The Entrance - quick report

[Little_Flatty]

Went up to The Entrance with the family on the weekend to catch up with some old work colleagues. Main focus was not fishing, but as all mad keen anglers, we did spend a few hours wetting a line.

Arrived about 10:30am, the group had started a berley trail of white bread and had the mullet, bream and silver trevally in a bit of a frenzy. They were really cleaning up on those fish, ending up with a decent bag of fish for dinner. There really wasn't any magic to what they were doing; berleying, light line, lightly weighted or unweighted baits of bread or chicken, and good line management (enough slack to let the bait naturally waft down and well-timed reactions to takes).

For the first hour or so, I was just chatting to friends (left the rods in the car!), but after a while, I decided to get the fly rod out to have a go. Tied on a slow sinking bread fly and a weed fly rigged on 6lb tippet under a foam strike indicator (I'd seen a few luderick around when I was chatting).

It took a while, but soon enough I had an enthusiastic take and hooked up. It was a fairly decent fish but the hook pulled at my feet. Then the next bite was the repeat of the first; another lost fish. Somehow I felt that if I had my glass 6 weight rod instead, I might have landed both, but the 8 weight graphite rod was all I had.

Third take, I hit it hard and soon had the fish at my feet. My first ever fly caught trev and first fish on a bread fly:

The trev was a little over legal, so it could go into the esky. I wasn't in a fish keeping mood, being the first day of a weekend away, so it was graciously accepted by my mates.

After that I needed to stop fishing and head over to the Chromefest event across the lake. That in itself was well worth checking out, not just for the vintage cars, but also for the look into the rockabilly culture which I haven't really encountered before.

That night I heard some of my other friends, who had come quite a way, hadn't yet caught a fish on this trip. So I had to fix that. You'd think I'd start checking the tides, but...I was more concerned about what time the cafes opened for breakfast! 🤣 With enough time allowed for breakfast, a new session was planned.

So after a nice breakfast this morning, we went back to the same spot, berleyed up with bread and...nothing! It took a solid hour of berleying before the fish started coming on, and by lunch time we had a very nice bag of sand mullet for their dinner. Some of you might've been amused to hear that I was fishing with a 4ft kid's rod to help add fish to their bag.

It was interesting to watch the mullet feed: they'd take the whole bait and hook into their mouths, and you'd be sure you'd shortly be on, but then they'd just spit it out! It took us all quite a bit of time to get our timing refined, but after a while, it was fish after fish and soon we had enough to feed a family. So we stopped and went back to the festival.

[zmk1962]

Fishing fun can be had anywhere anytime ... I cut my fishing teeth on mullet in Chipping Norton lakes ... memories !

Cheers Zoran

[Little_Flatty]

5 minutes ago, zmk1962 said:

Fishing fun can be had anywhere anytime ... I cut my fishing teeth on mullet in Chipping Norton lakes ... memories !

Cheers Zoran

Definitely Zoran! I know I’m fly fishing now and we all own quite a bit of sophisticated fishing paraphernalia, but it’s a fair bet we’d all still love a fish by a lake or river for grassroots species. Speaking of which, I feel like I haven’t had a feed of harbour jackets for a long time. Might plan a session…

[bessell1955]

They are not a bad feed, those sand Mullet.

[Green Hornet]

I’m surprised you could get a bread berley going without seagulls ruining your day in such a populated spot Mike. 
Great to see you add a trev to your list of fly caught species.

[Little_Flatty]

8 hours ago, bessell1955 said:

They are not a bad feed, those sand Mullet.

They certainly are Bessell. Last time we had them, there were requests for more, so we obliged 😎

22 minutes ago, Green Hornet said:

I’m surprised you could get a bread berley going without seagulls ruining your day in such a populated spot Mike. 
Great to see you add a trev to your list of fly caught species.

Cheers Pete, I never thought a silver trev would be my third species on fly!

We weren't pestered by seagulls but the first day we were pestered by a fish stealing pelican. The Entrance fishes amazingly given the pressure it gets put under, week in and week out.

[Yowie]

Nice work for a change of fishing. Bread does produce a variety of fish. Have even had small kingies take it (though hard to stop on a yakka hand line)

[mrsswordfisherman]

Good on you Mike! 

We had many a top fishraider weekend at The Entrance at Dunleith Caravan Park. 

 

[kantong]

what a great trip, well done!

[Little_Flatty]

3 hours ago, Yowie said:

Nice work for a change of fishing. Bread does produce a variety of fish. Have even had small kingies take it (though hard to stop on a yakka hand line)

Bread certainly does deliver Dave. Fishing with bread baits for all manner of species is one of my favourite activities…there’s something particularly fun about it for me. Simultaneously easier (to attract fish) and more challenging (easy to lose baits) than one would think. Rivals all my other forms of fishing in fun factor

3 hours ago, mrsswordfisherman said:

Good on you Mike! 

We had many a top fishraider weekend at The Entrance at Dunleith Caravan Park. 

 

I know and I’m sad I missed them! I was around FR then, but too busy working, studying and cycling. Had my priorities wrong in my youth . I guess on the upside I met my wife during that period, so it wasn’t all bad😎

2 hours ago, kantong said:

what a great trip, well done!

Thanks, from your reports, I know you appreciate a good family trip too!