Winter Forster Trip

Jo5hC · July 24

Headed up to Forster with my mate Nathan (@MCNC) and both our families for 3 days. Goal was for both of us to get our first Jewies ever.

Day 1: Only arrived at 8:30PM so started fishing at around 9. The water was really clear and I could see tons of baitfish which I think were herring around the jetty as well as packs of big luderick and bream passing through occasionally. Unfortunately there were many dolphins about at this time that were getting quite close to the jetty which made the fishing quite slow. Nathan managed one small squid that we kept alive for later. Saw a flatty around 60cm sitting in literally 50cm of water right at the base of the jetty. Dropped a plastic on its head and it spooked and swam away. We also explored further up to the marina and while walking saw what must've been a 80-90cm flatty sitting right on the side of the wall which swam away once I shone my headtorch on it.

Day 2: Woke up early to fish the beach and also try for beachworms for the first time. Had bust ups happen very close to us but yielded nothing. Having only watched youtube tutorials on beachworming we couldn't raise any and called it there. Went to a local tackle shop to ask for advice and learnt that 9 Mile beach was much better for beachworming due to the banks and also that there were many Jewies being caught off the wall which was a good sign. Headed to 9 Mile armed with a mullet slab and some pilchards to hopefully get onto some worms. After about 5 minutes of waving the mullet around, Nathan and I were able to raise our first worm. We attempted to use our fingers at first but after missing countless worms, Nathan finally pulled up a tiddler worm. After the trouble of pulling one worm with fingers, we had a go with some small pliers which were much easier and I soon got my first worm. The worms were not very large which made them quite easy for the pliers even though we were still pulling the heads off occasionally. After gathering about 10 worms, we had a few casts with them off the beach only yielding one undersize whiting. With the winds howling we decided to try and find shelter moving back into Tuncurry. We quickly moved on as we were plagued by sweep and decided to fish the tide change at the breakwall as it coincided with sunset which was probably our best bet for a jewie.

Getting there Nathan chucked out the squid that we caught on the first night and no kidding, on the drop it was eaten in about 2 seconds. The fish fought hard and brought him into a snag where it pulled the hooks. After a few casts with a baitjunkie minnow, I hooked up to a decent fish that was pulling a bit of drag. Seeing a silver flash as the fish came up to the surface made me think it was the target species but it turned out to be a fat tailor, my PB at 48cm. While trying to unhook the tailor, Nathan hooks onto a very sizable fish on a squidgies prawn paddle tail. After a bit of a tussle, his first Jewfish at 72cm was landed which we kept. After switching to a squidgies prawn as well with a heavier jighead, I hook on pretty much instantly with some pretty hard headshakes but not putting up much of a fight and was able to get my first Jewfish, just a little soapie at 49cm. A few more casts later and I presumably get snagged, however when I tighten the drag and start pulling, something starts pulling back. The drag screams for about 2 seconds before I hear a twang and the hooks are pulled out of the mystery fish. After that I got snagged and lost my leader as well as running out of jigheads, probably the worst way to end a hot bite as all those 5 hookups and 3 fish landed were within about an hr.

Day 3: Woke up early to try again at the breakwall with more jigheads and a fresh leader. No luck unfortunately. Plan was to head down to Wallis lake and try target some whiting with the beachworms from the day before but arriving at the spot, it was clear that we would not be able to do anything due to the winds. On the way back, we stopped by the central coast around the Ettalong area and had a quick flick. Managed one flatty, 3 trevs with the biggest going 40cm and one mullet.

Overall very happy with the trip as both Nathan and I were able to land our first jewfish and both on lures which is even better as well as having some fun trying out beachworming. Unfortunate to have lost a big one but the one that got away always fuels the obsession...