Newcastle Bream Session

[Guest BBM Rick]

Grabbed my 16 year old nephew and headed up to my old mans on Friday (3rd feb) straight after work. Chuckled all the way on the 2hr drive up listening to my nephews colourful anecdotes. I am sure I wasnt as full of myself as him when I was 16!

We arrived around 8.30pm to a steak and cold bourbouns! After sitting around catching up with Dad for an hour or so, my nephew and I decided we should head out for a quick fish. Not much doing around Stockton, even at high tide, so we headed back in for a few more bourbouns and we hit the hay.

4.30am came around WAY to soon, but Dad worked nightshift for the last 30 years, and old habits were proving to be hard to break. So we loaded the rods and tackle and hit the bay (Fern Bay, that is). We found his favourite breaming spot and anchored up. Being at the bottom of the tide, there was not to much movement through the water which made the SP's the weapons of choice. Within 5 minutes, Dad had a 30cm Bream in the boat. 2 casts later, and I had a healthy 31cm specimen. My nephew hadn't had a touch. About half an hour passed before I got another 31cm Bream, a carbon copy of the first, except this one went a whole lot harder!! Was a real hoot!

The young nephew boated an undersize, but 5 minutes later, a cracker at 39cm, by far his best fish to date!

Things had started to get a little quiet, I suspect due to the tide having turned and the water was moving a little to quick for our plastics, so it was up anchor, and off to the next spot.

Of to "woodchips" which is in the old BHP area of the mighty Hunter. We had a bucket of live bloodworms, (my nephew now knows why they are called bloodworms ), so we re-rigged, and set about getting a few Flatties. And we did, one after the other for around 45mins, but not one even close to legal! Thats fishing I guess.

It was around 6pm when we had decided to call it a day, and go and clean up the days catch for that nights BBQ and bourboun session. After a nice whole BBQ Bream and a few bevvies, we decided to call it a night, going to bed in fear of the 4.30am wake up call.

4.20am sucks! But nonetheless, we made our way to the car and hit the road to the ramp. Conditions were much better today than Saturday, which was mostly drizzle and 20kn winds, so we decided to head out to the north side of the Stockton Breakwall, about 500m east of its tip. Once outside the protection of the wall, the swell was pretty decent! We stuck it out for a while, bottom bashing in 55m of water, catching tiny, tiny flathead, one after another for long enough for old mate nephew to cry "uncle", and beg to be taken back in, out of the swell. I begged to stay, I would have had ammo for months if he had puked!

We headed back up into Fern Bay to navigate some of the little creeks. Man, you could swear some of these little creeks were out of a NT Barra fishing DVD, exept for the Barra's, and the Croc's. As cool as they looked and felt, they didnt produce to much in the way of fish bar my 49cm flattie (on a Pumpkinseed squidgy wriggler tail), so we went back to Dad's favourite Bream spot. Nephew boated 4 legal Bream, including one that went 35cm, and I had 3, all 30cm. Poor old Dad got just the 1, around 28cm, but missed several good hits.

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend, it just doesnt get any better than spending time with the old man and any of my nephews, doing the one thing we all love. It probably wouldnt have mattered if there were fish or not, but I'm damn glad there was! Cant wait to do it all again, hopefully around the Hawkesbury next time.

Rick