Georges River Sunday 25th

[ross patti]

Hey there Raiders,

After the lucky win by my Wests Tigers on Friday, and a good result for me in a poker final on Saturday, I decided I would treat myself to a fish on Sunday morning.

Conditions were excellent, with glorious sunshine and only a few knots of breeze. Although it wasn't my preferred run out tide, it was such a beautiful day just a pleasure to be out there.

I ended up in front of Kyle Bay and sent the anchor and berley pot to work. After a while, I started to get some undersize fish, and duly set them free to do some growing.

I was using bloodworms and tubeworms, and was hopeful of a couple of keeper whiting.

The first "size" whiting was around the 35cm mark, and as I slid him into the ice slurry the confidence grew.

Around 20 mins later, another fish pretty close to the same size joined him in the icy sleep chamber.

Not long after that esky release, the 2kg outfit started to show signs of fishy interest. The tip danced for a few seconds, then line started peeling off the little baitrunner. My first thought was "bream", and I lifted the rod to set the hook . . .ever mindful of the 5lb flourocarbon leader.

As soon as this thing felt the sting of the hook, he took off !. As I was fishing on pretty clean bottom with no major structure, I let him have his way and we traded small victories of line on the spool. When he ran, there was no stopping him . . .and I didn't even try to as I could tell this was a nice fish. I first called it for a flathead . . a big one of maybe 70cm. The repeated dives towards the bottom fooled me.

Not long after that, I got colour.

And what a glorious colour it was.

Did I mention that I was on my own ? . . . that might be worth knowing as I reached for the net.

2kg rod doubled over in the left hand . . . a horse of a whiting doing it's best to escape . . . and the landing net in my right hand.

After 2 or 3 nervous attempts to net this beasty, I finally slid the net under him and heaved him aboard.

As you all know, most fish tend to shrink a bit in size once they are in the boat . . . as soon as our imaginations settle down !.

Not this one,baby !.

I gazed upon it's size and felt good. It was a fair dinkum horse !.

I don't know if it was the adrenalin from the great fight, or the endorphins from seeing such a great fish . . . but I looked at it still in the net and said to the whiting . ." your an effin horse".

I then proceeded to stand up and make horsey noises and stamping my feet and clip-clopping in tight circles in my 14ft tinny.

I then saw some people on the bank pointing towards me shouting "jamie soward . . jamie soward !", and I sat back down.

This great fish soon joined his little cousins in the slurry.

It's amazing how quickly a 35cm whiting goes from being a nice size, to being tiny !.

After that, I got a nice little bream and a trevally for the cat and turtle . . . and called it a day.

Home by lunchtime with a great feed of quality fillets. A great day on the water in beautiful sunshine. What more could you ask for ?

I think I'll enter him into the "Catch Of The Month" comp. Please see pictures attached.

Note that I didn't have to use the lil girly cutters in the pic . . . straight to the 20cm long-nose pliers. The whiting has got them well and truly covered !!!!

Managed to post the piccies . . . . the big one was a whisker under 44cm, but fat as.

Cheers . . . Ross

Edited May 25, 2011 by Rosco 1

[Mr.KingSpooled]

Well done mate, cant wait to see the pix aye !!! Btw did you play the Champions of Champions game on saturday ? My good mate Luke was the TD for the event, I had entry in plus a bonus 10k in chips but I'd already organized a day out on the boat with another mate, and yeah didnt make it to the game on time !!! How did you go ?

P.s: we should have a fish sometime, or even a game of poker !!

P.s.s: Playing tonight at New Brighton Golf club with UPT and also gonna watch Queensland slaughter NSW !! You up for it ? $11 buy in $10 rebuy or add on and $20 buy in after the break if you get out, weird I know but great prize pool.

Let me know if your heading down matey,

Cheers,

jez

[ross patti]

Hey Jez,

The pics are up . . .enjoy !.

Yeah, the poker game was the TJ event at Bexley. I qualified at New Brighton ages ago, and didn't play another game with them because the games were too far away from my place.

So I only got the 15k on the table, and a single 5k bonus chip for registering 1/2 hr early !. There was a bloke at my table who had 290k in bonus chips FFS !!!!!

Anyway, me and my crappy 5k in bonus made it to 15th place out of 300 odd players. . . which I thought wasn't too shabby.

No probs for a game one day !!!

Ross

[Mr.KingSpooled]

Hey Jez,

The pics are up . . .enjoy !.

Yeah, the poker game was the TJ event at Bexley. I qualified at New Brighton ages ago, and didn't play another game with them because the games were too far away from my place.

So I only got the 15k on the table, and a single 5k bonus chip for registering 1/2 hr early !. There was a bloke at my table who had 290k in bonus chips FFS !!!!!

Anyway, me and my crappy 5k in bonus made it to 15th place out of 300 odd players. . . which I thought wasn't too shabby.

No probs for a game one day !!!

Ross

Ahh nicely done, you gotta be happy with making 15th for sure !!! Trust me i know about the large chip stacks its annoying !! Last time i played there was a bloke on my table with 6 times my stack n he could push on any set of cards... spewing.. !! But you did well mate, and also your whiting is a freaking cracker bud !!!

Game on tonight at New Brighton if your interested bud !!! 7:30pm it starts..

All in all, tops effort and ill definately see ya around bud !!

Cheers,

jez

[rjc123]

Well done mate, the whiting are tricky to find at this time of year. Good Job

[mduong2]

Well done ross on the whiting and lets hope Jamie Soward does the job for the blues tonight. Cheers cg.

what a disappointment soward was. very average to be generous

[Keflapod]

Hey Roscoe,

well done on some quality fish.

I noted the water temp on Saturday morning in the river was 15 degrees.

Must have been similar at Kyle bay when you were there.

Still, the water will get to 10 degrees at it's coldest.

That whiting is a horse alright.

Clip-clopping around the boat eh ?

I understand your madness - I still do it myself.

If I ever beat my whiting PB of 47cm I will humm the theme from rocky and climb onto the boat's hartop and jump up-n-down and do some very poor sylvester stallone impersonations.....

...by myself....

...and they'll yell from the shore....

"Shut up you idiot - you're scaring the fish...".

Tony

PS.

I did get out last weekend into the bay but when I get only 10 fish it's too embarrassing for a self-confessed megalomaniac like me to post....

The fish are definately in their winter mode now.....

Must rethink my strategy...

[kadavu]

Biggest whiting I've seen in ages good job

[ross patti]

Hey Keflapod,

Good to hear that there are other lunatics on the water.

A 47cm 'ting is a great fish. My best is 46, so I have a bit of catching up to do yet. I'll give it a crack this winter, and let you know how I go.

I don't know if you recall,but around 12 months ago you answered a post of mine about tips for Botany Bay here on Fishraider.

We spoke a couple of times, and I was gonna give you a call when I got the soccer coaching duties out of the way.

If your still keen, I'll drop you a pm and we might go out for a combined Greco/Italiano fish. Maybe share some ideas, discuss things like Italian super cars, Italian super bikes and souvlaki's.

Don't forget to vote for my Whiting.

VOTE 1 FISH 4

. . Thanks Squizzy, yeah I was pretty happy with it . . .as you can tell !

Edited May 27, 2011 by Rosco 1