The Fly life

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Rock Hopping- Many firsts in a day

The past 2 weeks have been rather fishless ever since My beloved Loop opti was snapped by a rampaging JEWie. So when time came for a fish, I decided to make the most of it. The arsenal this time was simple. 9Wt Green wand+ lots of sink tips+ lots of sinking flies.


Walsh bay proved to be quite a bad start for the morning as my fishing Companion Brandon landed our only fish for the session. A tailor. Dejected and wishing that my only fishing day for a while could have gone better, I was pleasantly surprised when My better half's uncle called me to ask if I'd like to join him for a fish. As I was in need of a serious hook up "Yes"was undoubtedly the reply and I was off.

Thinking that the harbor was not really producing the goods on this glorious day. I opted for an estuarine location. to keep things short. It was not good either and bush overgrowth made my casting a little hard.Then "Uncle" Suggested going to the moutain goat place (it's his favorite bait fishing spot). For those that have been following our blog, This is one tough fishing spot to get too. Climing rock face walls with wand in hand is no joke. But I had an itch to scratch and would happily have swam through lava if I was promised a chance at a decent fish.

this time I kept it simple. Just rod flies and some leader. The Simms sun-gloves doubled for climbing gloves and my first cast was made. "Uncle"was doing his usual bait thing as I started my retrieve. "slam" my fly was hit by a kingie. this came together with uncle shouting and waving as his rod was bent into a deep arc.

Smiling I thought "How Green tide is this ?" needless to say when fishing off the rocks and decent kingies are about, you loose a lot of shooting head. Fights were kept to minimum time with all Kings busting both of us off. When I say all it was about 4 of them with 2 a piece. My 4 inch deceivers were dissapearing at an alarming rate.

Convinced the kings were not to return for a bit. I swapped to a surf candy when I saw fishing chowing down on the burley trail uncle had set up. Casting and fast stripping trough the surf brought up Sea pikes of all hues with the biggest of the bunch kept for a bbq later that evening.As the Pikes were noting of a strain on the 9wt, I got negligent and forgot to check my tippet. The rocks we were fishing from made short work and I lost my favourite surf candy.

As the action quietened down. I thought I'd try to explore the rock outcrop with some sinking flies and proceeded to loose at least 5 clousers and 30 more feet of shooting head. This prompted a change of tactics and a 2 inch white deceiver was tied on to my 14th tippet of the day. first cast out saw boils and uncle's bait get smashed. Seeing that uncle was on a good fish, I re cast and was rewarded with my First Rocks based Australian Salmon (kahawi) on fly! it put on a great display jumping as it did in an attempt to free itself. Unfortunately, Uncle thought it was prime BBQ fish and killed it while Helping land it from the rocks.Asian Bait fishermen.. everything is a feed.

So on the salmon run went and I was having a ball till a fish of unknown description took my last deceiver and wrapped me on a rock bommie.having lost the last of my shooting head, I decided to give the clousers one more go and cast out a 1/4 weighted model. This day nothing could really go wrong. the last cast out(uncle reported no more bait and had already started cleaning the fish he wanted to keep which means everythiing). was smashed by my first legal Snapper on fly! what a way to end a glorious day swoffing around Sydney.

Actual time spent fishing (around 12 hrs)

time spent getting into fish (1 hour)

Unbelievable. It just goes to show that location plays a huge role in success or failure and I'm thankful for being able to fish such a remote part of Sydney and catch some of the most memorable fish in my Angling career.


PS: It was unfortunate that every fish that showed some size was killed and taken home by Uncle and some of the photos are only of those that had been cleaned. I'm trying to educate my old schooled companion but it is proving to be a long long road.Still I will try till he understands why we catch and release.













Till the next time

take a kind Fishing!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

When Night fishing have you guys tried using a green under water fishing light? the fish come to it like flys to a front porch light
I bought one and stocked my freezer!!

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