Inner West Salmon 2.0: The Breakening

[DaveBM]

Hi all!

 

Further to Niall’s informative and timely post, I popped down to the end of my local canal this morning. The water was fairly boiling with salmon until a bit after sunrise, but they had no interest in anything I threw at them. TBH foul-hooking one was a very real possibility, they were that thick, but sadly my only chance.

Back down this evening, and they showed up a little after sunset willing to attack absolutely anything.

I lost one on a grub, cut off on oysters, then hurriedly tied on a way-too-big-for-my-rod metal slice and immediately lost another in an aerial hook-throw that would have been epic on video. Against the sunset, with onlookers and all, you could clearly see the glittering lure fly out of its mouth on its 3rd or 4th jump.

Immediately hooked up again, and played it a little cooler this time. After 5mins or so (now a different bunch of onlookers) I got it to my feet and remembered my net was in my car at home. So I tried for the gentlest sweeping motion I could, and flopped it up on land just as my rod snapped.

These thai fish cakes better be pretty good.

Moral of the story - don’t forget your net when you are consciously and deliberately targeting big fish on light gear. That would be a really stupid thing to do.

Moral #2: get around it while it lasts - big healthy hungry fish

[DaveBM]

For the purposes of my upcoming warranty dealings with the almighty Diawa Corporation, let’s keep my idiocy on the down-low, eh everyone? Me and this rod were really developing an understanding.

[antr]

Well done a lesson learnt, you can replace a rod but the memory's can  last for ever,

[Rebel]

Great report. Well done.

[DaveBM]

21 minutes ago, antr said:

Well done a lesson learnt, you can replace a rod but the memory's can  last for ever,

That’s true, but I’m way too old to be relearning such basic stuff. Plus I only have to wait until tomorrow to get more salmon memories...

[Pickles]

Great report Dave - stuff dreams are made of. Pity about the rod, but unless it’s a Loomis they’re pretty cheap to replace.

[big Neil]

An interesting post DaveBM. Sort of bitter/ sweet/ bitter. Hope the Thai fish cakes hit the spot. Your next episode will be much better after you learn from the mistakes of this one. Good luck! bn

[Niall]

Good to hear some others have found them.  Funny how picky they can be on a given day.

I've snapped a couple of rods over this past summer - one of them flipping an oversized bream onto the deck.

Definitely a bittersweet moment.  

I've stopped using my ultralight rod to catch them and I just leave that rigged for bream which I throw between moments when the salmon are boiling.  Using a Daiwa TD Hyper 5-9kg which they still put a big ole bend in 😀.  Much safer flipping them onto the deck with that thing.

Might bump into you out there one of these days 🤙