Cook River & Nepean Report – 26 & 30/12/06

With the year nearly over I decided to give the bream one more crack. Woolooware Bay was to be the spot but the predicted wind saw me change to the Cooks River where there’d be protection around the bridges if necessary. And am I glad I did!

I started on the boats but they were very quiet. So quiet I didn’t even get a nibble! The road bridge wasn’t much better; I only got two from there, both of 27cm’s. I moved up to the flats and fished the drop-off and bagged another two, one of 25cm’s and the other of 30cm’s.

Onto the railway bridge and first flick with the camo sandworm and crunch! Ooh, this was a good un’. Luckily he first ran away from the pylons so that when he did decide to go back to them I had him far enough out. After I slid him into the net I was surprised to see he was a black bream and a cracker of a black bream, too. 34cm’s fork length and weighed bang on a kilo.

I landed a few smaller ones but nothing that was legal so I eventually headed back towards the ramp. As I passed under the road bridge I thought I’d give it one more chance. I flicked right up into the shadows and my line zips across current on the drop. I strike and we’re on! This guy really took off and put a serious bend in the line. But he was too quick for me and ‘dink’, he busted me up. Damn, that was a good fish.

I re-rig and move onto the other side of the pylons. Same technique but I’m on my toes so when I feel weight on the line after a few hops I’m ready for it. I lift the rod and this one screams off too, I palm my spool and apply sideways pressure and turn him away from the structure. Out in the open he makes some strong surges but he’s away from the oyster covered pylons and another cracker fish slides into the net. A yellowfin bream this time and longer than the black though not as fat! 37cm’s fork and 1.04 kilo’s. What a great way to finish off the year.

I’ll leave it to Fordy to fill you in on our bass day so until next week have a Happy New Year and may you land some sensational fish. Happy yakkin’, everyone.

Cheers,
Cid


Bloop bloop bloop kaboosh…I love the sounds of summer, specially when it’s lures and Australian Bass, so there wasn’t even a decision to be made when Cid rang me about a morning session at Penrith.

We’d fished the week before between the motorway bridge and the narrows and got a good number of fish on surface lures and small divers, so we headed down to the rail bridge this week and worked both the banks as we went, crossing from side to side to hit the best looking structure.

From the previous weeks we’d learn’t that the bass would only hit fairly small surface lures, so armed with Eastcoast Pop’n’Bugs and Smak Skywalkers we worked the structure picking up a number of small fish until Cid and I both managed our first legals about an hour after we started, mine a 25cm and his a 27cm and both very healthy looking fish !
I had a bad case of the dropsies and I lost a couple of beautiful fish right next to the Yak including one that would have upgraded my current Penrith PB of 41cm. It was a top quality fish and it went like the clappers, running me in and out of the weed beds about 5 times before spitting the hooks right beside me, I was so unhappy.

I tried a number of other lures, working spinnerbaits down the outside of the weeds and cranking small divers through the pockets, but the bass just seemed to be holding the shoreline and waiting for small objects to fall from the trees, which they’d happily much and crunch as though they hadn’t eaten for weeks. We must have landed another 5 or 6 legals and who knows how many undersized fish before we headed for home.

Cid’s one last cast attitude paid off with the fish of the day, a 34cm fork being landed about 75m from the ramp, it pays to be searching with your lure from the moment you leave the ramp until you arrive back again at the end of the day.

The forecast doesn’t look too good, but then we’ve fished the last 4 trips for bass in the drizzling rain so we shouldn’t really be too worried about that. I’m sure we’ll be getting back into the upper reaches soon, until then have a very happy new year, stay safe and catch some seriously big fish.. remember the photo comp is still on so send us in your photos !

Cheers,
Fordy.