Oatley & The Georges River - 26/04/2011

A couple of weeks ago a got an SMS from my old mate Jay who sent me a photo of the canoe he bought, I've been telling him for ages that he needs some water wheels and he decided to buy a canoe over a kayak for storage and carrying purposes. (I can't wait for summer and some bass camp outs now that someone can carry a tent, decent esky and a gasmate.)

We'd planned late last week via email to catch up rain, hail or shine on Tuesday after Easter Monday for a session around Oatley and Como for bream, flat models and a jewie if they were around.

We met at our first spot at Oatley around 8.45am, neither of us are keen on early starts and we catch good fish during the day anyway. The spot wasn't to be, we hadn't been there before and as it was getting on towards low tide the water was well out from the bank and the mud was like quicksand so we headed further around and launched from the ramp at Oatley Bay.

We paddled slowly out from the ramp, it's been a long time since I'd been to Oatley, actually the last time I fished it was from Cameron Jone's boat about 4 years ago and I remembered back then we were peppering the boats with plastics. I rigged a 100mm squidgy wriggler and cats around a few boats before the line went tight and I was on to my first bream a nice silvery little guy that was about 24cm to the fork. I released him and headed off to the next boat where I landed another fish about 23cm. not a bad start I thought but not the size I'm after.

We paddled further out towards the main river working the boats and pontoons as we went, Jay hooked to a nice bream about 27cm and things started to look up. we headed out into the main River and it started pouring non stop, I remembered talking to Carl about jewfish last week and he mentioned an awesome day he had on the jewies when it was raining, so I got out a big squidgy fish in the black/gold colour and rigged it on a lumo jighead. I cast and trolled it for ages until I was soaked through and decided to hide under a jetty until the rain eased a little.

I waited about 15 or 20mins and then headed back out into the rain which had eased a bit and started casting the wriggler again, I saw this row of 4 poles with some heavy wire mesh and sent the wriggler on it's way, I lift the rod and nothing, then I let the plastic settle again and one the second lift the line went tight and the rod buckled over, I knew straight away it was a better bream and I had to fight hard as it tried to bury itself into the wire mesh below the water line.

I battled for a good 3 or 4 mins trying to keep the fish away from structure and finally brought it to the net. It was a nice bream which was about 29cm to the fork and fairly chunky, I was much happier with this fish and the shivers I had from the wet clothes seemed to disappear as Jay took a photo of me with the fish.

That was about it for the day, except for a nice Pike that Jay hooked on the way back to the ramp, we bought thought it was a thumping whiting for a while, but it wasn't to be.

In all a great morning even though it rained fairly heavily, was happy to catch up with a good mate and get out on the water.

Cheers,

Fordy.

Daiwa/Hobie ABT Forster & Squidgy Port Hacking

Well, there's my leave of absence out of the way. A couple of busy weeks after moving into the new house but I'm back on-line and thought I'd better catch up with two of the recent tournaments I competed in. The first was the Daiwa/Hobie ABT Forster round on the 12th-13th March. Nothing of note to report here. All I managed was one legal fish the whole weekend. I was roasted a few times in the racks (which is pretty standard for up there) but apart from that it was a lot of casting for not much result. Although coming back into the weigh-in on the last day I raced past Meechy and you would've thought I'd cracked a good bag from my actions. In reality, I was just glad it was over. The photo is courtesy of the ABT website. http://bream.com.au/ The top 3 guys found the fish though and 3rd place was taken out by Stewart Dunn with a 6/6 for 2.57kg. 2nd place went to Jason Meech with a 6/6 for 2.61kg and top place went to Luke Kay with a 6/6 for 2.73kg. Luke found his fish in the Breckenridge Channel and found they took a liking to his Gulp 2" Shrimps in banana prawn colour. Well done guys on what was a pretty tough weekend as bag sizes and fish numbers were down on usual results. The next tournament I entered was the Squidgy Port Hacking Round on the 30th March. The weather wasn't great (the predictions were worse though) and this kept the kayak numbers down. Only 15 of us this time and I struggled to find fish. Pontoons and jetties just weren't working for me so I ventured into deeper water and finally pulled one up from 10 meters on a Gulp Camo sandworm. I then landed a couple of legal snapper that had me thinking I had found a chool of bream but alas, it wasn't to be. They were coming home for dinner though and then I even landed a squid, so he came home as well. I continued moving about and made it down to the weedbeds near Maianbar. The wind really kicked in then, as did the rain but I perservered and was rewarded with my best fish for the day, a 32 fork specimen that smashed my Atomic semi-hard (muddy prawn) as soon as it hit the water. I managed a few more that were just undersize and then I landed a first for me EVER! A Garfish!!! Being a first, he was granted his freedom. Time was up for me though so I it was in with the lure and into the long trek back. Reports from most was that it was a tough day, in fact only six of us yakkers managed fish. I scraped into 5th place and picked up a rod and reel combo and the podium was a who's who of the bream circuit at the moment. 3rd once again went to Stewart Dunn and 2nd went to on-fire Andrew Death (I think thats two firsts, a 2nd and a 3rd in his last 4 comps) but the winner (again) was Luke Kay who found all his bream in deep water and caught them on blades. This sunday sees the Squidgy St Georges Basin round being run (for details visit their website: http://www.ssbs.basinlureandfly.org.au/ ) and I hope we get a few more yaks at this event. Hopefully I can have a good round down there and get my bag nice and early. Happy yakkin', everyone! cheers, Cid