Neutral Bay 30 Oct

[Mike Sydney]

Hi Raiders,

After some six months of trying, I finally broke the lure drought and caught my first fish on a lure! Followed quickly by my second and third on the same day.

Over the months of fruitless casting in the winter I kept having people tell me – just wait until the water warms up and they’ll be hooking up. This proved very true!

I arrived at the usual spot in Neutral Bay about 8am after dropping the kids off at school and within about 5 minutes I had my first fish on a lure – a baby snapper. Mixed feelings as while I was delighted that I’d finally caught something on a lure it was hardly a trophy.

These were basically all I caught as I learned to fish over the winter months on bait, but it was still marvellous to have something on the hook from a lure.

Threw him back in and five minutes later I have my second, another baby snapper on a tiger/gold Savage blade.

Things quietened down after that and we fished until lunchtime before heading off to the pub.

Seeing the storm approaching I snuck out for one last flick at the same spot around 8pm that evening, and was rewarded handsomely almost immediately with a beautiful tailor on another blade, black this time as I’d heard the silhouette was important at night. 

I couldn’t believe just how ‘night and day’ it was from my usual fruitless luring. This time, a school of tailor literally fought each other over the lure, with my hooked tailor being chased by his mates as they tried to pull the lure out of his mouth. I reckon I was even in with a chance of getting two on a single lure if I’d stuck it out!

As I pulled him up the other tailor leapt out of the water. It was a wild sight seeing a frenzy like that for the first time and a great reward for months of perseverance with lures when the ‘easy option’ of bait had been delivering for me all winter.

Almost immediately I was summoned home to deal with a sick kid so sadly had to put family ahead of the rest of the tailor....

So, from no fish on lures in five months of trying to 3 in a day. I try to think about what I did differently, but nothing really springs to mind – could it really have just been so dang hard to lure in the winter?

Hopefully I’ve turned the corner and am in for a productive summer!

[Yowie]

As you were told, the water is starting to slowly warm, and the fish are turning up.

Also with fishing, certain fish species can appear in one spot, and move to somewhere different the next day: e.g. tailor are always on the move looking for bait schools.

[Rebel]

Great report. Well done.