A Failed Outing Saved by Narrabeen

[FishStickSteve]

On the 23rd of Feb my misses surprised me with a brand new rod and reel for my birthday. Nothing mind blowing but its the first decent little rod I've ever owned and I love it. Little 2-4kg lightweight outfit with 10 pound braided line and carbon fluoro leader.

So the plan was to wake up nice and early on Saturday the 24th of Feb to head down to barrenjoey to hire a boat. But unfortunately I really should have called a few days before to book a boat, But now I know for next time.

No worries I though, I know about the rocks down by the light house has had a lot of praise from members on this forum, we can spend the day fishing there. My Misses, Best mate, Sister, her partner and I all grabbed our rods, our bait and walked along the beach to the rocks. We became mountain goats and hopped along the rocks and found an amazing semi sheltered spot, huge amounts of small fry swimming along the rocks which looked very promising.

We soaked our lines for an hour with not as much as a nibble. Feeling guilty for potentially wasting everyone's time I figured that we could go to Narrabeen Lake and try our luck there. At the very least it would be a pleasant spot to relax and chill if the lines remained quiet. 

We unpacked our rods, popped on our chosen baits and lures and we began to fish, within 10 minutes my misses says that she has a bite, but she didn't think its very big at all, so I continued flicking my lure out with my brand new shiny rod and next minute I hear what I thought was a kid jumping into the water.  I hear a very excited squeal and look over and see her carrying over a +/-50cm Flathead. 

We carry the fish over between the esky and the tackle box so I wouldn't scar any near by kids. As I am grabbing the knife an older gentleman comes paddling over and from the safety of his kayak he tells me that its quiet a nice little lizard. To which i replied, "yeah, it's a pretty good size". He then told me that it also looked like a female with eggs and that I should throw it back in. I held it up and said that it didn't look like it had eggs at all. He muttered something under his breath as he paddled away and that was that. 

We continued fishing and the bites kept coming in thick and fast. Not for me and my shiny new rod unfortunately. But my misses was pulling in pretty much every fish in the lake. but we were only after Flathead for that day. A little later she shouts "Fish On Fish On!!!" and she reels in another good size Flathead, slightly smaller than the first one, but still around 40ish cm. It was getting close to 7pm and the sun started going down, and not wanting to gut fish at home I decided I was not going to catch anything that would find itself on my plate and that my time would be best spent preparing the fish for the frying pan that night.

I finished gutting both fish (Neither of which had any eggs to speak of), I cleaned my knife and gloves and not a minute later my sister's partner pulls out a beautiful Flathead around the 45cm mark. He was grinning like a man holding a winning lotto ticket. I begrudgingly pulled out my knife and freshly washed out gloves to gut his fish. 

We got back to my place and i seared the fillets in garlic butter and fried up some chips, the 3 Flatheads was a great feed for 5 of us and I had a left over fillet for lunch the next day. 

We used frozen hawksbury prawns from my local fish shop and servo pillies which my mate brought along.

All in all it was a really good day of fishing, Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to use my new shiny reel and rod to bring home a Flathead for the pan. 

 

Peace and tight lines.

FSS

 

Edited March 16, 2018 by FishStickSteve
Included write up.

[4wsboy]

Water is improving

 

[FishStickSteve]

37 minutes ago, 4wsboy said:

Water is improving

 

Just saw your post. Going to swing past Narrabeen tomorrow arvo. 

[MSB]

Good post Steve, enjoyed reading it, don't worry about the guy in the kayak hanging some onya, females normally don't spawn until they are over 55cm's and this time of the year would be pretty much the limit for spawning in NSW, not sure of the legal limits in NSW but up here in Qld, legal minimum limit for duskies is 40cm's with a maximum limit of 75cm's, I let  them all go over 50cm's and only keep one each for the wife an me to enjoy.

Good luck with christening that new outfit

MSB

[rickmarlin62]

nice lot of flatties..have to be happy with that..rick

[raging]

Maybe ask the misses for some fishing tips 

[wazatherfisherman]

Nice story and nothing wrong with catching a few fish for a feed- maybe that other guy was jealous! Just for RAIDER'S information I spoke to council about lake opening and they told me it was being opened last Wed(14th March) at 9.30am. From previous experience/s of lake opening the fish and prawns really come on down near the ocean bridge and also at the 'drop-off' out in front of the caravan park and would be well worth a trip there.

[Berleyguts]

8 hours ago, MSB said:

Good post Steve, enjoyed reading it, don't worry about the guy in the kayak hanging some onya, females normally don't spawn until they are over 55cm's and this time of the year would be pretty much the limit for spawning in NSW, not sure of the legal limits in NSW but up here in Qld, legal minimum limit for duskies is 40cm's with a maximum limit of 75cm's, I let  them all go over 50cm's and only keep one each for the wife an me to enjoy.

