Hawkesbury Fishing

[harold]

Hit the water at Akuna Bay at 5am this morning and headed out to West Head, there was a crowd of boats there already, so i anchored up as the southern most boat. Lines were going crazy, i was being constantly hit by damn Wirrah and green eels. Landed a bunch but just sent them back from where they came from. Got fed up with the constant harrassment so after an hour and a half i moved over to the western end of Lion, it was as dead as, so off to a point further down the river i have often looked at. On the way i was treated to a display by 2 dolphins, i stopped the boat and just watched their beauty. After 5 minutes i took off again and anchored up in 18 feet of water. I put out a whole fresh squid on one rod and flicked an SP on the other.

Well first off the SP went off so i thought "i was right about this spot" It was a very different sort of a fight but eventually i had it at the boat and there it was, i had caught a bloody turtle. I was so worried i would be done for this that i just cut the line so if anyone sees a large turtle with a gold SP in its mouth, i know nothing!

Shortly after i decided to check the squid bait and it was as heavy as blazes, got it up and there was 3/4 of an old barnacled beer bottle on the end. I netted it and lo and behold there was this large octopus in the bottle that had grabbed the squid. I called my wife to ask her if she wanted me to bring it home and somehow it managed to squeeze through the net (that i had hung overboard) at the very instant she said "yes".

Reset the line and made a cup of tea when all of a sudden the squid goes off and i watch 200 metres of line peel off the reel like i had hooked a passing speed boat. I tried to reset the drag before the remaining 100 metres vanished, i then start to wind and all of a sudden it is slack. I reeled it in and i had only used 1 hook in the squid and the fish had hold of the bait not the hook. It had simply bit the squid in half as the pressure was applied. I have learnt a lesson today about making sure (i have been told on this site previously) i use multiple hooks.

I have caught an 80lb Mackeral off Townsville and whatever this was it felt the equal of that. I am going to go back to this place and i am going to put out multiple squid baits, all with gang hooks.

All i all i had a fantastic morning although i am embarrassed about the bloody turtle.

Edited November 12, 2005 by harold

[Guest MarkD]

Great report Harold, cerainly put a smile on my face

[robthefisherman]

good report Harold

I just got back this arvo from 3 days on the hawkesbury we put in at akuna bay in the quinnie and met up with the other guys on the houseboat at america bay

Fised from the houseboat Friday night for SFA, Then up at 4am Sat to head aout around barenjoey the sea was really sloppy and seen 2 of the guys on board soon burleying over the side

2 hours out only resulted in 6 undersized flatties, we came back in and tried a few spots around the river for nada, I didi get a good hookup under the rail bridge but dropped it before ever knowing what it was.

Sat night was spent back on the houseboat in America Bay which seen us land a zillion baby snapper apparently they released 5000 into the Hawkesbury and we got to meet most of them,we also managed a shovelnose shark a lot of little bream and taylor 2 keeper flatties one 47cm and one 55cm and a 30cm jewie which was promptly returned to the water along with all the other undersized stuff we seemed to specialise in.

Today seen us get a leisurely 8am start and we were of to the Flint and Steel carpark for about an hour for not even a touch them a bit of a drift around for more nothing so we headed back to the house boat which was now anchored down near Dangar Island for some more baby snapper, abaout 12 we had our first casualty when one of the guys managed to put a treble hook well and truly into his finger while trying to retreive it from a rope, he was in the dinghy getting it of the mooring rope and the bow wave of a passing cruiser caused the dinghy to rise up just as he grabbed it and to make it worse he had a bloody wire trace on the line

So a rescue mission was mounted to stop the dinghy drifting away and ripping the side of his finger while we set about cutting the trace, once back on board the house boat surgery was conducted unsuccesfully to remove the lure from his finger in the end we had to use a pair of snips to cut the hook and then all attempts to push it though were useless as it was hitting bone so we had to ferry him with another guy that had left his car at brooklyn back to Parsley Bay for the run to the doc to have it removed

By this time it was around 12.30 so we decided to tidy up the houseboat and call it a weekend, we left the guys to return the housebaot and made our way back to Akuna Bay hot tired and basically fishless.

A great weekend apart from the lack of fishing action and mishap with the lure

Edited November 13, 2005 by robthefisherman

[Grantm]

Weired day Harold. Bloody turtle

I was out their too on Saturday. Got to Juno at about 6.30 thinking it would be packed for the runout tide but there was no one really there, few of boats only anchored down near the yellow marker. Everyone was at the F&S car park.

Anchored up right off the point and picked up yakkas in no time, place was loaded with them. Put a few straight back down and sat it out - nothin.

Went on a flathead hunt instead and struggled with the high tide, got 3 or 4 maybe up the river. When the tide dropped right down we hit some of our favourite haunts and knocked off about 10 or 12 more in quick succession

Never dropped so many in my life either. Must have dropped 6 or 7 at the boat and a couple of goodens which didnt sutface.

Hopefully some bigguns will come through summer.

[maxpower]

hey fellas im headin up to the hawkesbury early december on a house boat with a few of my mates. I went up there about the same time last year and all we were catching were tiny snapper and a couple of small flatties just wondering if anyone knew of any good places to catch some decent sized fish?

[Martin]

Always keeps you woundering when a fish takes off like that and you dont get to see it. Sounds as though it may have been a shark.

Hard days fishing Harold. First time I have heard of any one hooking a turtle.