Elbow slappers in Narrabeen

[Jo5hC]

After my recent success with nippers, headed out again this morning with @expositer and pumped some at Bayview and then headed to Narrabeen Lagoon flats. The surf was supposed to be extremely rough, which I hoped would bring an influx of fresh seawater into the lagoon, firing up the fish. I managed to hook onto a decent fish on the first few casts, thinking it was a bream, but when I saw the stripes I realised I had caught my first blackfish on the nippers. It was then that we realised we had forgotten to bring our measure mat, so we let the blackfish go as it seemed to be under 27cm. We also had a soft plastics rod with my trusty 2.5 inch grub that has accounted for most of my best catches. My dad hooked on with the soft plastics but unfortunately dropped the fish, and in the next few casts we had a lot of hits on the soft plastics but were not able to connect. I find that smaller whiting (around the 27cm legal size) can do this quite a lot. 

We moved along the edge and it was apparent that my hypothesis was right, and the current was very strong and pushing a lot of water into the lagoon. Fishing the edge, I managed too hook onto a good fish and after a bit of a tussle, in came a good whiting on the 2.5 grub. After that, the bite really started to turn on. I was able to get a small flounder on soft plastics (released), and my dad got a bream on the nippers. I was kinda hoping to get a flathead as I hadn't gotten one on lures in a while, so when I hooked onto a heavy fish, I thought it was going to be the one. As it was coming in, I still thought it was a flathead until I saw the streamlined shape, and realised I had a monster whiting on! Surprisingly the whiting didn't fight insanely hard but still had some good runs. While I was fighting the whiting, my dad hooked onto a bigger flounder which we kept alive as we didn't know if it was legal. 

On the way back to the shore, my dad picked up another bream which was extremely silver and seemed to be legal so we kept it alive to check if we found someone with a measure mat. Luckily we managed to borrow a measure mat, and measuring the first whiting which was already what I would consider an elbow slapper turned out to be 36cm, my PB on lures. It was only my PB for about 30 seconds, as when we measured the second one, it turned out to be a whopping 43cm! beating out my PB on nippers as well. The bream and flounder turned out to be legal as well.

One question - I saw a ton of nipper holes at the lagoon next to the caravan park which seemed pretty fresh, however when pumping, I couldn't get anything from them. I talked to one of the guys at the local tackle shop and he didn't really know what was happening with them either. Maybe they were just further down?

Overall very happy with the session, will be putting a lot more hours into Narrabeen/surroundings as its relatively local for me.

-Josh 

[Aussie_fisher]

That’s a very fat whiting 

[Yowie]

Nice fish, a good effort.

Some places I pump nippers in Port Hacking, there are many holes but very few nippers coming up. Other places, maybe 2 or 3 in each hole pumped. On a low tide, sand exposed, the nippers may be further down the hole.

[jordy]

Great work. Something you might like to try if you have nippers is fishing them on your plastics jig heads the lighter the better, I find it deadly on whiting. 

[Little_Flatty]

Well done. Yes there are nippers at the caravan park flats. Can be hard work at times but you will get a few.

[TheFishyFisherman]

2 pb whiting in one day! Great work

[Ryder]

Nice catch, and great report. The Narrabeen beach would also be worth a try, there are some really nice gutters close too shore at the moment.

[bessell1955]

A great feed there!

[sashkello]

10 hours ago, Jo5hC said:

One question - I saw a ton of nipper holes at the lagoon next to the caravan park which seemed pretty fresh, however when pumping, I couldn't get anything from them. I talked to one of the guys at the local tackle shop and he didn't really know what was happening with them either. Maybe they were just further down?

Nippers in Narrabeen are hard work - I see people with a pump there almost every time I pass by, even during the weekday, that must be the reason they take a beating. I pumped there myself a couple of times, but it's really tough going compared to anywhere else I've tried so far.

[Burger]

Measure your hand span from thumb tip to tip of pinky! Then you’ll have a guesstimate of your fish size if you forget you brag mat.

I’ve got small hands with about an 8” span, so need a span and a half for a legal lud.

Edited Sunday at 10:52 PM by Burger

[jenno64]

Nice work on the elbow slappers! 2 PBs in one day is special, keep it up!

[Peter K]

Great stuff mate.

As @Burger said, measure a hand span or foot length. My hand goes just over 26cm so for bream I know they have to be a fingernails length less then my span to actually be legal, and a fingernails length longer than my span to legal whiting. I don't like keeping stuff super close to legal so always go a bit bigger than to be sure. Similarly my feet are 30cm long, so for dusky flatty I know it has to be my foot long, plus a big toe! 

Sure that's only rough eyeball measuring but sure does help and prevents the guess work of killing or keeping a fish.

Additionally, as many do, place the fish next to the butt of your rod, then measure against your rod. I don't do this but I know a few people that have made DIY rulers on their rods/grips for either the legal sizes for fish, or just a measurement marking every 5 cm. Use a sharpie or a sticker to do so. 

You wouldn't want to be caught with undersized fish, better off catching a bigger one then getting into trouble. I'm sure you already do this.

Cheers, Peter

[Jo5hC]

7 hours ago, Ryder said:

Nice catch, and great report. The Narrabeen beach would also be worth a try, there are some really nice gutters close too shore at the moment.

Yea I was thinking about spinning metals or something but the swell was very rough yesterday, the whole beach was closed.

[Toadmaster]

This is one way to solve the problem

[GordoRetired]

They are a couple of lovely Whiting and I am sure were very tasty. Well done.

[XD351]

Damned nice whiting for the lagoon! Well done ! Last time i got anything like that in the lagoon was at night using peeled prawns that were then cut into two lengthways and threaded onto a #4 long shank hook .