Monday Luderick

[Little_Flatty]

I had the day off work yesterday, so decided to head out on a luderick jaunt. An early morning weed raid on the Parra found me a mixture of wiry green weed and cabbage. After all the difficulties finding weed/cabbage, I got to say that happiness really is a handful of green weed and cabbage!  

Get a coffee, have some breakfast, kids to school then after attending to a couple of distractions from work, get ready to head out. Arrived at Clifton Gardens about 10:30 and start fishing. I had my bait and fly outfits with me. I decided to try bait first.

I got a berley trail going of chopped weed and cabbage and then got fishing with a weed bait. First hour and a half passes with nary a nibble, though I sighted many fish in the berley trail. Bit of a surprise really, I would've expected a fish by then fishing with bait.

The gardens are very busy on a weekday, with school excursions (which I'm glad to see they included a brief taste of fishing for the kids!) and scuba diving lessons all going on at the same time. As the section of wharf I was fishing on started to get busy, I moved along.

Moved along the wharf and switched to cabbage for bait instead. Very quiet for a while, then I peer under the wharf and notice some dark shapes underneath. Wait...are those luderick? Drop my bait underneath, the float wiggles then ever so gently goes under. I tighten the line and feel weight. Up comes a little luderick:

This guy swallowed the hook so I made the call to keep him. Normally I'd like a little more size to the luds for a better meal and also allow for measure shrinkage after being on ice.

Another cabbage bait deployed and a missed hookup (damn). Then I notice the fish have moved. A bit more berley and they came back. Bait down, then come tight on a slightly bigger fish.

Not sure what was going on with its scales. Keep this fish too.

Then I decide I want to see if I can get one on a weed fly I tied recently. Rig up and get casting...well dropping. Fly goes down, indicator bobs under and up comes a little one, which was photographed and promptly released:

The fly fell out as I put the fish on the measure, but you can see it there. I tied up a bunch of these this winter, good to see that they worked.

Decide that fly fishing isn't much fun when the fish are under you (no casting!) and I also had an appointment to attend, so after that I packed up and went home. I might bring my Tenkara rod next time...a good lud on a pole with a fixed length of line might be more fun!

All in all, it was a good session. Enough challenge to keep me honest and a modest amount of success to show for my efforts.

The family enjoyed their dinner tonight.

[bessell1955]

A good result on the fly. 

[Green Hornet]

Nice going Mike. That wire weed works really well down my way even though it’s quite hard to find and only grows in one place that I know of. The fly looks good too. Is that a weighted bead up near the eye of the hook?

[james Cutler]

Top report. Well done. Great photos.

[Yowie]

2 hours ago, Little_Flatty said:

I got to say that happiness really is a handful of green weed!  

 

Not the smoking type I hope. 🤣

A nice batch of greens you found for the effort Mike. Certainly paid off with a few blackfish to be landed, one on a home made fly. 👍

[Burger]

Well done on converting the weed/cabbage into a feed! Nothing quite like catching dinner with float or fly you produced yourself.

[Little_Flatty]

43 minutes ago, Green Hornet said:

Nice going Mike. That wire weed works really well down my way even though it’s quite hard to find and only grows in one place that I know of. The fly looks good too. Is that a weighted bead up near the eye of the hook?

Yep it’s a 38mm green tungsten bead. Pattern and materials from an excellent and well known central coast fly tackle shop. I’ve bought them from them before but wanted more colours, darker green and also some brown ones with black beads as well.

1 hour ago, bessell1955 said:

A good result on the fly. 

Thanks Bessell 

43 minutes ago, james Cutler said:

Top report. Well done. Great photos.

Thanks James.

5 minutes ago, Yowie said:

Not the smoking type I hope. 🤣

A nice batch of greens you found for the effort Mike. Certainly paid off with a few blackfish to be landed, one on a home made fly. 👍

I’m not sure what would happen if I smoked the stuff I collected 🤮🤣

Thanks Dave, yes it was a good session.

1 minute ago, Burger said:

Well done on converting the weed/cabbage into a feed! Nothing quite like catching dinner with float or fly you produced yourself.

Certainly is! My interest in luderick has been well and truly piqued now. It’s funny that after one good session that you think you have this thing wired, only to be humbled at some time in the future. That’s a good thing, as it’s what makes fishing fun😎

I’ve had a couple of sessions now where the fish are there but just not interested in what I had to offer until I changed tact.

[Green Hornet]

Yep it’s a 38mm green tungsten bead. Pattern and materials from an excellent and well known central coast fly tackle shop. I’ve bought them from them before but wanted more colours, darker green and also some brown ones with black beads as well.
 

You must tie your weed flies bigger than mine considering 38mm is 1.5 inches in old speak 😂😂😂    
Seriously though, I buy my fly tying gear from the same place Mike. They’re great people to deal with.

 

 

[Little_Flatty]

2 hours ago, Green Hornet said:

Yep it’s a 38mm green tungsten bead. Pattern and materials from an excellent and well known central coast fly tackle shop. I’ve bought them from them before but wanted more colours, darker green and also some brown ones with black beads as well.
 

You must tie your weed flies bigger than mine considering 38mm is 1.5 inches in old speak 😂😂😂    
Seriously though, I buy my fly tying gear from the same place Mike. They’re great people to deal with.

 

 

Yeah I neglected to mention I cast that fly with a 100wt line to deal with a 150g fly and that little lud was actually a 40kg tree eating beast🤣

Sorry typo, it’s a 3.8mm bead 😎 Size 8 Gamakatsu pan fish hook.

[linewetter]

Nice catches!  The few times I've fished for luderick, have been memorable to say the least.  They nibble gently but pull like a freight train once they realize something is wrong.  Good on ya feeding the family

[lhan]

Great catches yam yam!

I used to say I would only fish lure but the luderick accident last time really makes me wanna target them!

Edited August 7 by lhan

[Little_Flatty]

18 hours ago, linewetter said:

Nice catches!  The few times I've fished for luderick, have been memorable to say the least.  They nibble gently but pull like a freight train once they realize something is wrong.  Good on ya feeding the family

Thanks mate, that’s luderick fishing to a T!

15 minutes ago, lhan said:

Great catches yam yam!

I used to say I would only fish lure but the luderick accident last time really makes me wanna target them!

It’s worth a try! You have all the gear you need already, just need to add a float/splitshot/hooks to the equation. I’m still learning the ropes but having fun doing so😎

[TheFishyFisherman]

 Nice! I somehow haven’t got a single one even though I’ve been specifically targeting them since last week 🤣. Good job catching them

[Little_Flatty]

On 8/8/2024 at 3:40 PM, TheFishyFisherman said:

 Nice! I somehow haven’t got a single one even though I’ve been specifically targeting them since last week 🤣. Good job catching them

That’s fishing! I have had a few donut sessions on fly lately so decided to collect some bait/berley for this session. Still fine tuning my fly sight casting game. It’s a thrill to see fish rising to a fly even if they don’t actually touch it in the end. I know for a fact it’s mostly me and not the fish. Enjoy the challenge.

A week is not long. Hang in there, try various depths and baits and success will come. Even with this session I didn’t hook anything for a good while until I moved locations and settled on something that worked.

[big Neil]

A good report Mike and encouraging to see that Luderick are to be found in the usual haunts. I know what you mean about fishing under your feet, much better to fish where you can interact with what the fish are doing relative to the bait/lure.

bn