Salmon Salmon

[Bill S]

Thought I'd better extract the digit and find these so far mythical fish, before the social .

Launched at Tunks Park in the 6AM darkness and motored out to North Head with a brief pause to lay out two Rapala's and a 9" Slug-Go, the sun was just starting to colour up the horizon. I trolled up to Bluefish, then turned South until Bondi Beach appeared. Not a touch, not a splash and nothing on the sounders. No birds working, nothing.

I pulled the lines in and blasted back up to Bluefish stopping here and there to give some known areas a closer look, plenty of dead cuttlefish floating about but no sambo's.

Headed North again until Longreef Point, still nothing.

Back down to the Harbour and checked all the bays and inlets East of the bridge, zip.

A quick run back under the Spit Bridge and up into Bantry Bay with short runs into some of the more interesting bays and coves. Nada, nuttin'.

Think I might leave the boat at home for the social and just take a chair some steaks (not salmon) and a slab

Cheers Bill

[bluefin]

"Thought I'd better extract the digit and find these so far mythical fish, before the social"

Oh dear, not another species to add to the list?

Would have been a top day on the water though!!!

Howard.

[Narralakes]

Sounds like a tough day today Bill. I reckon this season has been lean for salmon, Iv'e made 6 trips looking for them and struck them once, they'll be here for the social though, so put away that slab and get the gear ready!

[allen glover]

still early in the season for them

They will spend the next month mooching around the bottom and being difficult to locate. the reality is that they are there which is why we get sporadic reports of them working the top but ATM they are just not playing the game as we know and love it. By and large they are hanging around deep in smaller schools and moving between the estuary systems and offshore as they are still migrating north.

Last yr was the same and any broken bay fisho will tell you when the schools settled into the typical winter surface pattern the bay had only one small school that got VERY lure savvy. whilst you could walk from Manly to Watsons bay on the back of the kawahi in the harbour( and newcastle was much the same). Then to the relief of the broken bay fishos there was the 2 week kawahi fest in early oct as the HUGE schools from further north migrated back down the coast.

Edited July 30, 2005 by allen glover

[bluefin]

Hey Allen, is this a NewZealand conspiracy to get us Aussies to change the name?

" there was the 2 week kawahi fest "

Regards

Howard.

[Reeso]

Theyre certainly not mythical, I was up at Avoca Beach a few weeks ago and there were huge schools right up and down the coast, they were there the whole week and close to every cast would result in a hookup with big sambos in nearly every fishermans keep bucket up and down the beach. They cant have eaten salmon before?

[allen glover]

Hey Allen, is this a NewZealand conspiracy to get us Aussies to change the name?

" there was the 2 week kawahi fest "

Regards

Howard.

59990[/snapback]

No its an Australian conspiracy!!!!!

The reason they ended up in all those cat food tins was because they were erronoeusly named salmon in the first place. So I for one have been keen for yrs on getting that little oversight changed before it comes back and bites us in some different form. Anyway in this day and age of gratuitous americanisms for everything fishing in this country I think Kawahi is a unique and fantastic sounding name for a unique and fantastic sports fish.

A

[phild]

Im there with resso and I think Allens sentiments are spot on. The Salmon I have been onto are holding deep and in small schools which means you have to be pretty mobile to find them even if you do know roughly where they are. There are a couple of other little tricks to them that will hopefully put Phild, Tim and Ehor in the box seat for the soical.

[Bill S]

My daughters played in a show band at the Uni of NSW with a long period between sets, we headed to Maroubra beach for a swim and some lunch.

What do we see off the North head from 11.30 till 2.30, salmon. Whole big school of them , taunting me they were .

But guess who's got the day off tomorrow . Deep fried salmon fillets for dinner

[Terry]

still early in the season for them

They will spend the next month  mooching around the bottom and being difficult to locate. the reality is that they are there which is why we get sporadic reports of them working the top but ATM they are just not playing the game as we know and love it. By and large they are hanging around deep in smaller schools and moving between the estuary systems and offshore as they are still migrating north.

Last yr was the same and any broken bay fisho will tell you when the schools settled into the typical winter surface pattern the bay had only one small school that got VERY lure savvy. whilst you could walk from Manly to Watsons bay on the back of the kawahi in the harbour( and newcastle was much the same). Then to the relief of the broken bay fishos there was the 2 week kawahi fest in early oct as the HUGE schools from further north migrated back down the coast.

59988[/snapback]

I think Allen is spot on, the schools were not thick last year until late Aug early Sep from memory, it is still a little early for them. There are fish here but they are holding deep as Allen describes. We managed a quad hook-up two weekends ago after a lot of searching which means they are coming to the surface, albeit rarely. The problem (when I have been out ) has been when they are up they have been very hard to spot with the windy NW conditions we have had. But if you use your sounder and look closely you will find numerous schools holding in mid to deeper water, well that was the situation as I find it about 2 weeks ago.

Cheers, TD

[Bashir]

Allen I remember last year when the salmon were balled up in huge numbers last year off flint and steel most days. Looking in my diary this happened on the 1st July for me and 100 other boats, so I reckon they're a wee bit late this year.