Cooks River 6-4-07

I had Friday morning to take the Hobie out and there were 20 knot winds and showers predicted. Being a creature of comfort, I didn’t feel like battling winds and getting soaked, so my options were limited to one place: the scene of last weeks Banana Theory 2 experiment – The Cooks River. Sure, the Georges has bridges too but they are fairly high structures and the Cooks bridges are nice and low plus the river is a bit more protected being a lot narrower.

And it seems that I wasn’t the only one with that idea! I saw about 6 boats all chasing bream and there were a couple of regular faces amongst them. Gary Brown was out with his son and his sons girlfriend and they were quickly putting together a mixed bag of flathead, whiting, bream and tailor. Pukka (Joe) from Ausbream was heading upstream and final reports from him were that they caught a ‘shedload of bream’ on HB’s and SP’s working the shorelines.

I was banana-less this time and was confident of bagging out pretty quickly. WRONG! After 2 hours I’d only landed ONE 25cm keeper. Where’s a fruit stall when you need one?

‘So why the slow start,’ you say. Well, you’ve probably heard the comment ‘No run, no fun’, meaning that if there is no tidal movement then the action can be very slow. I’d started fishing with half an hour of runout left and then had to fish through the dead low and wait for the water to start running in again.

Having confidence in your spots and also your technique and lures is a big part and I knew that if I could hang in that little bit longer then I’d start to get some fish. And the last half hour proved me right.

Back at the road bridge I landed a 35cm bream that surprisingly didn’t put up much of a fight. 5 minutes later I hooked another that I felt sure would crack the kilo mark as it screamed off once hooked. It ran back behind me and I was trying to swing the rod around and over my other rod while keeping the fish out from the bridge pylons. I really kept the pressure on and this is where good hooks and good knots are essential. I use the Berkley range of jigheads that are made by Nitro and they are fantastic, plus I make sure my knots are nice and tight every time I tie them. When I finally brought this guy to the net I was really surprised at his size. At 34cm’s he was smaller than my first but put up twice the fight.

The next two bream came from boat hulls and both were 27cm’s. So after 3 hours I finally got my 5 bag but it highlighted the fact that tide times can really make a big difference. Happy yakkin’, everyone.

Cheers,
Cid