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Quick dawn fish


originalrockhoppa

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Headed out this morning for a quick fish, took about 20 baits with me. I was on a deep water rock ledge on Sydney's northern beaches. Left home early to be on the rocks before ‘first crack’ just after 4, I got there about 4.30😂. The moon didn’t help light the way much as it was orange due to the smoke. The swell was a bit bigger than I would have liked on arrival 1-1.5m NE. It wasn’t yet half tide and was running out to only a 0.6. Had to wait till well after 5 before I could see well enough to access a decent wash. Very smokey.

My first December fish as mid November required a medical procedure then I sliced my thumb playing with a new pocket knife lol smh only just healed and nearly opened up today, another couple of hours it would have popped the seam.

I was fishing with an MT7144 matched with a 650A Alvey spooled with 5.5kg mono. Sinker straight onto a 3/0 Mustad 92554 hook. Fish strips for bait.

First cast I used an old 2 ball (new 3 ball? I don’t care, I’m not changing what I call them) Caught a red rock cod, released, ok too heavy. Next cast 1 ball for an undersized reddie. Then a legal one of about 33cm. Couple more undersized fish followed before I got another keeper of the same size. After this I alternated sinker sizes between 01 and 1 ball every few casts (and a couple of 2 ball casts that only resulted in snags early on)

By this time the sun was starting to throw that dull red glow across the water, so still what I’d call a ‘delayed sunrise’. It didn’t help, hello sweep 🤬 started getting my baits picked and pecked at constantly. Pulled in a few of the bigger sweep, released, then the salmon showed up, hitting my bait almost as soon as it hit the water. I played with them for a while making em jump around to amuse myself as I skull dragged them in, got one in, released, busted off on two others. Then the choppers showed up, couple of bite offs as soon as I hit the water before I started hooking rat kings, lol as soon as I hit the water. Got 2 undersized ones on the rocks and another keeper surface reddie in between. Got a keeper king about 80 cm, gut hooked, not a lot more fight than the mouth hooked unders. Tried a heavier lead again but couldn’t get through the top layer of fish anymore.

Quickly picked up my gear and dashed to another wash with my last 3 baits, no hits and a bit dodgy standing where I was, it was ok, had a close by spot to retreat to but I’m not as adventurous as I once was, cant always move as quickly either, threw the last 2 baits away. So I fished from about 5.20 till just before 8. Plenty of action, maybe because of the southerly due? 😉 Not as many legal reddies around as I would have liked but it was ok.

Stopped at a mates and dropped off the 3 reddies and wished them a merry Chrissy. The king will go into a fish chowder that I’ll munch  on over the next few days

still gotta figure out how to download pics on here, says my files are too big, I dunno

Good luck to everyone fishing over the holidays, stay safe 

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