looking at the podcast - the Australian Lure fishing podcast as he has quite a few episodes where he interviews guest that are expert anglers along those WA stretches of coastline with the why's and hows of targeting some of the fish over there

Hi @Waynocantfish I am in north-west Sydney in the hills area, I am happy to chat with you over a coffee or a chat. Happy for you to flick me a message