Good luck with christening that new outfit

MSB

In NSW, the minimum length for dusky flathead is 36cm, bag limit of 10. Only 1 over 70cm may be kept.  Nothing wrong with catching a feed. Well done!

[big Neil]

Good to see that your persistence paid dividends Steve. I'm sure everyone had a good time and will be back for more. Hope you get to catch something on your new outfit, pretty soon. Keep at it, bn

[Scratchie]

Great report! Congrats to the mrs on providing a feed. Hope you get to catch a few on your new shiny reel and rod next time! 

Cheers scratchie!!! 

[Rock&Beach]

Good on you mate. Sounds like a great day out. Cheers R&B

[FishStickSteve]

On 3/16/2018 at 4:23 PM, MSB said:

Good post Steve, enjoyed reading it, don't worry about the guy in the kayak hanging some onya, females normally don't spawn until they are over 55cm's and this time of the year would be pretty much the limit for spawning in NSW, not sure of the legal limits in NSW but up here in Qld, legal minimum limit for duskies is 40cm's with a maximum limit of 75cm's, I let  them all go over 50cm's and only keep one each for the wife an me to enjoy.

Good luck with christening that new outfit

MSB

Cheers Mate. As a rule I only take flatties between 40 to 50cm as I want the girls to go out and make sure that my kid's kids will have the same enjoyment as me. But I've had a big 80cm girl swallow a lure which ripper her up inside and when she came to the surface she was followed by a trail of blood. With a tear and a bottle of beer i took her home and she fed my misses and myself. (My misses' had a left over fillet which mysteriously disappeared  ) 

 

Took the new outfit for a flick today. I was having a blast pulling out 25+ cm bream with every second cast. I stopped counting at 10 solid bream. in a 45 minuter span. 

[FishStickSteve]

On 3/16/2018 at 9:58 PM, raging said:

Maybe ask the misses for some fishing tips 

Hahaha. Oh she gives me unsolicited tips every 10 minutes. But hey, I fish for the fun, and bring her along to make sure we have dinner, which is perfectly fine with me. 

[FishStickSteve]

23 hours ago, wazatherfisherman said:

Nice story and nothing wrong with catching a few fish for a feed- maybe that other guy was jealous! Just for RAIDER'S information I spoke to council about lake opening and they told me it was being opened last Wed(14th March) at 9.30am. From previous experience/s of lake opening the fish and prawns really come on down near the ocean bridge and also at the 'drop-off' out in front of the caravan park and would be well worth a trip there.

Cheers mate, We went to narrabeen again today. Saw some prawns jumping along the surface being chased by really big bream, A few tactical placements of my lure saw to me bringing nothing by 25 to 30cm and even a cheeky pb 38cm.All Bream went back to the water so I can catch them later.

my new shiney rod got a workout today. hearing line screaming brought in some girlish squeals of excitement.

[FishStickSteve]

17 hours ago, big Neil said:

Good to see that your persistence paid dividends Steve. I'm sure everyone had a good time and will be back for more. Hope you get to catch something on your new outfit, pretty soon. Keep at it, bn

Today was the day my new outfit got a solid workout. Went back to narrabeen and chased some bream about. Every second cast was bringing up a 25 to 35 cm bream. I stopped counting once i got to 10. I spent more time unhooking than i was fishing. 

[FishStickSteve]

17 hours ago, Scratchie said:

Great report! Congrats to the mrs on providing a feed. Hope you get to catch a few on your new shiny reel and rod next time! 

Cheers scratchie!!! 

CHeers mate, Today was my day with my shiny new set. Pulling out a 25 - 35cm bream every second cast became a bit of a hassle. Spent more time unhooking fish than I did fishing.

[big Neil]

3 minutes ago, FishStickSteve said:

Today was the day my new outfit got a solid workout. Went back to narrabeen and chased some bream about. Every second cast was bringing up a 25 to 35 cm bream. I stopped counting once i got to 10. I spent more time unhooking than i was fishing. 

Geez, Steve, that's some quality Bream you're talking about. Now we need a picture of the new rod /reel set up. Cheers, bn

[TurtleTown]

Sounds like it’s starting to fire up now it’s open, did you get the bream and Flathead at the front or back of the lagoon? 

[FishStickSteve]

On 3/18/2018 at 9:02 AM, TurtleTown said:

Sounds like it’s starting to fire up now it’s open, did you get the bream and Flathead at the front or back of the lagoon? 

Just inland of the Pitwater road bridge. Walked along the shore and found some good large tree branches and fished around there. Found a spot and went nuts. 

[FishStickSteve]

On 3/18/2018 at 12:06 AM, big Neil said:

Geez, Steve, that's some quality Bream you're talking about. Now we need a picture of the new rod /reel set up. Cheers, bn

It's not a heaps fancy set up. More budget orientated but I love it. Now that I've had a good trip with it I'll type up a little report about my recent trip.