Meeting Little Flatty & buying a new rod

[linewetter]

Yesterday was quite a long day, starting at 3am.  I woke up wide awake and could not go back to sleep and after two hours, I decided to just get up and go fishing.  I sent a text to the only person I know who would be fishing this early (@Little_Flatty) and asked if he wanted company since I was headed out his direction anyway.  I actually never met him before but we had exchanged numbers a while back with intentions to meet up one day. 

I packed up my stuff and set my GPS to a point on the map – intending it to be Drummoyne but ending up in Five Dock somehow which lead me to a bay I had not been to before.  I put on a couple of topwater lures hopeful that I would land something on topwater this morning but after an hour of fishing it, no dice.  It was quite dark out still so I figured that was probably the reason for the lack of interest.
 

 

It was around here that @Little_Flatty got back to me and we made a plan to meet up in Drummoyne to fish together.  It was awesome to finally meet him, I know he usually fishes pretty early in the mornings based off his fishing reports and I’m not usually up this early so the window of opportunity is slim.  But today was just one of those days where he happened to be going out fishing and I happened to not be able to sleep! 
 

After no interest with the topwater lures in Five Dock, I decided to switch to soft plastics when I met up with @Little_Flatty. He was throwing topwater, I was bottom bouncing….surely one of us would hook up if there were fish in the water having covered both areas of the shallower water. 
 

I had gone with no scent during the first 40ish minutes of throwing plastics and had no interest.  I mainly didn’t want to bother putting any on but decided to just pull it out and slather a bit on and throw my lure back in the same area…just wanted to see if I’d suddenly get interest.  And that I did….I hooked onto a small bream soon after:

 

 

Only a few casts after releasing the bream, I hooked onto a small whiting in the same area I had been casting with no interest prior to scent application.

 

It was around here @Little_Flatty switched to a chubby lure I think it was, and applied some scent and ended up hooking up to his own fish as well.

Well well well…Definitely not a scientific test by any means, but it does make me feel like it did something since I had been getting no interest up until now.  But then again, there are days where I donut even with scent and everything looking perfect.  That's just fishing.

After some good conversations and untangling a bird from my line (flock flew into the water out of nowhere and into my line before I could retrieve my line fast enough), it was time for @Little_Flatty to go. 


Soon after, it was also time for me to head to the local tackle shop and pick out my new rod.  I had spent quite a bit of time contemplating my next rod and came out with some very specific wants.  I had a couple of rods in mind already and after testing them in person and consulting with the generous finance minister, I walked away with a rod slightly above my budget but one I was at least happy with.  It is the Palms Pinwheel:




 

I hadn’t heard of the brand before but after talking with the tackle shop who mentioned the brand is known in the shore jigging world and doing some more research on it,  I felt more comfortable deviating from the usual brands I’ve been looking at. 

 

After purchasing the rod, I was excited and dying to use it.  I went straight to a beach north of Sydney with my partner that I hadn’t been to before, but looked pretty good on Google Maps for its sand flats and got to wading and casting.  After a couple of casts testing it in action, it was the perfect rod for me and matched exactly what I wanted.  It didn’t take too long to bend the rod and properly christen the rod with a fish using the Daiwa Double Clutch.  It wasn’t big but I’ll take it! 





I swapped from the double clutch to soft plastics after hooking into too much weed.  The swap to plastics proved to be a wise choice as I happened to find a school of tailor next to some structure that went rabid every time the plastic hit the water.  I was okay losing a jighead and plastic to those teeth but losing a double clutch would hurt :’) 

Follow up cast into the same area got me another tailor immediately:





And then another:




It was after this tailor that a boat moved in to park and the area was no longer cast-able.  The tailor were great fun to catch, even though they weren’t big, I love their aggressive demeanor of snapping at anything that moves.  The feeling of instant action and feeling the hits swarming as soon as the lure landed is like nothing else.  The original plan was to take home a fish today which is why I made the extra drive out to the beach to fish, but unfortunately time was not on my side today – had some F1 racing to watch so cut it short and ended the fishing there.

 

[bessell1955]

Sounds like a vey profitable session, well done.

[Little_Flatty]

Great to meet you too @linewetter. Glad you found a new rod and christened it.

[linewetter]

3 hours ago, Little_Flatty said:

Great to meet you too @linewetter. Glad you found a new rod and christened it.

Next time I’m up early again, I’ll hit ya up again to see if you’re fishing and don’t mind some company 😄 I actually really enjoyed fishing that early, seeing the sunrise and all was quite nice, just have to look for some suitable gloves that still allow dexterity because my fingers were freezing. 

[Mike Sydney]

On gloves, I’ve had the Daiwa DG2223 gloves and they were awesome. Got caught out in a storm one night and they went to pieces when they got soaked though. They could handle regular wet but not total saturation.
 

Great gloves, I used them for both a bit of warmth and mosquito protection. Having thumb and two fingers exposed meant I could still handle line without needing to remove them.
 

Have been meaning to buy another pair. Here’s some photos I can find wearing them. 

[linewetter]

29 minutes ago, Mike Sydney said:

On gloves, I’ve had the Daiwa DG2223 gloves and they were awesome. Got caught out in a storm one night and they went to pieces when they got soaked though. They could handle regular wet but not total saturation.
 

Great gloves, I used them for both a bit of warmth and mosquito protection. Having thumb and two fingers exposed meant I could still handle line without needing to remove them.
 

Have been meaning to buy another pair. Here’s some photos I can find wearing them. 

Great rec! I’ll have to see if I can find somewhere to try the diff sizes out. I have a pair of similar gloves for sun protection but really thin for the summer, so no warmth benefit. Specifically bought them because they also had the thumb and two fingers exposed for tying knots. I like that the Daiwa ones you mentioned have a Velcro fastener at the bottom it looks like, my sun gloves are just slip on/off which makes taking them off only slightly annoying and wishing I had the Velcro securement instead. 

[Mike Sydney]

Yeah they had Velcro I found them on retail shelves at a shop in belfield a few years back but haven’t seen them in stores lately. 
I got the biggest they had in store (don’t remember the size) but they were very snug, hard to take off I would’ve loved a slightly bigger size. 

[Derny Driver]

4 hours ago, Mike Sydney said:

Yeah they had Velcro I found them on retail shelves at a shop in belfield a few years back but haven’t seen them in stores lately. 
I got the biggest they had in store (don’t remember the size) but they were very snug, hard to take off I would’ve loved a slightly bigger size. 

They look exactly like cycling gloves Mike.

Try a bike shop.

[lhan]

Another great report and congratulations on the new rod! I've been eyeing on the shoregun series for my shore jigging setup for quite a while...