Botany Bay - 15/9/07

With spring here I'm ever hopeful that the kings are just around the corner. With a few reports of kingies being caught just outside of Botany Bay, I had a quick 'before work' dash to the Hotwater Outlet. There was a lot of that slimey weed floating about and every cast the jighead would come back coated with the stuff, so after 20 minutes I packed it in.

Not wanting to go home empty handed though, I decided to have a flick about with a Gulp 3" Minnow in the Lime Tiger colour. 25 minutes later I'd caught my '5 bag' of bream for a total weight of 2.3kg's. If only I could do that in a competition!

Gary Brown from http://www.garybrownfishing.com.au/ had been out on Botany Bay last week and bagged out on the trevally, so Mick Munns, Terry Grima (who was taking his Hobie Sportsfisherman for it's maiden voyage) and myself launched from Foreshore Rd hoping to lure a few of them off the flats. The weather was perfect and we felt confident of getting a few.

Terry was casting a Berkley 3" Bass Minnow in watermelon and it wasn't long before he had his first onboard. These fish are great fighters and really use their broad sides to gain leverage within the water and you'd swear the fish was twice as big as what they actually are when you eventually get them to the surface.

As we moved over the flats, we looked for any variations or features of the seabed that may hold fish - weed patches, slight drop offs or indentations in the sand, even a solitary marker pole serves as a refuge for any baitfish and thus, also a feeding point for the bigger specimens that we were chasing.

I was using the same lure as I'd had success with the bream and it was rigged on a 1/16th oz jighead. I'd cast out, let it sink for a few seconds then give a few subtle twitches. Half way through a retreive there were two quick, sharp hits - bang, bang - and I was hooked up. This fish zipped through the water and I knew it was a good fish. The tell tale 'thump, thump, thump' could be felt up the line and my rod tip pulsed, the sure signs that it was a trevally. Mick quickly pedalled over and started filming just as I was lifting her into the yak. 48cm's long and 1 cm shy of my PB.

Terry and I picked up another 3 each and Terry even managed a nice 50cm dusky flathead which sped off quickly on release. Mick, who normally fishes me out of the water, couldn't pull a fish today so I've managed to peg a few back on him. Fishing can be like that. Same gear, same lures, same techniques and the same area but some poor schmuck gets nuthin'. Thankfully today, Mick was the schmuck! : ) Happy yakkin, everyone.

cheers,
Cid