Waratah Bay To Appletree Bay 19/11

[Richie]

Hi Guys,

I walked from Berowra to Appletree Bay yesterday. I got to Berowra station at around midday and left Mt Ku-ring-gai station at around 6pm.

I managed to add a new species to my soft plastic hit list and I got my first fish on a hard body!

At Waratah I tried all the structure I could see for nought.

I walked around to the next bay. I found a nice rock ledge in the shade. After a bite to eat for myself, I cast out a Gulp Sand-worm in New Penny. After a few light jigs, it got hit with no hookup. This happened about 5 times, so I cut the worm in half and put th jig in the cut end. I was on. A pretty 28cm Whiting. A few more casts told me that it was time to move.

The next bay was being used by a couple of nuts flinging their boats around, being generally noisy. So I walked past it.

After the noisy bay, I found a spot on another rock ledge. My sp's were being mauled by Leatherjackets (some pretty big ones too) so I tied on a sx-40 (Sydney Guppy) I bought at Otto's big sale on impulse. I fanned out, trying different retrieves. I was in the middle of a fast retrieve when I got a strike. At the end of a good little fight I had a 35cm Tailor. I noticed in the last stage of the fight, a monster Bream came out from under the ledge to pester the Tailor! Nothing I could do would convince him to eat anything I offered! This was the first time I've caught anything on a hard body!

The next bay had limited land based spots, so my last port of call was a spot I've fished a few times with no luck. There is a sunken tree there and if you sunglass it at low tide, there are a heap of Bream there. I'd picked up a few new tricks to try there, just last week I caught my first sp Bream up at Wallis Lake. I grabbed a 85mm Squidgey Flickbait in Flash Prawn. Lo and behold, I pulled in a little 20cm Bream off the bottom (The Wallis Bream was bigger but I didn't measure it as two bloody big pelicans were attacking me for the fish... The fish got away, I didn't!)

All the commotion must have scared off anything else. I went to ATB, rinsed off, packed up and went home.

All fish were caught on nitro 1/24 bullet jigheads and all fish were released.

I spent more time walking than fishing, but what fishing I got in was good. Plus I've broken my Cowan Creek drought

Cheers fellas,

Richie.

PS; today my legs are killing me!

[Sharky]

Top report mate how many kms do you think you walked? Id like to give it a go sometime.

[Richie]

They reckon it's something like 8kms. It felt like way more cause at the beginning from Berowra and the end to Mt Ku-ring-gai have bits that are way steep, I'm glad I had a rod bag and backpack.

It's a nice walk. Take lot's of water. 2lt *just* lasted me trip... Next time I take more.

[crystalliser]

Hey man, that's what I call a land-based bash! Nice work!

[Martin]

I take my hat off to you Richie, not only did you walk all those Km’s but you caught public transport to and from, just to have a fish.

I enjoyed the report and hope to read a few more of your adventures with a couple of pic’s thrown in.

Cheers

[pogo]

Got another one for you Richie,

If you catch the train to Cowan, you can walk down to the end of Jeruselem Bay, Beatiful spot and some good Land based fishing around the sandflat drop off and along the little creek channel if the tide is high, SPs would work down there, we used to carry in a yabby pump.

If you have a bit of a look around you will find some fantastic spots to camp if you want to put in an overnighter. A mate and I used to do it a lot in the early 80s and always got a few fish, carry in a Grilling frame, fresh bream cooked over the coals is unreal.

Regards POGO

Edited November 21, 2005 by pogo

[Richie]

I was thinking of doing the walk from Cowan, Berowra won out cause I'm trying to get familiar with Cowan Creek and the path to ATB seemed to cover more of it. I did find a few potential "Spot X's" and I spied some spots that I think would produce if I could find a way to get to them...

Getting a lift on a boat sounds like a good idea, but I've got no idea about boatiquette... the closest thing I've been on was a Ferry (Oh, and a water taxi once )

I've only got seriously into fishing in the last few months.

I would have taken pics if I had'v remembered that my phone has a camera in it... Especially that Tailor! I didn't know they jumped! Next time

I plan on getting back down there in a fortnight. How and what time I get down there is dependent on whether I get the car off the missus. This weekend I'm on call, so no fishing for me

[pogo]

Theres a thread somewhere on here about what makes a good deckie (deckhand)

Have a read of that and you'll be totally up to speed on how to be good company when you get an invite on someones boat, plenty of guys take out non boat raiders

Also keep an eye on the desperate and boatless thread there are often blokes looking for company

Deckie spot are also usually available at the Fish raider socials that come up from time to time

Regards POGO