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Brisbane water experience


GreyNurse

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After a few false starts, Antonywardle and myself finally met up at his kind invitation to take me out on his boat "Two Blues". Antony lives on the Central Coast, so it was arranged that I meet him at Lions Park ramp at Woy Woy at 3.30pm. An ambitious plan, as it transpired as negotiating the traffic through Sydney from Beverly Hills on a Saturday afternoon is worse than having a tooth pulled. But we managed to depart the ramp at 4.30, so I guess that's not too bad. With a brisk Sou'Westerly blowing up the the main channel, we decided to forgo our original plan of hitting Cowan Creek for hairtail and opted to fish the Rip Bridge. We anchored up in about 6m of water off the eastern shore, some 200 meters north of the bridge. The tide was on the way out and along with an eddie adjacent to us, it made fishing both weighted and unweighted baits a challenge.

Antony was the first to hook up. He couldn't get a read on what it was and had to wait to see colour before declaring that he had caught a ray. Well, snagged it would be a better choice of words as the hook had penetrated the skin just forward of the knuckle on top of it's head. A quick release was easily affected an Mr. Ray swam off, none the worse for wear.

As the sun dropped low on the horizon, I began to wind in my unweighted pillie cube and came up on some good weight. There were a few good head shakes, then it just lugged in. So I tightened the drag and proceed to bring a nice 57cm flatty to the boat. Normally, I would release such a fish, but a hunch told me that this should be a keeper, so it was placed on ice and we resumed fishing with a renewed vigor. After another half an hour, nothing was happening, so we moved to deep water in the middle of the channel. The Lowrance was showing a lot of "noise" all through the 27 meter water column, with some promising lines. I fished a weighted pille about 20 meters down and continued with an unweighted pillie on the other rod. However, with the commencement of nightfall, the bite had shut down. I glanced at my watch. Only 6.30. But something was nagging at me. Five minutes later, the penny dropped. I had forgotten to bring my evening medication with me. Without going into detail, it's suffice to say that the greater delay in taking the meds, the worse the deterioration in my comfort levels would become. Sadly I had to advise Antony that we would have to cut our session short, so I could get back home and medicate. Stupid, stupid, stupid me.

At least we had some success in less than ideal conditions. I really didn't expect to take home anything as I had never fished Brisbane Waters before, so a nice flathead was a bonus.

I made it home in some discomfort by 9.15 and quickly sorted myself out and had a reasonable rest of the night.

Thanks Antony, for your kind invitation. I'll try to return the favour one day, but you'll have to wait until I upgrade from kayak to proper boat. Did you weigh the rock? (Don't worry folks, he knows what I'm talking about)

Sunset beside Mt. Ettalong

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The Prize!

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Actually you can do it from a kayak. I've had some success drifting with the tide. When it is time to come back you stick close to the shore and the current is not as strong as right under the bridge. Depending on the direction of the tidal flow you can put in at the Blackwall boat ramp or launch next to the Guyra St public wharf. If you time it right you can go with the tide both ways.

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