Tuggerah topwater

[Jo5hC]

Have had a few donuts recently but finally had a little bit of action in a session.

 This was more of a spot scouting session as we hadn't been to Tuggerah lakes before. Arrived at Toukley bridge at around midday with my dad. Conditions were pretty good, cloudy with a little bit of wind. Target was bream or whiting on topwater for me using a Daiwa slippery dog 65mm and my dad was fishing with bait. Started off fishing the rocks and shallow water next to the bridge. Got hits immediately and hooked on third cast but pulled the hooks. Next cast I managed to hook on again and it felt like a decent fish. Unfortunately, it almost immediately ran me around structure and snapped off when I tried to pull back. In hindsight, my leader was a little frayed. I definitely learned my lesson there. After re-tying, my dad did hook a bream on the bait but it pulled the hook as well. The fish seemed to have moved on so we went to the flats on the other side of the bridge. Managed to get 2 small whiting in 2 casts and what I think is a houndfish, which was pretty cool. 

After those spots, the bite slowed down and we wanted to check out other spots that we had in mind so we moved to the entrance north. There were a lot of people fishing there and it seemed as if there were a few bream there as well, as we saw people getting them. However, I think the water was a little too deep for the topwater. I did have a Zman grub on another rod so decided to throw that, but the bottom was pretty weedy and my lure was consistently coming back covered in weeds. We did have another hookup on the bait but alas, it pulled hooks again. This is starting to become a pattern... 

Wanted to try one more spot, the Long Jetty wharf so we headed off there. On google maps the spot looked good, sticking out into the middle of the lake with shallow water. When we turned up however, there was no one fishing there. We could clearly see mullet or some sort of baitfish jumping around but there was no other fish to be found. Neither of us got any bites and it was getting late so we decided to head off. It was a bit strange that there wasn't much there. 

 

[Yowie]

You gave it a good try, shame about the fish snagging up. Sometimes the fish will un-snag itself if you let off the line pressure, and eventually swim out, but not always.

Houndfish is an American term, here they are called Long Tom.

[Rebel]

Great report.

Best fishing is under the bridge at the Entrance. Sunrise.

Nth. Entrance beach at Sundown.

Cheers.