Unforgettable Day...

December 28, 2006

Man, today was the best fishing ive ever had from my boat - it was magic! The intention was to have a sightseeing/fishing experience with my dad, and my parent's friend and his young son. Ive taken Dad a few times in the boat before, but the others had never fished, are from Germany (and living in Japan), and they loved it. The boat ride, the nature, and the fish catching. Not to mention pumping yabbies!

We headed out from ATB at about 715, up to Yeomans to get some yabbies. I couldnt have scripted it any better for newbies - no wind and the water was like glass, clear morning sky and the magic of the hawkesbury and its offshoots.

On approach to Yeomans, we spotted numerous bread plate sized stingrays in what looked a the prime spot, so we went a bit shallower. No worries, though, the shallows were good - a good size and colour. The colour at Yeomans is always nice though i think.

From there, we tried a few spots but it was quite early on, maybe because it was the last of the run out, but i dunno. Anyhow, since it was so flat we decided to make the journey up to good old Juno to do some drifting. Well, it was a slow start, no wind and no water moving and not much drifting happening. We headed over toward whatever the bay is on the other side of the river to a certain deep channel, but there was a dude anchored in the prime spot, but by this time we had a bit of a drift going so we just went with it.

Still no fish, but some light entertainment courtesy of some unhappy campers who had beached a nice looking fibreglass the night before no doubt, and were trying to pull the bugger off with the help of a bloke in an even nicer looking, and bigger model. It took them a while and a few round table discussions on the sand but the eventually got it down - and i mean down - it was almost at the grass line initially!!!

Then we thought about heading back down Cowan Ck for a try, but decide to give one last drift a go, with the mid morning breezes help. Well, i think we did about two or maybe three drifts from Juno, and we hit gold. It was fish after fish, double hook-ups and all. At one stage after a bit of a fight with something obviously heavy but a bit dosile, my dad called for the net, and i stand up and look over, and there is this MONSTER of a flattie basking in the sunshine. Bloody hell, it was big, around the 70cm mark. I netted it on the second go - he was a bugger, too big for the net, and probably should have gaffed him. He was a PB for my dad, and it really made our day to see that come into the boat. And you should have seen the eyes of our friends when this thing came in!!!

Well, we called it a day while the action was still peaking - we had enough fish! I have always suspected that there must be some big flatties at Juno, but have never caught any over 50cm mark, and its been my default location for a number of years now.

Anyhow, enough of my yacking, here are some photos! 6 flatties, including one monster, 2 good whiting, 3 bream + 2 soul. Very few throwbacks today, which was unusual. The little reddies must have been somewhere else!