Hawkesbury River expedition

[martoiscool]

Hello fellow Raiders..

I recently joined this site from advice off a friend of mine and have found the information on here nearly endless.... I am currently living in Sydney but will be leaving in July to head back up to the far north coast where I came from, near Ballina, for work purposes. In the four years I have lived here I have never fished the Hawkesbury system, I mainly fish the port hacking and Botany Bay. Every time I travelled up north to see relatives and drove over the Brooklyn road bridge my mouth would start to salivate, and numerus times the car would drift over the ripple strips as I was transfixed by the waterway!!

I read an article once that used the saying "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.." they then went on to say that the Hawkesbury IS the other side of the fence... Anyway before I head back up north I have planned a four day fishing trip with a mate on the Hawkesbury. We will be starting on Sat 14/05/2011 and returning either Tuesday morning or Wednesday arvo. The tides are good and the moon is good. We will be camping on the river (or at a camp ground) in my boat over the nights and hopefully should get into some fish. My mate does not fish that much and I thought it would be a good opportunity to get him into some big fish and his first ever Jew.....Hopefully!!

The questions I have for all you fellow raiders are as follows;

1: where would be the best/safest boat ramp to leave my car and trailer parked for the length of the trip? I don’t care if I have to pay for parking I just want to be sure that it will be there when I return!! We will be fishing the Brooklyn Bridge and east of this to the ocean, so a boat ramp in between there would be good.

2: I don’t expect anyone to tell me there secrete fishing spots are but I would appreciate some info on where I can find bait...Whereabouts can I find sand flats to pump nippers on/put out my traps for live mullet? Also where is the best place to find live yakkas/tailor/squid? It can be anywhere in the river system as this trip will be about the fishing and also the adventure/bait gathering to get us to that point.

That is all I ask of you and look forward to reading your replies. If anyone else is out on the Hawkesbury during those dates, keep an eye out for two blokes in a brooker 410 fisherman tinny. It is named "the dog house" as everytime I tell my misses im going fishing I usually end up sleeping in the dog house!!! Come over and say hi as I believe that’s what fishing is all about....meeting new people and sharing good stories. I will post a fishing report on our return hopefully accompanied with some pics of nice fish!!

Cheers to all,

Sam.

[LeoB]

Gday

Unfortunately nowhere is safe to leave a car these days...even right in front of your house in a quiet suburb as i unfortunately found out. But hey that's what insurance is for...

On the fishing point though i used to have some luck around the bridge pylons with livies and lures. To tell you the truth always used to get a couple drifting just east of there as well. Good luck and have a great trip

Cheers Leo

[tide'n'knots]

PM sent mate

pete