Port Stephen's

[LEELEE]

Well I decided to take 2 weeks off and head up to Port Stephens for a relaxing holiday and fishing. So we hooked up the boat and headed off at 4:30am on the 9th of March for an epic holiday. I had images of previous fishing at Port set firmly set in my mind and some recent stories ( 2 days before we left ) of a mate who got smashed on 15kg by a dolly and a marlin peeling off after having a serious look at a lure, only further reinforced my anticipation.

Well on arrival at Port we set up our tent and emptied the car and basically dumped the boat in the water for its first offshore visit. First stop was slimies. Burlied up hard and I was catching fish by the dozen. Over 40 were caught, but the problem was they were all sweep and mato's. Could see the yakkas and slimies mixed in but the others were way to aggressive.

So I decided to troll some halco deep divers around the headlands for no result, so we headed slowly over to a wreck and trolled the halco's to the paint fell off. No hits. So I threw out some small skirted lures and headed off from the lighthouse over to little island. No hits. The swell was getting bigger and it was already a 2+metre day so we headed in with a big fat zero for the day, as the last place I want to be is 3 miles off shore in a 455 bream boat.

Well basically the horrific weather made its way to Port and boy did we suffer. The second night's stay had the tent leaking water through the bottom of the tent. Great . Next stop was a replacement tent from Big W in Raymond Terrace. Set the new tent up and it hardly leaked, a bit of water came in, but what can you expect when you received 33mm of water in a 24 hour period

So I put the boat in after the weather had turned for the better and headed out in search of some slimies again. More sweep and mato's were the order of the day. Then a boat came right over to us and was burlying hard ( just like us ). As luck would happen we boated a big slimie. His boat was drifting to close so he moved. We got another slimie and again he moved cause the boats were to close. Once again the boats became to close so I thought I would move this time and circle in behind him. As my luck would have it the moment I moved he took off sending the slimies deep and I could not get them back to the surface. Put out the livies and not hits. Retuned back to base very dejected.

Well as the wind blew harder, the rain came more often and the sea's became to choppy for my boat, we jumped aboard a mates boat and headed out for some action. We tried for some slimies and burlied up and what do you know. A huge school of slimies tuned up. I knew we where in for a good day if we landed the livies, but once again as my luck would have it a nice big long liner came in the school vanished, never to return. So we put out some big skirted lures and tried for a beakie along a current line. I left the teasers and witch doctor back at camp so it was going to make it harder. So out went the lures all 3 of them and I set up my 10kg baitcaster outfit with a sluggo rig I have been experimenting with. Well at 8knots it was hard to keep the sluggo under the water, but with a few adjustments it was swimming great. With the 10kg outfit in hand, my mate and me watched the spread of lures as the women stayed up the front and one was driving the boat. All of a sudden my baitcaster screamed into life and the sluggo was under water. The fish was peeling line and I yelled out " I'm on ", but the boat did not stop. Again I yelled out " I'm on ", but still we pushed a nice 8 knots along. I yelled out " I'm on " and my mate told his woman to stop the boat. As she did the fish spat the lure. I bought the sluggo back to the boat with a nice couple of slices taken out of the lure. The reason they could not hear me, was they had the radio on listening to music

So we headed out again on another random day trying to dodge the horrific weather. We dropped down some baits and got waster on 6kg braid with 20lb leaders. Dam kingies. Up the gear and they vanished. Suffice to say that we boated more yakkas than I have ever seen before was putting a big smile on my face for a nice session at the FAD or live trolling for beakies. My girlfriend landed a huge wrasse and heaps of undersized pinkies before switching over to my rod to catch more yakkas. Well old Mother Nature decided that we would not be able to fish the fad as we had received high wind warnings. So I briddled up 2 live yakka's and we trolled them over some bait schools for no fish.

Various other trips only resulted in small pinkies throughout the bay.

Well the weather once again stuffed up more days fishing and before we knew it we were standing at the marina registering our boat and getting wet, for the trailer boat classic. Well over all my boat only saw about 2 hours of fishing time during the comp as the wind and rain put an end to any ideas we had. We spoke to a lady who got soaked by a feeding tuna as it smashed a bait school no more the 3 metres from shore, so we thought we would hit that area the next night. Well heaps of shovel noses and a couple of banjos and a 1.3 metre hammerhead made us retreat for the night, cold wet and very very dejected.

So all in all Mother Nature ruined a very good holiday for us, but still we had fun and learned more about the mystery’s of Port. Even after this holiday, it still won't stop me returning to Port in another attempt to boat a beakie in my boat.

As a little example of how bad the fishing was -

No Trag were boated over the entire weekend. Only a handful of Kingy's were boated. A 25 kg tuna was landed behind the co -op and most of the locals were struggling to boat decent and legal fish. The heaviest bream of the comp actually outweighed the biggest cobia of the comp. Go figure

I will return next year as the prizes and give aways for this comp are some of the best I have seen. Keep at look out on this link for some pics and the winners when they are posted up http://www.tbft.com.au/

How ever my next holiday will contain a plane flight, a hire car and some of the biggest spanish mackerel, cobes, gt's, tunas and jacks you have ever seen. Its in the planning now

Cheers

Lee

Edited March 21, 2005 by leelee

[Outnumbered]

sounds like a real rough time, but i bet you still wouldnt swap it for work

[allen glover]

sounds like a real rough time, but i bet you still wouldnt swap it for work

37791[/snapback]

still better than working.

what flavour were those inshore tunas, Longtails?

[LEELEE]

Al they were longtails. Been smashing everything in sight from the lighthouse, accross to the lbg and inside the bay near shoal bay.

I did use the stick you built but unfortunatly nothing hooked up. Not through lack of trying.

Cheers

Lee

[kikila]

G/Day Lee

Pity that the fish didn't want to play mate but thats fishing the ports a pretty place but I've had no luck there either I'll be fishing the bay this week' I'll ring you

[LEELEE]

Plus i forgot to add that i also lost a 50+cm bream in the marina on the second day. he was close to a 2kg fish if not over.

Cheers

Lee