PB Salmon on Bream Surface Lures

[paul.kenny]

Hi Raiders,

Bassboy and I headed out early Saturday morning to fish the Georges River during the run-out tide at dawn. The intent was to fish for bream and flatties with SPs and HB and then work some deep holes with SPs for Jewies. The morning started slowly as we cast our SPs at drop offs and current lines for not even a touch. As the sun rose we noticed that the water was just under 19 degrees and still very dirty. As a consequence we changed our tactics to cast HBs and SPs onto the flats and against structure. This change brought some success with a nice bream of 32cm taken on a Gulp Shrimp.

From the same bank I caught a nice 50cm Flattie with a Cultiva Mira Shad, which is fast becoming my favorite suspending hard body.

We continued to work the structure along the banks for a couple of more small flatties. As the tide went slack we moved to a deep hole to try for Jewies with SP. It looked good with lots of bait deep on the sounder. On Bassboy’s second cast with his SP he hooked a stinkin Pike. We continued to work the hole for no luck until the run-in started. As the tide started to run-in we saw some birds working bait near the mouth of Oatley Bay. We decided to have a look and were we glad we did. It appeared that small schools of large Tailor were attacking bait.

We quickly changed our SPs for small metals and started casting into the fish chopping at the bait. The feeding fish showed little interest in the metals, so we tried small blades, buck jigs and SPs for no luck. On a frustrated whim to try to ‘match the hatch’ I decided to tie on a small bream surface lure, namely a Berkley Pop Dog. A couple practice casts and the sea birds showed interest in the Pop Dog. As we had the school to ourselves and due to the shorter casting distance I had to use the Minn Kota to drive closer to the school. First cast….pop pop and bang I had the very visual experience of watching a large salmon hit the lure as it hurled itself into the air. The fish then ran hard with the current stripping line from my bream gear (2000 Stradic C4I on a Trion 2-4kg rod) and jumping all over the place. 5 minutes of the best fun with bream gear I was able to boat a nice 54cm Salmon……my first ever salmon.

Bassboy immediately changed his metal slice for a bream surface lure (Sebile Splasher). Every time the school surfaced and we got close enough to the feeding fish our surface lures would get either follows or hit. The next fish from the school was a nice tailor hitting Bassboy’s Sebile within a rod length of the boat.

We continued to chase the school around the mouth of Oatley Bay for the next 1 ½ hours, casting surface lures at them when we got close enough. Bassboy caught his first ever Salmon on surface, with the 57.5cm fish completely engulfing the Sebile.

The salmon school continued to appear and disappear as they chased bait to the surface or boats travelling to or from Oatley Bay unknowingly sped over the fish. When the fish appeared out of reach of our surface lures we tried various sizes of metals for no real interest from the salmon. Consequently we persisted casting surface lures, with the Sebile Splasher and the Berkley Top Dog being the only successful lures.

The biggest salmon of the day was a 58cm fish, which we were lucky to boat due to the damage it caused to the trebles on the Sebile Splasher.

We had to leave the fish biting so I could race home to take my daughter to her netball game. It was a outstanding day and all the fish were released for another day.

Edited April 29, 2012 by Basscatcher

[iMick]

Awesome day guys

[cat-as-trophy]

Nice session there fellas, and the smiles say everything.

Cheers

Cath

[Spooooled]

top session well done

[brendong]

Nice work fella's I took Lizard Boy and his mate out on Saturday arvo and worked the area I saw you guys a week or so back. His mate had never thrown a plastic before and first cast, first hop whacked a 38cm trev. A couple of standout Trevs were taken on the bream gear which they loved. Also got a few lizards and bream too in a action packed 2.5 hour session before returning to the ramp.

Re the Sambo's I love nothing more than busting out the bream gear in autumn, winter and spring sessions on the pencils for sambo's and tailor. 39 (all released) between my cousin and I to 60cm is the best we've managed to date in Pambula. Its the only thing that gets me though to the summer sessions on the bream and whiting. For some reason Bonito won't touch a topwater lure but Tailor and Sambo's smack the hell out of them of them, lauching themselves as you said. We prefer a slightly larger style pencil usually about 8cm, tough for the tailor to get it to far down and saves on the bite offs...

I didn't think you'd get sambo's that far up the river, haven't really seen many estuary pelagics on surface west of Tom Ug's....

