Weekend Beach Sessions (Newcastle)

[DaveTheBoy]

Hi Raiders - having settled and unpacked boxes in our new home town of Newcastle, this weekend was time to get fishing!  I put in a couple of sessions between my closest local beaches (Nobbys and Stockton).  Plenty of good looking gutters in close produced some great flathead fishing.  The largest went 78cm (a PB), a with the others in the 40cm-70cm range.   As a personal preference I only keep flatties 40cm-65cm all others were released.

Schools of salmon and tailor would move through at various times of the morning & afternoon - often just in knee deep water.  Most tailor were small 'chopper' size but landed a couple toward 40cm.  Hopefully in the coming months the average size will increase (that being said a chap fishing 50m up from me landed a pair of really nice fish).

Also caught a handful of bream, dart, cobbler catfish, and a few pesky rays - but that's part of fishing on the beach.

Nobby's Beach also produced a tangle with an almighty (for me) jewfish - after fighting it for over an hour, it got caught in the "suck" of the closest gutter where the waves break and recede.  A friendly passer by tried to help my wife beach it with the leader - sadly this just seemed to annoy the tired fish which took me for a little jog before breaking the leader.  It's always difficult to estimate size of a fish in the water, but we got a very good long look at it and somewhere around 1m would be realistic.  Next time, gadget!

I fish very simple rig on the beach, 20lb line to a 30lb leader, running ball sinker to a single 4/0 circle hook with 1/2 pilchard bait.  This accounted for all fish (with the exception of tailor which were spun on a 30g raider lure).

I'm still new here & getting to know the area, so appreciate anyone's tips via PM or if you'd ever like to meet up for a session it would be great to meet you.  I'll be heading up to Nelson Bay for Easter wkend to visit my dad so hopefully will get to wet a line there too.

[Wellzy94]

Seems like you're setting into your new area quite well!

Cheers,

Wellzy

[Farvos]

Nice little catch. Shame about the jewy though.

[DaveTheBoy]

8 minutes ago, Wellzy94 said:

Seems like you're setting into your new area quite well!

Cheers,

Wellzy

Mate after 3 years living in a country town I still can't believe that I'm within 15mins of a handful of beaches + the harbour which looks like it could fish well at times!

[Scratchie]

Hey Dave, 

Great part of the country to resettle into! The breakwall at Stockton is a good spot for many species and during winter the hairtail have been thick over recent years! The Bay Area is only 30 mins drive and has many options for land based fishos! If you up this way  and want to wet a line off the stones send me a pm! 

cheers scratchie!!! 

 

[Gutamouth]

Nice catch Dave plenty of action mate, solid flatty too. Spewing for ya about that Jew  

I may have to fish newy more often ?

Give us a yell when you're up visiting the bay if you're keen for a flick!