accidental pittwater

[ginko]

Went to walk down to a old spot this morning- but trail was closed.   Change of plans, and hit a set of small Pittwater headlands, wading small beaches on high tide then a big sand flat on the start of the run out.  Nothing at all at high tide, but promising shows of bait (pilchards?) over the sand flat.  

Picked up two flatties (larger one shown ~43cm) on the fly.  First fish hit from the classic location: over a rock ledge that cut across the tidal flow coming off sand flat, right in close (about 2m from shore), in about 50cm of water.  Initially, I had a good hit but missed a hook-up - so cast again a few times and picked it up again on a really slow retrieve.  

Second flattie picked up in the middle of the sand flat - I was actually just casting to keep the line out of my way as I approached a nice-looking drop-off.  There was no structure there at all - just plain sand, and fly was hardly moving when the fish struck. 

At the dropoff, casts over the deeper water brought in masses of  baitfish following along with the fly, but no bigger models chasing.

Fly  about 7cm long - an pretty slow sinking .  It was same size as the bait, but much darker in the water - the bait was a very light blue/silver colour. #1 mustad tarpon hook. Mix of blue, brown, gold fibres, with deer hair head and dumb-bell weight/eyes.  I think the deer hair really slows the sink rate and pushes alot of water on the retrieve. 

Line was south pacific clear fly line - I think the clear line helped avoid spooking fish on the flats.

 

 

 

 

 

[noelm]

Good stuff, I really enjoy fly fishing, even though I am pretty hopeless at it, but fishing over sand flats is especially satisfying somehow, Whiting and Flathead even look better when caught in clear water over sand, well done.

[bessell1955]

Wow you must have a got a very pleasant surprise when you hooked the second Flattie!  Well done. 

[Rebel]

 

Great report. Nice Flattie.

[Centrepin]

Great report. keep it up. Thanks for posting

[papasmurf]

If you can ride a bike, you can fly fish. It's just another motor skill we can learn, but it does take practice...like riding a bike. Once you take up a fly rod you won't look back and I find it's a helluva more satisfying. There are plenty of casting instructors out there that can help with the casting journey or a fly fishing club like the Illawarra Fly Fishers' Club that has monthly casting workshops.

 

[Pickles]

Flatties on fly - ‘doesn’t get much better than that. What weight were you fishing - 5, 6 #?

[ginko]

Pickles - 5 weight would have done - but I only have an 8 for the salt, so that's what they were caught on.  A good feature of the 8 weight is that it turns over a pretty well-weighted fly.  

Given the rain, I'm wondering how the flats are fishing now. 

 

Papasmurf - an ongoing project/an agonising project is to learn to cast wrong-handed. Not that I'm that great on the proper hand... Wrong handed is weirdly hard to learn given that the motion is so basic.  Esp in tight country next to streams, there are many times I wish I could cast well upstream from the right bank.