Easter Monday on botany bay

[Ojay Samson]

Hey Raiders, haven’t posted in a while so I figured now would be a good time to be less lazy and contribute.

Went for a fish on Easter Monday in botany bay after a recon mission at Brooklyn/Hawksbury the day before to see how chaotic the prospect of taking the boat out there would be. Suffice to say I decided against launching there and going botany instead.

Plan was to leave mine at 12am and be on the water by 1 having prepared all the gear and boat during the daytime the day before. As we all know, fishing plans rarely ever go to the timeline. well at least for me they don’t. Ended up waiting for 1 hour for a no-show mate who was not able to wake up with his alarms so off we went (3 POB -myself, 2IC & 1 mate).
Ended up being on the water at around 230AM and went to the bait grounds next to the tugs and loaded up on livies. 98% of the livies caught were by my 2IC. Then for the rest of the day we were running around going from spot to spot to try and find the fishing activity. Tried several new places for myself including the bommie around bare island where a nice fish was lost by my partner, I saw it and I swear it looked like a rainbow runner… never having seen one in real life I’m not sure but I swear it looked like one, even though the environment where they are located say otherwise.
That day was also the first time I poked my head (boat) outside past the heads for the first time so it was a bit of a milestone for me… getting my toe wet for next week where I endeavoured to go to Sydney East FAD & The peak (furthest out I’ve ever been thus far… but that’s another story).
Mainly fished for the bread and butter species primarily using bait for the day between my Mrs and mate, while I was occupied keeping hope alive trying to get lucky targeting’ the big one’ using livies. Unfortunately, nothing ever really touched my livies.
All in all a good day (albeit a tiring one as we all were running on 2 hours sleep). Called it quits when an isolated storm front rolled past Kurnell as we could see it in the distance with lightning, and the call was made to call it quits for safety sake.
Both my 2IC and mate had an absolute blast, although she lost a few good fish for the day (she had fun fighting them, just unfortunate they were all lost boat side- suspected rainbow runner/ silver Trev & 1 unknown fish which we were calling a trophy flatty… if anyone else can suggest another fish based on the video I’m open to people’s opinions…we’ll never 100% know anyhow. My mate also reported that that fishing session was the most fun fishing day he’s ever had, which means I did ok for myself as a host I guess.
 

Anyways thanks for reading.

tl;dr
took the boat out on public holiday in Sydney, wasn’t too bad in terms of boat/fishing traffic, caught some fish and had some fun.

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO

[big Neil]

Great report and a "life be in it" video. I could feel the disappointment, but hey there's always next time. bn

[frankS]

Well done OJ , disappointment on the big one getting away but don't be too disheartened as I think it was a Wobbygong or something similar and would have disappointed you had you landed it, good to have the fight though.

The bay can produce some surprises at times, keep at it as I'm sure you will.

Frank