Empty Basin

[laddercat]

Location: St georges Basin, NSW

Boat: 17ft Bass/bream style fibreglass custom with 150 merc

Target Species: Bream and snapper

Conditions: Clear skies, Water temp 11, wind westerly 25-35km, Temp 14.

Gear:

4x Daiwa Gen black rods each

4x Teben CBS 200

All spooled with 4lb braid 6lb fluro

Tackle:

Assortment of 35mm TT blades

Squidgie Plastics from 60mm to 100mm (mostly whipbaits and wrigglers )

Ecogear Hardbodies ( too many to recall )

A close mate just bought a modified 17ft glass boat setup tournament style with 150hp oldschool merc on the back.

We decided we would take her down to St georges basin for her first run.

Arrived about 6 and was on the water by 6:20, boat felt very nice and after a few minutes fiddling with the trim we were on the plane flying over to the artificial reef at around 80km/h.

Plan A the Reef:

The first light meant a drop in the wind and almost an hour of serenity with about 6 boats all anchored on the reef, we were running small zig zagging rungs across the structure with the electric working 80mm softs and 35mm blades. We were hoping for snapper as we had a feeling the monster westerly would shut down the bream.

Well what can i saw we tried at it for a good 3 hours not a single nudge absolutely nothing and the sounder looked barren as well.

Plan B Sussex inlet mouth:

Not feeling too discouraged seeing as we still got to power around in the new boat we set off to see if any bream were schooling up on their way to the ocean. Here we tried the same method as on the reef very slow retrieves and lots and lots of casting trying to cover as much ground as possible. Nothing again... we decided to move on after another two hours after things had deteriorated into who could cast their vibe the furthest. ( i will add the Gen blacks are beautiful to cast )

Plan C Work the fringes until dark:

We did just that we worked anything that looked fishy all around the fringes of the basin. Nothing on the sounder and nothing chewing at all. We did however scope out beautiful 1-2 metre deep sections of glorious cocckle bed terriotory. I hate to think how many casts i made across these sections with one of the ecogear hardbodies convinced that "this cast" will be the cast.

Wrap:

Zero zilch nothing not a single take for roughly 11 hours of fishing. I will go out on a limb and say the conditions were some of the worst i have fished in a long time clear skies very cold water and big westerly front dont make for great results in my experience but slamming around the bay and plotting some promising spots for the future was fun regardless. I didnt see any other boats take fish but i dont doubt that someone did, maybe the bait fisho's did alright ill never know. Thought id start my fishing report history reporting on zero only way is up from here !

[The Iceman]

The trick to the Basin is to find the baitfish on the sounder you should have kept moving until you found it

[laddercat]

The trick to the Basin is to find the baitfish on the sounder you should have kept moving until you found it

Covered around 90 litres worth of travel with a keen eye on the sounder the entire trip. Pulled 40+ fish out of there last trip but nothing on the weekend just gone. No bait on the sounder and nothing busting up on the surface either. I could be wrong and perhaps people pulled fish out of there on the weekend, but the wind the water temp and the barometer werent really condusive to good fishing and the cleaning tables were empty from what i saw.

[The Iceman]

Yeah couple of mates from down there said it was pretty quiet