Hard times at Swansea .

[XD351]

G’day Raiders ,

A quick and not very exciting report from Swansea ,we arrived on Thursday at 6.30 am ( run in tide till around 11am )and launched my boat then drifted pretty much all of the channel using decent Hawkesbury prawns and pillies . The main target is Dusky Flathead and for some reason they didn’t want to play , we did catch a heap of small bar tail flathead right through from the entrance to the drop over into the lake . Today we did the same but ventured more into the lake itself but getting a bait down without hooking a bar tail was proving difficult and once we went into the lake proper we couldn’t turn a scale . We then switched to SP’s and at one time we were drifting baits and flicking lures but could only catch thes little bar tails . Last drift of the day ( now run out tide ) and out of the blue I hooked a 40 cm Dusky and I thought things might pick up , my mate did get a 53cm unit just up from the bridge and saved his bacon coz he has ran out of food 😂. Oh well at least this trip I haven’t copped any rain ( yet ) and it hasn’t blown the dog off the chain like last trip . Off to check out blacksmiths beach tomorrow .

Edited February 3, 2023 by XD351

[Pickles]

A hard days “work” - Pity the duskies didn’t come out to play in numbers, good you got 2 and a 53 is a creditable catch - well done

[XD351]

Thanks Pickles !
Yes some days are just hard work ! Got to take the good with the bad ! I watch other boats like a hawk and I didn’t see any of them doing any better so I felt I was doing ok! We have been blessed with a world of wondrous variety and anytime we get to experience it is a blessing so I never take it for granted - Every day on the water is a good one 😁

[TheFishosGrill]

Fished Swansea last week and had the same result from high to low...
Only managed to get a few maybe leaping bonito (small).
Glad you caught something though!! well done!

[Koalaboi]

Hi, 

I’d never heard of bar tail flathead. I looked them up and your sightings of them in Swansea has them a long way south of their normal range. Do you find them in Swansea regularly?

We have some very warm water along the coast atm and am thinking maybe they’ve come down with the warmer water.

Interesting sighting.

 

KB

[Blackfish]

1 hour ago, Koalaboi said:

Hi, 

I’d never heard of bar tail flathead. I looked them up and your sightings of them in Swansea has them a long way south of their normal range. Do you find them in Swansea regularly?

We have some very warm water along the coast atm and am thinking maybe they’ve come down with the warmer water.

Interesting sighting.

 

KB

Hi KB, there are common names for fish and I would guess (Without a photo) it's a Yellowtail Flathead (Platycephalus westraliae) also called a Bartail Flathead. They recon they come down as far as Port Hacking.

Not a Bartail Flathead (Platycephalus australis) Bloody confusing isn't it. 😀

[XD351]

If you look at a bar tail and a blue spot they have very similar bar markings on the tail except one has a yellow blotch on top of the tail apparently. All I know is they had horizontal bars on the tail which made me think they were bar tails but they could have been blue spot - they were very pale because the sand in the channel is nearly white , the thing I found strange is they stopped short of the drop over into the lake and they were everywhere between that and the entrance .

[Rebel]

Great report.

You have to fish near the bridge at Swansea or Lucy's wall.

Cheers.

[XD351]

9 hours ago, Rebel said:

Great report.

You have to fish near the bridge at Swansea or Lucy's wall.

Cheers.

We did fish either side of the bridge on both days and got zip. I had a look at Lucy’s today and it is very shallow ,the wind was blowing too strong to fish on the bridge side where the hole is - Gin clear water everywhere . 
Was hoping for a beach session but we awoke to a 15 km NW wind and I knew it was only going to get worse  , we went for a look to see if there was anywhere we could get a line in but Blacksmiths was pretty much devoid of any sort of gutters we could get to on foot . Lobbed to Redhead but the gutters there were within walking distance but chockers full of swimmers and surfers .

Had a quick fish off the shore in the channel on the way home and caught a tiny flathead ( same as all the other ones we had caught ) this time I payed more attention to the tail markings and they are indeed blue spot flathead (Platycephalus caeruleopunctatus ) there are the horizontal bars and the yellow blotch above . Apologies for the incorrect species identification !

Already planning my next trip next week ( hopefully the joint isn’t booked out ) looking at a few days at Greenman’s at Mt white and fish the Spencer , Bar point and Berowra area - if anyone has fished there in the last week or so I would be grateful for any info !