14/12/14 - A day in the Harbour

[Ojay Samson]

Hello raiders, I haven’t done a report in a while so I figured now’s a good a time as any. I'll try to keep the post succinct as possible all the while by trying to bore the readers too much.

So made an ad hoc plan a few hours before while he was at work and asked if he was keen for a fish on my boat after his shift at 7am, after a bit of back and forth with him trying to convince me to go rock fishing at botany heads instead and with my decline in that idea (due to a very opposed girlfriend to that idea) we ended up agreeing to do the original plan and take the boat out instead.

he arrived at mine at 9am and with a bit more fart-@rsing around going to the shops to buy some snacks (something he said he'd do before coming to mine so we'd be ready to leave asap...) I made the executive decision of scrapping the plan of initially heading to botany bay to fish and instead launch at my local boat ramp at Rhodes to maximise fishing time and fish the para river and harbour system.

finally got on the water and after a 30+ minute boat trip on some pretty calm flat water, finally reached the cockatoo island area to have a fish around there and its surrounds. (Only have a 6hp so it takes a while).

Initially tried around the Drummoyne wharf area for no takers, stayed there for about 20 minutes till we re-positioned.

We then went to a spot my friend knew but I’d never fished before (apparently it’s a very on and off spot according to him, and fortunately it was on this day).

Sent some dead bait out with little pickers taking hits at it, namely pinkies. There was some decent fish activity going on down there though as I could see on my sounder some large bait balls doing constant drive-by’s under the boat.
after about 20 minutes we got our first hit , with a nice flatty taking interest in a rod of mine which I just threw out, would of took it on the drop and got it on a prawn. Boarded that and put it in the keeper net after measuring it at just fewer than 48cm. All the while the bait balls kept passing under us.
A few minutes later my mate hooked up on his rod with gang hooks and a dead pillie... after a few minutes of fun a nice 55cm assize salmon was boarded, a first for my mate and thus a PB also for him, this thing was nice and fat with very wide shoulders.

It went quiet for a bit with nothing touching our baits or my SP rod until my mate decided to change up his hooks to small long shanks to try get one of these things in the bait ball schools below us..... Yakkas!
We filled up the bucket to catch some live yakkas for bait, only caught 4 for the day.

I rigged up my medium duty outfit readying it for a live bait (static 5000 fj & sahara 4-8kg rod), made a paternoster rig with 1 hook for a live bait and the 2nd hook for a gang hook with a squid strip hoping id have some luck and catch myself a nice fat aussie salmon too.

I then proceeded to put a decently big live yakka on, it would have been around the 20-22cm mark as it was at the time the only livie we had. Sent it down slowly as to not foul the setup on the drop. while on the way down the line started tugging more than I thought normal (I mean I knew the yakka I had on was pretty big and could feel it wasn’t having that hard a time tugging the line around), but this felt a bit different.

I decided to give it a nice lift to see if it felt heavier than usual.... yep it was. Whatever was on the end, I just woke it up and a nice tussle was under way. Thinking it was another Aussie salmon I was pumped, until I got the surprise of my life and saw colour...a croc! It was action stations a few tense moments shouting at my mate to ready the net, in it went and cheers all around were had. The flatty took the large yakka which was surprisingly also netted again albeit pretty much on the brink of death, he got hit hard and his face and mouth was mangled.

This was PB flatty for me with it just touching over 70cm; yep I caught a nice female. Not one for catching much fish I decided to keep it as my family, go and I do love eating flathead fillets when I do manage to catch them (mmm tempura battered flathead fillets).
after this my fish finder experienced some technical difficulties with a positive terminal letting go and decided to call it quits an hour or 2 after that, also the fact that my mate had been up for more than 24 hours was also a factor.
got home, and found out about what unfolded that day with the 2 boaters losing their lives at botany and thought to myself how it felt like a really good decision to try the harbour instead, couldn’t help but feel I may have dodged a bullet that day, may they rest in peace.

Here are photos of that day and an extra photo with a coin and smile for eligibility purposes to enter the cotm for December (sorry for this pic as my dad was in the middle of filleting it up).

1st fish @ 47.xcm flatty



2nd fish @ 55cm aussie salmon


3rd fish @ 70cm flatty


cotm dec 2014 eligibility pic (50c piece & a smile)

Thanks for reading

Edited December 15, 2014 by Ojay Samson

[bluebottle18]

Good to see you had a good day after a very slow start. There are plenty of spots to fish around Cockatoo Island and you can keep out of the wind.

Gee it might be time to upgrade the motor. You do travel some distance in it.

Hope you continue to have plenty of luck.

[Ryder]

Well done on the PB. Thats a good fish.

Glad you got amongst the fish, on a pretty quite weekend.

Your mate looks absolutely shattered.

Ryder

Edited December 16, 2014 by Ryder