Moruya Flathead

[drc2076]

This past week I travelled with the family for a short getaway to Moruya on the south coast of NSW. We travel there on a semi regular basis to visit family (both my side and my wife's) and I've recently gotten into the habit of taking a bit of gear with me to go chasing whatever's on offer from the beach, in the river or off the break wall. On a previous trip between Christmas and New Years I purchased an inexpensive beach rig at the local tackle shop (car is always too packed to fit in much fishing gear) which I store with my mother in law between visits. At that time it was ridiculously windy with a howling nor'easter most days, but after the winds eventually died down I had some reasonable success off the beach with good hauls of whiting, bream and flathead. The weather report this time was much more benign and having scoped out a few favourite locations at Xmas I was pretty confident of success.

Out at dawn the first day produced a donut off the beach. The waves were absolutely teeming with fish not more than 10-15 metres off the beach. Schooling in the waves. I couldn't be sure what species. At first I thought whiting, but upon reflection I now think mullet. Either way, nothing would touch a bait. The only thing I could pull in all morning was sand crabs! Still, I didn't feel too bad. I still had a few days ahead of me and that morning I was greeted by a sunrise that was breathtaking. I took a photo that barely does it justice but it's too large to upload to the site.

The next day I fished the breakwall but the nor'easter was back with a vengeance so that was no go. The following day, a cousin invited me out with him on his tinny to fish the river. Managed a 35cm whiting but released it from the keeper bag at the end of the session when we didn't manage to hook anything else worth keeping. On the Friday I ventured back to the river but again only undersize pink snapper and flathead. No keepers. I subsequently learned that the river is about the only one on the south coast still open to commercial fishing so I half wonder if that was at least partially responsible for the paucity of fish.

That night I'm telling my tale of woe to my brother in law and he says why not come out with him on the Saturday to fish outside. He has a small boat he inherited from his late father some years ago. I'd been out with them once many years ago and succeeded only in losing my lunch in the rolling swells. Hmmm. Do I get back on that particular horse? You betcha. Couldn't face the prospect of a donut for the sum total of my efforts.

Bright and early the following morning I gulped down a few seasick tablets with breakfast and we were off. We loaded the boat with more bait than I could possibly imagine we'd need. Chunks of tuna, squid, pilchards and even marinated chicken. The first obstacle was getting out of the river. The swell wasn't huge but in the narrow river channel it seemed to get magnified. Combined with a relatively small boat and it was quite the ride! Man, it was bumpy. And then the unexpected happened. Halfway out of the Moruya river channel the boat went into a big dip in the swell. As we went down the next wave had already formed ahead of us. No way to avoid it. The bow wave crashed over the boat and seawater rained down upon us. Totally soaked us head to toe. If I needed something to wake me up and get the senses focused that sure did the trick. The rest of the journey out was thankfully uneventful and we ploughed our way through the swells to dry out and drift a spot on the edge of a reef known as a good spot for snapper.

The early signs were encouraging. My BIL landed a good sized morwong and I managed a flathead in the low 40s. But after that things went quiet apart from some periodic harassment by toadfish. We tried a few other locations but nothing was doing. The boat is a pretty basic outfit, no sonar or fish finders aboard. Just local knowledge. I was starting to think it just wasn't meant to be on this trip. Then the BIL says he knew a place with a sandy bottom that had a reputation as a good flathead location. Sure, why not.

We settled into drift about a kilometre off shore, baited up and sent them down. Finally, pay dirt. More lizards than you could shake a stick at. Every bait we sent down was getting a hit and double hook ups were almost the norm. The fish weren't monsters. For every legal size we caught we hooked at least five under size that we threw back. The keepers were all in the high 30s or low 40s. The stream of flathead was virtually endless. Almost monotonous. The handling rag became so coated in flathead slime that it became slippery to hold. Only hooking a couple of shovel nosed sharks interrupted the flow. By 3pm we'd pretty much exhausted the bait supply (and ourselves) and had reached the bag limit to split between us.

The trip back wasn't nearly as bumpy as the journey out. My stomach had behaved and we had fish on board. Mission accomplished. Off to feed the gigantic stingrays at the cleaning table.

Edited April 24, 2017 by drc2076

[GoingFishing]

Mate thats a great report and a great bag of fish

i love it when the flathead are on the chew like that !!! Next time u find them in such an abundance throw on a soft plastic on one your hooks and leave natural bait on the other youl get the same results and your bait will last much longer

[drc2076]

18 hours ago, GoingFishing said:

Mate thats a great report and a great bag of fish

i love it when the flathead are on the chew like that !!! Next time u find them in such an abundance throw on a soft plastic on one your hooks and leave natural bait on the other youl get the same results and your bait will last much longer

Cheers. Good advice. In this case I wasn't too sad see the bait exhausted. We'd already been on the water for around 7 hours and we needed an intervention to make us head back!

Edited April 28, 2017 by drc2076

[Yowie]

If you head out on a run-out tide, against a swell or any waves, the size of the waves is magnified, and can be dangerous.

The run-up tide with the swell behind can be less severe, but still need caution.

Low tide or high tide, where there is little flow in the river, can be a better time.

[drc2076]

23 minutes ago, Yowie said:

If you head out on a run-out tide, against a swell or any waves, the size of the waves is magnified, and can be dangerous.

The run-up tide with the swell behind can be less severe, but still need caution.

Low tide or high tide, where there is little flow in the river, can be a better time.

Undoubtedly true. But sometimes you only have a certain window of time and my BIL has lived and boated on that river all his life so there was never any significant danger. Just an unexpected dunking!

[Yowie]

6 hours ago, drc2076 said:

Undoubtedly true. But sometimes you only have a certain window of time and my BIL has lived and boated on that river all his life so there was never any significant danger. Just an unexpected dunking!

The fun of motoring through a channel to the ocean !

[big Neil]

An excellent report drc. Glad you managed to get among them in the end and have some fun with the family, too. Cheers, BN

[raging]

That was a top read. Thanks 

[Rah]

Great report. Some fantastic fish in the end, gotta love bagging out on flatties. 

 

Cheers

Tara