Lower Hawkesbury - long hard day at the office.

[XD351]

G’day Raiders, 

I went up to the lower Hawkesbury today to check out the scene . Arrived at parsley bay at 4am with a plan to try for a Hairtail or a mulloway in the last hour of darkness before dawn, plan was to use a lead vibes and bait- around flint and steel but this produced a donut . Ran a few drifts off flint and steel and picked up two flathead and a bream. Tried up at moony moony but there was so much fresh in the Water it made fishing difficult.

The half pilly rig and lumo sinker combo doing the job!

 

[bessell1955]

Two nice fish.

[jenno64]

You got a feed, well done on prospecting new ground👌

[Yowie]

Something to take home rather than nothing -  a good feed of fillets from those 3.

[zmk1962]

Nice effort Ian - 4am and already at the ramp is keen!  Glad you got a feed. 
cheers Zoran 

[Little_Flatty]

Long hard day, but you got a feed!

That said I'm with @zmk1962...4am is hardcore! Though I'm a morning person, I wouldn't be seen dead awake any earlier than 5am! That's a nice flatty there at almost 60cm.

[XD351]

1 hour ago, zmk1962 said:

Nice effort Ian - 4am and already at the ramp is keen!  Glad you got a feed. 
cheers Zoran 

Yes I was definitely feeling it by 6 pm that night! I suppose it is one of the benefits of working a shift that starts at 1am - getting up at 3am to get to the ramp at 4am is actually a sleep in 🤣🤣🤣

I usually get there at dawn but wanted to try for a hairtail- I was going to go to Jerusalem bay but I notice a lot of phosphorescence in the main river and I know from experience that it will be Worse in Jerusalem. 

[XD351]

One really bizarre thing happened - when I launched I could see this massive really bright light down towards Juno - it was that bright it blurred out the area under it so I couldn’t tell what it was . As I started motoring towards Cowan it seemed to get closer until I got to Gunyah beach and it started moving out towards broken bay . It eventually disappeared over the horizon . Anyhow later that day two big boats came in that were identical, each having two giant grey things on each side of a mast - they were like half of a medicine capsule in shape with the rounded end pointing up - a bit like below but dark grey.

was the light from a survey ship ? I dunno!

[zmk1962]

52 minutes ago, XD351 said:

One really bizarre thing happened - when I launched I could see this massive really bright light down towards Juno - it was that bright it blurred out the area under it so I couldn’t tell what it was . As I started motoring towards Cowan it seemed to get closer until I got to Gunyah beach and it started moving out towards broken bay . It eventually disappeared over the horizon . Anyhow later that day two big boats came in that were identical, each having two giant grey things on each side of a mast - they were like half of a medicine capsule in shape with the rounded end pointing up - a bit like below but dark grey.

was the light from a survey ship ? I dunno!

I guess that qualifies as a UFO - unidentified floating object 🧐 

[Yowie]

7 hours ago, Little_Flatty said:

 I wouldn't be seen dead awake any earlier than 5am! 

Does that mean before 5am, dead awake, or just dead dead. 🤣

[Larkin]

Well done on finding the fish XD!

The bright lights - What about a squidding vessel? 

Ive seen squidding boats on documentaries using very bright lights. 

[XD351]

11 hours ago, Little_Flatty said:

Long hard day, but you got a feed!

That said I'm with @zmk1962...4am is hardcore! Though I'm a morning person, I wouldn't be seen dead awake any earlier than 5am! That's a nice flatty there at almost 60cm.

You would be surprised at the number of boats I see heading to various ramps around Sydney at 1am and how many people I see fishing in the early hours of the morning - especially down around pier 1!

[kantong]

great work on the fish. Better than a donut

[Bryant fish]

Least you got a feed i was out Saturday as well out to the 50 mtr mark for a few hours only catching small flathead ended up trying at 35mtrs on way back in and picked up 3 nice ones and a good bonnie they seem to be in closer than normal and definitely not so many. The early start for you was lucky as i got there just after 5 and carpark nearly full there was a rail shutdown at Brooklyn so workers use a lotof spaces

[XD351]

9 hours ago, Bryant fish said:

Least you got a feed i was out Saturday as well out to the 50 mtr mark for a few hours only catching small flathead ended up trying at 35mtrs on way back in and picked up 3 nice ones and a good bonnie they seem to be in closer than normal and definitely not so many. The early start for you was lucky as i got there just after 5 and carpark nearly full there was a rail shutdown at Brooklyn so workers use a lotof spaces

This season is really weird, my mate who fishes outside for flathead reckons last season and the one before were a lot better . Is it the rainfall , is it water temps or something else ? I don’t know. 
yeah I saw the workers on the bridge - I was heading to moony moony and all of a sudden across came this big boat with a guy on the flybridge flapping his arms around - he was the watchman to keep the boats away from under where they were working . Even at 4 am it was busy at the ramp !