Stockton - Saturday 10/12/05

[Guest madsmc]

After reading some good reports during the week I decided on Stockton for an early session on Saturday morning to see if I could tempt a few harbour bream. Started off just before 6am on the small breakwall with a Gulp Minnow in Black Shad colours. There were some good, solid hits but the fish seemed hesitant to make that final take.

Once I had moved around to the southern facing side of the wall I had a good couple of hits after drifting and jigging the minnow out from the wall, landing an aggressive little harbour bream of around 23cm.

After that bream I was confident of a few more, but it was a funny morning. It felt fishy, but the hits were really half hearted. A bump here, a bump there for the next hour, then it was time for a change of scenery.

Moved around and started working my usual area along the foreshore from the ferry terminal to the green marker buoy with the same style of minnow as earlier in the morning. The whole stretch was full of baitfish, and the accompanying chopper tailor! Just about every cast would see the plastic get mauled. I ended up landing a few small choppers. The biggest was a 38cm model that put up a decent scrap, including two nice jumps. Not bad for a bit of fun, but these toothy little buggers were putting a decent dent in my plastics collection.

It was staring to get on a bit, and I had other things to do on the day, but I couldn't help but check out a new stretch of shoreline I had scoped on the map the previous night. Walsh Point. It seems to be a bit of a flathead hotspot, so I was confident of a few plate sized specimens for the barbie that night.

After driving around for a while checking the are out, I stopped on a grassy area right on the point, which slopes down a very jagged, rocky outcrop to the waters edge. Rigged up a fresh minnow, the last in the packet, and started casting.

Within probably twelve or so casts, two 38cm flatties had joined me on the rocks. Excellent eating size, and certainly put a smile on my face after putting up a good fight for their size. They went very well on the barbie wrapped in foil, with a bit of lemon, and bacon fried with garlic infused olive oil. Mix that with a few brews and all is well.

The point looks like a pretty good area, so I'm sure to return in the coming months to give the place a good going over.

I'll finish this one off with a couple of scenery shots of the breakwall area at Stockton.

Shane

[crystalliser]

Well done Shane!! Good report!! Just a quick question, what do u normally do when encountering timid bites? Do u pause it or give a hard rip? Thanks!

Ronald

[Guest madsmc]

Thanks guys.

Just a quick question, what do u normally do when encountering timid bites? Do u pause it or give a hard rip? Thanks!

Ronald

I used to give it another twitch, but lately I've been trying a different approach and just deadstick it for a few seconds, especially if there's not much water movement. If it's likely to be a bream, then the softly softly approach works best I reckon.

However, the last two good bream I've got on plastics I haven't had to do anything cause they've just smashed the lure and I was on straight away. I think it's due to the amount of run in the water at the time, they must see it swim past and feel the need to smash it hard before it gets away.

I generally only use a big rips/whips when I'm after flathead.

did you encounter any great whites there?

Lucky for me, no I didn't. Would have been fun on the bream gear though.

There's still salmon schools about so I'd say there's a fair chance you could still hook one up off the beach. That is if you're game enough to face the possible fine and/or jail sentence.

Shane