Salmon In The Surf

[rikkigilbey]

So my recent fishing excursion took me to the southern beaches, arrived at 6pm last night knowing that high tide was 6.45 and the surfers would be gone by then. the surf looked perfect and i found a beautiful deep gutter running parallel to beach. so set up me n my mate with two to hook pennel rigs, 4oz leads, and whole pillies for bait.

some time past and with nothing to show for it, and dead on high tide, i was standing talking to my pal joe when the rod tip bent over i lifted to feel nothing and upon inspection realised half my pillie had been taken clean off.. gaargh.

ive been after one of these salmon off the beach for a while now, well 2 sessions lol so i was so keen to catch one.

the next cast after my bite i messed up, and the rig ended up landing about 10ft from the beach, (far too close in i thought) but i thought back to when i used to fish with my uncle and he always used to say "its the casts you mess up on that often produce fish" and so with this mind i left it.

5 mins later BOOM im on! the fish was already in the surf so i was didnt have much stability to fight, an timing it with the waves i hauled it up the beach. a TAYLOR! not the intended species but ill take it a nice one to...went 47cm!

we fished on for another hour or so with nothing but chit chat to keep us going and fending off walkers and their dogs from our catch and bait.

i was mid conversation, talking about whether full moons effect fishing or not when i felt a tap tap on my rod tip. i went into silent mode, my mate wanderd why i had just stop talking lol, then a few seconds later tap..tap...Boom! fish on!

this one put up an extraudinary fight taking me at least 100 paces down the beach taken heaps of line from the reel, i was fishing 8lb mono all the way through to a 20lb trace so didnt wana tighten the drag too much. after a good ten minutes of great runs i saw the fish leap out of the surf..a salmon! get in, and so again using the waves i hauled it up the beach my mate joe ran down to bring it up to saftey, i remember thinking how chuncky it looked in his arms, i was stocked, i picked up the fish realising it was a stonker! well to me anyways.

she went 73cm, not sure how heavy, but she was seriously built, how heavy do you guys think it may have gone?

so anyways after a quick few snaps and soaking up the awesomeness we returned her to live another day. so happy

we went on to catch 2 more flathead, just under legal, and my mate lost 2 fairly decent fish. we left when the bait ran out

happy days. going to head back beginning of next week.

[rjc123]

Thats a good size mate. Lost a similar size fish the other day on a live yakka. They run hard ay!

[Cobba12]

When you sent me the text bragging i thought you caught some big fish....... Is that all you have to show for it?

Jealous? hell no i got to work until 10pm last night in my suit talking to people who were keen to chew my ear off about the state of the market asking my for advice. Waste of time................ you could say so.

In all seriousness when i got your text a 4 letter word came flying from my mouth which shocked my driver so much that we swerved hahaha

I am really struggling to like you now after this trip and our recent forays of nothingness. HAHA

NEXT TIME COUNT ME IN!!!

[breambaron]

So my recent fishing excursion took me to the southern beaches, arrived at 6pm last night knowing that high tide was 6.45 and the surfers would be gone by then. the surf looked perfect and i found a beautiful deep gutter running parallel to beach. so set up me n my mate with two to hook pennel rigs, 4oz leads, and whole pillies for bait.

some time past and with nothing to show for it, and dead on high tide, i was standing talking to my pal joe when the rod tip bent over i lifted to feel nothing and upon inspection realised half my pillie had been taken clean off.. gaargh.

ive been after one of these salmon off the beach for a while now, well 2 sessions lol so i was so keen to catch one.

the next cast after my bite i messed up, and the rig ended up landing about 10ft from the beach, (far too close in i thought) but i thought back to when i used to fish with my uncle and he always used to say "its the casts you mess up on that often produce fish" and so with this mind i left it.

5 mins later BOOM im on! the fish was already in the surf so i was didnt have much stability to fight, an timing it with the waves i hauled it up the beach. a TAYLOR! not the intended species but ill take it a nice one to...went 47cm!

