Some soft plastics success .... at last

[Robinsoi]

Hey Raiders,

Took my 7 year old boy out to our local fishing spot for a short session on Saturday morning in Iron Cove behind Rozelle Hospital to maximise on the sunny weather before the big wet came in. His sister normally comes with us but she accepted the less attractive option of going clothes and shoes shopping with mum.

We got there under perfect blue skies around 10:30am with a high tide due in at 12:30pm and started to throw in some berley made up of soaked bread and chopped prawns to try and attract anything hungry that was around. I also told the little boy beforehand about the Fishraider competition where you have to put a preselected item in the photo of your catch. He asked "what goes in a photo this time dad?", I replied "a beanie or a hat if we catch anything".

Using pieces of peeled prawn and bread for bait I set the little boy up with a light rig which consisted of a small hook and tiny split shot about 1.5m under a floatie. I had my soft plastic outfit ready for a little later.

We were enjoying the morning winter sunshine but we were on a mission to catch something. Despite a consistent inclusion of berley into the system things were very quiet and the only species that we could attract were toad fish, a small leatherjacket, seagulls and a few dogs. One dog came right up to us and frantically sniffed around our gear and almost got a hook in its foot as it ran off tangled in the line ..... meanwhile the owner of the dog was in deep conversation on the mobile totally oblivious to what the dog was doing.

After several casts without any bites let alone having the baits touched the little boy was starting to get bored and asked when we are going home, which is usually the case when there is no action. So to keep him occupied I told him "Oh why don't you look for some crabs under the rocks". While he was distracted catching crabs I decided to put my rod into commission and flick around a soft plastic in the vicinity of the berley hoping to at least get a strike.

After only a couple of casts the lure deceived something that had enough pulling power to place a nice bow in my rod and make my 2500FD reel sing a few times. That buzzing noise was music to my ears as it doesn't happen often. Not knowing what species was hooked I slowly played the fish and I quickly called the little boy over to get a piece of the action. I handed him the rod and helped him to slowly play the fish lifting the rod and winding on the way down, lifting then winding. We got the fish into shallower water and quickly indentified him as he was violently shaking his head ..... a nice flathead around 48cm and a family record Luckily it was safely hooked on the top lip and it was biting down on the jig hook shank not the line, we landed him and we were very happy

Without me asking the little boy threw his hat on top of the fish and said "don't forget the competition dad" and with this post in mind I then positioned it nicely for the photo and quickly too a few snaps:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69056294@N06/7182105815/

We gave each other a couple of high fives and admired the fish one last time before sending him on his way and he quickly swam off back to where he came from.

This is what I caught the weekend before:

And a few weeks ago:

As usual all the fish were released to fight another day and on all occasions the 80mm squidgy wriggler in bloodworm colour did the damage. Until the last few weeks my strike rate on soft plastics was very poor, I was lucky to even get a bite so I am a little more confident with the recent success.

Also, I would like to share with you a note my two young ones wrote for me the morning of a recent fishing adventure:

This was the result - small fish but big smile:

Thanks in advance for reading and my post, and special thanks to the members for all the highly informative tips and advice posted on this great site. It's great to see so many experienced fishos with years of hard earned experience sharing their knowledge so freely.

All the best

Ian

[user1829]

Thanks in advance for reading and my post, and special thanks to the members for all the highly informative tips and advice posted on this great site. It's great to see so many experienced fishos with years of hard earned experience sharing their knowledge so freely.

All the best

Ian

good stuff Ian!! well done on teh plastics success - thanks for sharing

but cant seem to see the pics??

EDIT - oh, they are all on Flickr - sorry, i should have checked - nice flatty

Edited June 13, 2012 by user1829

[Robinsoi]

Thanks, I just included a new post titled the same but (with pics) ... I stuffed up the fist time

[billseeker]

Well done chelub and good stuff on taking the young one fishing and well done on releasing the fish to there is nothing better than seeing the joy on the young ones face when you catch a fish and hopefully many more on the softplastics

[GreyNurse]

Great Flatty, Chelub. And so well deserved. You did a whole lot of things right;

1)Took the young bloke with you.

2)Employed a backup plan for when he (inevitably) became bored.

3)Included him in the action of playing and landing the fish.

4)Took a great photo.

5)Released the fish safely.

You're a role model for other fisho dads. Will you adopt me? hehe.

Cheers,

Nursie

[Robinsoi]

Thanks for the kind words guys, it's always good to be out fishing with my youngsters and you do need a few plans up your sleeve to survive the session which makes it all the more rewarding when we catch something.

All the best

Ian

[Aspherious]

well done, will be a trip he will never forget....