Oyster bay - 25/8/07

'Another two weeks between reports', you say. 'What the hell is going on???' Well, last weekend it was our soccer grand final (which I'm glad to say we won 2-1. Yay!) and I wasn't in any fit state to go fishing on sunday. But I made up for it with two quick trips this week to Oyster Bay.

The first was a mid-week session that was very slow starting. The first hour went by without a touch. I tried various SP's and always had two HB's out the back when I moved from spot to spot. I mean, I nearly always pick up something while trolling around here. Once again it was as I turned for home that I got my first fish of the day. Here he is (all 33cm's of him) with the Gulp 3"minnow in pumpkinseed hanging out of his mouth. I pulled him out from under that jetty you see in the background. The only other fish I got was another bream from the next jetty and he went 29cm's.

Saturday morning was perfect on the water but it was Deja Vu time as again the first hour was fishless. This winter fishing can be very frustrating. As I surrendered to the moored boats and headed back to Oyster Bay I picked up a nice tailor on a black Smak Rackwalker. He was the biggest I'd gotten this far up the river. I switched back to SP's and from the same jetty I got the bream above from, I picked up my 2nd fish for the day. Another Gulp lure but this time it was the 2" grub in pumpkinseed. That's two for the livewell but not really enough to feed the three of us.

As I approached the ramp there were two boats launching so I decided to flick an Sx40 about while I waited. Three casts later I get a solid hit with a fair bit of weight but there is no surging run. I felt sure it was a flattie and when I got first glimpse of it I was a bit surprised about the lack of fight. it was only after I'd landed him that I saw that his tailed had been chewed to almost a 3rd of what it'd normally be. That explains the lack of get up and go then. With him in the bag I had enough for dinner and the bream was sent back to count his blessings.

As you can see, the fish have been measured on AKFF's new brag mats. These are excellent products and if you don't have one yet, get onto the site and order one straight away. Not only are they a fish-friendly way to measure your catches, they look great and all funds go to keeping AKFF up and running for all of us kayakers. The 1 meter mats are $25 and include postage. I paid for mine on wednesday and DaveyG and it at my door by friday. You don't get much better service than that. Thanks AKFF!

And for those interested in our upcoming DVD, I can finally say we've finished all the filming. It took a lot longer than we expected to get the footage we wanted but we feel it was worth the wait. If you want a quick preview of some of the kingifish and tailor action, we've up-loaded a clip on Youtube. Of course the video quality was kept low for the web and the actual DVD looks a hundred times better. Now all we've got to do is get the footage into the edit suite, which is where the fun starts.

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz2deaLhwuM

Happy yakkin, everyone.

cheers,

Cid

Oyster Bay - 5/8/07

Sorry for the lack of a report last week but I had trouble getting the right roof racks for the new car. I just know that every time I walked passed the kayak she was looking at me, almost saying 'Don't you love me anymore?' Finally the racks turned up though and sunday I snuck in a few hours down at the local. It was a real gentlemens launch time - 11am - and I was able to fish the last of the run in. Accompanied by the ever-present wind, of course.

After the dismal efforts the other week, I had a discussion with Gary Brown about where the fish might be lurking. He told me he'd caught some bream the other day over some flats in Sydney Harbour as the tide rose, so maybe they were up there in the warmer water. It made good sense to me so I figured it was worth a shot. I started by flicking a Halco Scorpion about and after 20 minutes I landed my first bream, a 28cm model that was introduced to my livewell.

5 minutes later I had another hit but the hooks didn't stick. I paused the lure for a few seconds, gave it a twitch and 'WALLOP', I'm on again. 29cm's this time and I'm pretty pleased with myself. The water temp was up near 14 degrees so it was much warmer than the cool 11 degrees of the Cooks River two weeks ago.

I moved off the flats and worked the rocky shorelines. Nuthin'! I switched to SP's (Sandworm in Camo) and on the first cast I feel a bump and set the hook into a 47cm flathead. 'Go the SP's!', I say. But that was it, no more bites. I even gave a few of the regular pontoons a good working over but all for nought. Back to the flats I go and bang, bang, two more bream fall to the HB's in quick succession. Only 25 and 26cm's this time but still legal.

And that was it for the day. I think most of the bream are still closer to the ocean but there are still a few about up where I was. I'm sure the warmer water over the flats was a key factor and I'll test it out again in a few weeks. If I can time the tides with an early morning, I think it'll be a good session. The HB's were worked fairly slowly, just an easy roll with a few twitches and pauses mixed in to spice things up. Happy yakkin, everyone.

cheers,
Cid