Great report and great to see you got amongst them

[bassboy888]

Thanks for the replies raiders Thhis would have to be my favourite session on the georges to date, and really hope this bite continues! Watching the salmon come up behind the lure meters behind the boat was increadible.

Poddy: I think it might be time to bring out some of the bass pencils next time, see if they will hit those! We were shocked too when we found out the were Salmon.... You guys looked like you had an awesome time aswell, nothing beats getting another person onto their first lure caught fish!

[brendong]

BassBoy just between me and you the lure that we've found brings the tailor and sambo's unstuck is out of our very good site sponors top water lure stable. The good old Zip N Ziggy, but don't tell anyone...

Here is the link to the page....

http://www.purefishing.com.au/baits/cultiva/zip-n-ziggy/

[bassboy888]

Hey poddy how did you know what bass pencil i used for bass haha. That was exactly the lure i was thinking of taking out. Haha

[Hodgey]

Great session fellas!

I'm not a fan of eating salmon but they are are my favourite fish to target for sheer fun factor.

Their surface strikes are fantastic and they give a great account of themselves, especially on bream gear.

Terrific report and photos as always.

Love the ZipNZiggy (in black pearl) and the sebile range of lures. (especially on the bass)

Cheers

Hodgey

[The Iceman]

What a great session

I have seen a salmon caught as far up river as Lambeth park a few years ago

[bassboy888]

Great session fellas!

I'm not a fan of eating salmon but they are are my favourite fish to target for sheer fun factor.

Their surface strikes are fantastic and they give a great account of themselves, especially on bream gear.

Terrific report and photos as always.

Love the ZipNZiggy (in black pearl) and the sebile range of lures. (especially on the bass)

Cheers

Hodgey

Cheers Hodgey, I actually bought the splasher for bass, but it made my way into my bream box for whiting and bream. I have to agree on the black pearl too, works well for bass (got a nice 1.04 kg model at st clair during last bassin tournie) and now want to give it a shot for the salmon.

[pmak]

Hey Guys. Nice touch with the pelagic action! To get them on surface lures would have been twice the fun!

What size metals were you casting at the fish? I've found 10g Gillies white slugs work sometimes but it all depends on what bait the fish are feeding on at the time.

[PRED-ATOR]

Hey guys that looks like an absolute cracker session.

Ive been using some of the sebile poppers and they are dynamite.

I have a couple of hard bodies which are killer on the kingies at the moment.

Well done on the PB : )

Stan

[arpie]

Well Done, guys!! What an awesome session!! Great variety of fish! VERY nice bream & flatty & then to get a salmon attack as well - on light gear, just so much fun! You'll have to take fly gear next - then you REALLY feel the fight!!

We don't get salmon into the lake up here, but I can't wait for the BIG tailor to make another appearance any time now! I think it was May last year when Michelle & I got stuck into them!

cheerio

Roberta

[paul.kenny]

Hey Guys. Nice touch with the pelagic action! To get them on surface lures would have been twice the fun!

What size metals were you casting at the fish? I've found 10g Gillies white slugs work sometimes but it all depends on what bait the fish are feeding on at the time.

Hi PMAK, we tried a number of different metals in varying sizes for a couple of follows but no real commitment from the fish, whereas we had lots of strikes on the surface lures (many more strikes than hook-ups). It was such a visual way to chase the salmon.

[arpie]

I forgot to mention that those smaller sized salmon smoke up beautifully!! Just bleed them when you catch them. Take off the head after gutting them. I prefer to smoke them whole (you may need to chop the tail off to allow it to fit in your smoker), with scales on - it protects the flesh from the heat & more than enough flavour goes thru in about 1/2hr of smoking. Beautiful with mashed potato & salad - or make into smoked fish pie!

Roberta

Edited May 1, 2012 by Roberta

[paul.kenny]

Thanks for the advice Roberta, we will have to give that a try next time.

cheers Paul

[seacow]

So I'm flicking through the latest Modern Fishing and I can't help but see one your photos of this session in the catches pages. It appears that we have another celebrity that graces our pages.

[bassboy888]

haha, I just saw that today too seacow, thanks for the kind words.... bit of a shock to me

[snag]

What a great session

I have seen a salmon caught as far up river as Lambeth park a few years ago

Andrew i got one up at the entrace to chippo on saturday with the kids first thought it was a jew but a nice samon....got some ep's aswell.