Great looking Salmon! Pity about the flatheads

Definately worth the jaunt

we fished on for another hour or so with nothing but chit chat to keep us going and fending off walkers and their dogs from our catch and bait.

i was mid conversation, talking about whether full moons effect fishing or not when i felt a tap tap on my rod tip. i went into silent mode, my mate wanderd why i had just stop talking lol, then a few seconds later tap..tap...Boom! fish on!

this one put up an extraudinary fight taking me at least 100 paces down the beach taken heaps of line from the reel, i was fishing 8lb mono all the way through to a 20lb trace so didnt wana tighten the drag too much. after a good ten minutes of great runs i saw the fish leap out of the surf..a salmon! get in, and so again using the waves i hauled it up the beach my mate joe ran down to bring it up to saftey, i remember thinking how chuncky it looked in his arms, i was stocked, i picked up the fish realising it was a stonker! well to me anyways.

she went 73cm, not sure how heavy, but she was seriously built, how heavy do you guys think it may have gone?

so anyways after a quick few snaps and soaking up the awesomeness we returned her to live another day. so happy

we went on to catch 2 more flathead, just under legal, and my mate lost 2 fairly decent fish. we left when the bait ran out

happy days. going to head back beginning of next week.

Great looking Salmon! Pity about the flatheads

Definately worth the jaunt!!

[rockfisherman]

Good action there mate.

[thezaid]

good going mate. my work is holding me back but soon i will have some fishes lol

[wdfish]

Well done mate....I have also heard that you spend so much time trying to cast out into the depths while beach fishing and just in front of you is all the catch you want...good gutters mean good fish....fish close in future. Great catch.

Cheers

WD

[Bucaneer]

Fantastic sambo looking to give the beach a go this week end myself. Well done

[Nikon]

Great to see someone excited about Salmon. I am over them, not a good table fish! Must admit though when I first got into surf fishing about ten years ago, I was always pumped in chasing them on light line.... Just hope you don't hook a bronze whaler on 10lb, goodluck

[Basil D]

well donr mate, great fish landbased and always fun

[ginko]

Nice work on 8lb. line. Two questions on size: what size hooks were you using, and how big was the surf?

I caught a ~65cm salmon at N Narrabeen Thursday night in 4-5ft surf. There were not really great holes, and I had to move around a fair bit to get between the heaviest of the surf. I use 20lb mono, and a 20lb trace. In th big surf, I do find better hit rate when the bait is as far as possible out from the beach, and away from the sandy water. Three #3 ganged hooks don't seem to hook the salmon, I go with #4's. But I very rarely encounter flathead, which I must admit, would be a much more welcome catch at the beach.

Over 70cm is starting to be a serious salmon in my books. Well done.

[Bashful]

Nice work again Gilbey! Keep the reports and photos coming. Love the size of those fish mate.

[rikkigilbey]

Nice work on 8lb. line. Two questions on size: what size hooks were you using, and how big was the surf?

I caught a ~65cm salmon at N Narrabeen Thursday night in 4-5ft surf. There were not really great holes, and I had to move around a fair bit to get between the heaviest of the surf. I use 20lb mono, and a 20lb trace. In th big surf, I do find better hit rate when the bait is as far as possible out from the beach, and away from the sandy water. Three #3 ganged hooks don't seem to hook the salmon, I go with #4's. But I very rarely encounter flathead, which I must admit, would be a much more welcome catch at the beach.

Over 70cm is starting to be a serious salmon in my books. Well done.

cheers ginko, the surf was up around 2-3ft mark, so not too big, an i actually use 2/0 hooks with a pennel rig, i find it easier. its where you have one sliding hook on your trace with a tied hook at the end. you feed the tied hook through the tail end and then feed it through just before the head so that the point is showing. then with the sliding hook slide it down to about 3/4's up the pillie and fix it by wrapping the trace around the shank about 4 times and then embed it all the way through, and finish with a half hitch on the tail. i rarely loose fish or miss hook ups, although i did fail to hook one on this particular night lol. but it works for me so i stick with it. ive caught salmon on a size eight hook for black fish but i wouldn't recommend that lol.

[fisholb]

@gilbey...mate try using smaller hooks on your rig and you will catch bream trevs flatty also. I've been using the pennel rig on a paternoster rig with a star sinker on 1/0 circle or suicide hooks. My mate uses no. 4 hooks and since we started using smaller hooks our catch rate have increase 10x.