first casts

Hello people,

The weather's warming up in Sydney and hopefully the fishing as well.
Have been fishing quite abit in the past three weeks, thanks to the
discovery of a productive spot as well as the return of Brandon to
Sydney.

First picture is the end-of-day catch after a session (the best one in
four) at the new bait soaking spot. Water depth is pretty much like

Clifton Gardens, and so is the rig used. The spot is within the Sydney

CBD. On that particular day, Reuben and me were fishing the upcoming
tide from about 11am to 4pm. There were intermitten showers but the

fish dont mind, before the first shower, Reuben hit the biggest bream
of the trip, and continued to hit 2 more as the rain came down. I only
had one bream for the whole trip. When the rain stopped, I released 2
undersized snappers, and had a bite off on a suspected big tailor. We
proceeded to land 5 Tailors. And when the tailors went off the bite,
The Trevallys came in a constant trickle till about 3pm. Would
actually be going back there this

weekend if not for the APEC making
the CBD area out-of-bounds. But the good thing is that Friday is a
public holiday, and Reuben and myself will be doing some flycasting
and fly fishing.

Brandon returned from his holiday in Thailand and fishing comp in Fiji

and was raring to try for Aust Salmon on fly in the harbour. A last

minute trip was arranged late friday night for a sortie on Sat
morning. We located the salmon but they were very spooky, and we only
had 2 chances to cast at them. Unfortunately, we didn't hook any. Good
news was that among the 5 to

6 fly boats out there, only one got fish.
Feeling pretty dissatisfied and hearing of reports of the bass coming
on the bite, we decided to head west to the sweetwater see if we're
lucky. We tried the usual spots that Brandon "inherited" from a
fishing guide but had a big fat donut after an hour and a half of
casting.

With nothing to lose, we thought that we should head over to the weir

for a look. Good thing we did... the place looked like bass country...
tall grass on the side of the banks, sparse underwater vegetation seen

about 2 feet below the surface. We bombarded the area for nothing in
the first 30-45 mins until about 520pm when the rises / surface
activity started to pick up. At the time, I had given up hope of
catching something for the day, and decided to tie on a pink charlie
to see if I could entice a herring to strike... there's gotta be
something with all the water act

ivity happening... whenever I saw a
rise, I would cast within 2 feet of it. And on the fateful cast, my
line tightened... After a drought of 2weeks, it felt good to hit
something decent on fly again. I thought it was a herring but Brandon
called bass after seeing its forehead. The fish was guided into the
net without any dramas and I finally landed my first Australian

Bass!!! After wasting about 10-15 mins trying to get a good shot on
the phone camera (that's why the lousy pic quality), back to fishing.
Saw another rise about 60-70 ft away, put in a cast, 3 strips, and I'm
on again. But this time only a little one. And after that, they went

off the bite... the surface activity was still happening but they're
just not taking the charlie. It's pretty late anyway so we headed
back.

This sunday would be the Sydney angler fly fishing social for Aust
Salmon in the harbour, I'll be on Brandon's boat again and we'll see
if we get lucky this time round. Still do not have plans for Sat at
the moment. Can't wait for friday.

Cheers mateys!

-Justin-