My first Aussie Salmon

[davido]

Pretty excited to catch my very first Salmon, unplanned too. Also caught my first flathead on the same day

It all started with a bad day at Uni, got 50% on an assignment and felt abit blue. Went home around lunch time and started calling up friends to see if they wanted to go for a fish. All declined. As I sat there thinking to myself 'should I go fishing??' and then said 'why not?'. This decision came by at around 4pm so I quickly grab a rod and bucket and jumped in the ute. While driving I thought yeah I'll go buy some prawns and go to the beach and see if I can catch a bream.

As I got the beach and found a somewhat decent gutter, I started to prep up and realised i forgot to bring some swivels and lead. So I thought 'hmm what to do, might as well give it a shot with everything on the main line.' Did that and started to cast a few, rebated a few times and waited. After an hour around 5pm 'ish' I decided I should tie the sinker 30cm above the hook seeing if it my chance may increase. AND IT DID!!! Caught my first Flathead, seeing as it was my first flatty, I didn't know how to handle it. Ended up getting %%%%%ed a few times. Caught the flatty while doing a slow/medium retrieve. I estimated the fish to be around 24cm and threw him back...... twice, first time was bad and he washed up on the beach so I picked him up and carried him further into the sea and let it swim out my hands.

After I caught the flatty, I had a boost of confidence knowing I'm casting in the right area since I'm fishing solo and still quite fresh on the beach fishing scene. Seeing that I caught the flatty on a retrieve I thought maybe the fish out there wants a bit of action. So I quickly ran to my bucket, baited up and casted out. 2-3 casts later BAM!! I'm hooked. I was like 'WOAH THIS IS HEAVY..... please don't be seaweed, oh god please dont be seaweed..... YES MY DRAG IS GOING NUTS'. As I reeled in slowly adjusting my drag (I set my drag fairly low and seemed to have worked for me) started to bring the fish in. I quickly dragged it up and out of the water, picked it up by the line and the line snapped. I was like 'Thank god this didn't happen when I was dragging it up the beach.' At first I thought it was a tailor seeing that it was night time(My excuse for being newbie). Quickly bled it, gut it, scaled it, as the advice I was givin to me from people. Seeing that it was dark and I had no light and lacked gear I called it. Wish i brought my tackle box and a torch

Measured the Salmon at 46cm, brought it up to my ute to get a tape measure.

Was pretty happy at the beach yelling out "yeww" and laughing out loud. First time going out to beach alone, first time catching a fish on the beach, first time catching a flathead and salmon. All this from unplanned fish session that was quite spontaneous, made my crappy day to a happy day

Davido

----->> Forgot to mention

Location: Corrimal Beach

Outfit: 10' Uglystick, pen560 slammer, 15lb line

Edited August 26, 2011 by davido

[Pongrass18ft]

Beach fishing sure beats exams i remrmber my first catch off a beach and i carried on just like you

You,ve got the itch now , good work.

Goes to show last minute fishing trips can be well rewarded

chris.

[Tway]

Great story lol! I actually caught my first Aussie salmon too yesterday! very exciting stuff, good fight and went on to catch another 4-5, i kept the first one and released the others.

Mate, i remember my uni days too and sure dont miss them!. Always had my gear in my car ready to go and made excuses to go, "have to wait for traffic to ease up so ill go have a fish"

Grats on ur catch!

[Catchin Jack]

Good goin David, from the report it sounds like you had some fun.

And congrats on your first salmon!

[Kaktis]

Good job man, I recall you asked on here how to go about fishing for sambos a while back... sounds like you got it down!

What rig worked for you?

[davido]

Great story lol! I actually caught my first Aussie salmon too yesterday! very exciting stuff, good fight and went on to catch another 4-5, i kept the first one and released the others.

Mate, i remember my uni days too and sure dont miss them!. Always had my gear in my car ready to go and made excuses to go, "have to wait for traffic to ease up so ill go have a fish"

Grats on ur catch!

Yeah I usually leave my light gear in the car if i feel like a breaming sesh

Good job man, I recall you asked on here how to go about fishing for sambos a while back... sounds like you got it down!

What rig worked for you?

Yeah i asked a while back about fishing sambos. I used a bad setup which turned out great. Forgot most of my gear at home so did wat i could with what i got. Had a running sinker to the hook on the main line. Using 15lb line. After a while i just went "ill try this" and tied the sinker 30cm above the hook. Seem to do the job, not proud of it but it got results.

Went for a fish today at corrimal beach again, using pillies on gangs with wire trace with 20lb main line and my other rod with prawns trying out 30lb mono lead and 15lb mainline. Everytime i grabbed the other rod and turned away for abit, i missed a hookup. Might stick to 1 rod with 15lb mono lead using prawns and pillies.

[Amatuer]

Good work on your first salmon. I am still trying for my first salmon.

[Guest Aussie007]

well done mate i always get excited catching the first fish of the day u have to be careful hand releasing flathead as u can get spiked