Sydney Saltwater Scene

This month the normal pattern of fish behaviour has been affected by the torrential rain the Sydney region received in the first week of February. The long term effects once things begin to clear, should be positive, but consistently finding fish in water the colour of coffee remains a challenge. Surface action in the harbour itself has subsided as a result, but action may be found once outside the heads in the true oceanic current.

Kingfish to 8 kilos have been residing on some of the harbour structures, and respond to large flies stripped absolutely flat out once they've been allowed to sink deep. Try to have the boat drifting away from the structure when you start your retrieve. You'll understand why when you hook up. An interesting sideline to this activity is the presence of Samson Fish and Amberjack (both species confirmed) along with the Kingies. Anyone wanting a new species on their list should keep this in mind. Autumn means big bream time in the Parramatta River. The big stir up we've had should clear nicely to coincide with the movements of the big blue nosed spawners.

Prior to the rain Broken Bay and Pittwater boasted consistent surface action. Justin Duggan from Sydney Flyfishing had clients consistently taking 4 and 5 species in a session, with striped tuna providing the biggest challenge. There are still kingfish working in Pittwater if you know where to look, and some of the boil ups are massive. Fishing by himself recently on a drizzly day Justin released 14 fish and he tells me plenty more released themselves on yacht moorings.

Mark Rigg Thornleigh Fishing Tackle

Mackay Barra

I have just had a weekend fishing in Mackay (been working up there and had the weekend free). Due to extremely heavy rain, the rivers and estuaries were wiped out. Locals advised me to drive up to Teemburra Dam. The dam is just off the Eungella Rd about 50 minutes drive from downtown Mackay.

I fished from shore with dahlbergs and clousers within 100m of the launch ramp. The water was clear with nice patches of lillypads. I got there at 2pm Saturday afternoon and blooped around the lily pads for an hour or two with no interest from the fish. After a passing shower at about 4 pm, the sun came out and it warmed up. Suddenly they were on and I had five strikes in 20 minutes. I landing two 60cm barra. Then it went dead again. I left for the motel at about 6pm. The next day I went back - heh heh, who wouldn't? It was very quiet, colder and wetter than the day before. I tied on a big long clouser and methodically worked the weed edges. I got one hard strike that turned out to be a 65cm barra, hooked nicely in side of the lip. Unfortunately that was it for the day.

As it turned out, all the boaties caught nothing after trolling and lurecasting all day long - The ramp is a good spot! I reckon there were dozens and dozens of fish laying in the weedbanks all around me, only coming on the bite when the weather changed up a gear.

I would recommend a visit to Teemburra Dam for anyone passing through Mackay - so long as it is warm weather (Oct/Nov thru Feb/Mar). 8 to 10wts seem the go as the barra have a nasty habit of weeding you. Teemburra has only been stocked for two years, but it has been stocked very heavily and there are already 90cm barra in there. By next Xmas they will be way over a meter long. I will definitely be back again. They do switch on and off like light lightbulbs (as they can do anywhere), but where else can you fish for free, find 90cm barra within a 20m walk of the carpark and have no crocs to worry about ?!

John Knight

Archive - February 2002

Far North Queensland

In September as a result of an offer by Greg Bethune through Otto's, I organised a trip to Greg's new land based Seisa operation. I took along 4 very occasional fisho's and former Club member Juan Del Carmen. As you may know, Juan is unsurpassed when it comes to trout fishing, being a former Club champion and having been adviser to the Spanish team at the Australian and Swedish World Championships.

Over the past couple of years what Juan has taught me about trout, I have tried to repay with saltwater knowledge. Needless to say Juan and I were very excited about this trip. The accommodation in the cabins at the Seisa Caravan Park was very comfortable for such a remote town and the meals in the little restaurant (supplied) were first class. Undoubtedly the most amazing part of the trip was Seisa wharf. What appear to be billions of herring live under it and are constantly subjected to slashing raids by little queenies, shark and spanish mackeral, trevally and occasionally giant fish as well. Any baitfish that strayed more than 3 0r 4 inches from the packed school was immediately eaten and it didn't take long for Juan and I to start dragging little clousers and deceivers along this path. Over the week, following the days boat fishing we caught dozens of fish up to 12 inches from here and outfished the live baiters and lure fishermen (mostly locals) 10 to one.

On the serious fishing side we didn't do quite so well, the "season" running a little late. The rivers were not fishing well at all and I managed just one barra, although I lost a nice one at the boat. Juan is still chasing his first barra. Outside however Juan managed two Longtails around 8kg one morning whilst mine was eaten by a shark at the boat. I did get a 6kg consolation mack tuna however. I certainly had my chances, losing a metre long queenie after 10 min. due to the lack of a bite tippet and also hooking 1.5 m shark in just 1m of water whilst wading! Getting chased by small sharks whilst wading 100m off the beach certainly makes for interesting fishing and this happened a few times! Over the week we managed around 150 fish although the general size was small. What I really enjoyed was landing 18 different species and Juan and I managed 25 between us. Whilst the dreamed about goldens eluded us (not for want of looking) a great time was still had chasing heaps of little queenies, trevally and reef fish, often sight fished.

The highlight of the week was definitely thanks to two giant GT's the first around 40 odd pounds came out from under Seisa wharf and tried to eat my Clouser. I just managed to get it out of the way in time. Juan queried my decision and started casting under the wharf frantically. "All you'll do is lose your fly line and probably break your rod" I assured him but he refused to believe me. Luckily for Juan, the GT ate a tourists live herring instead and pulled his 80lb handline out of his lacerated hands, off the wharf and in amongst the pylons!

On our last day, Juan picked up the guides spinning rod with a huge popper and on his second cast with a lure in over 10 years, saw the pooper inhaled by what appeared to be a Volkswagen. After an hour, two kilo metres, much jeering and coaching from myself, Juan landed a 50lb+ GT. As he struggled to hold it in his lap for a photo, all he could say was "How could you ever land such a fish on fly?"

The second trip was a cruise on a friends 75ft cruiser along the Outer Barrier Reef in November and finished with a week in intensive care after the car accident . The trip however was delightful. Due to the restrictive nature of the mothership and the limited fishing ability of my fellow fisherman, most of my fishing was restricted to bait or trolling. One incident however, introduced a friends girlfriend and our cook to the sheer adrenalin rush of fly fishing. After trolling around the edge of the main reef and some bommies for a few spanish mackeral, I asked my passengers in the little tinnie if they'd mind if I had a few casts with the flyrod. "Not at all" they replied in a manner that suggested they wouldn't have minded if I'd been doing that for the past two hours (damn!).

As I motored up to the main reef, I spotted a boil up on the reef. "There's a fish" I said as I somehow released a brilliant cast first go from amongst the tiller, petrol tank and tackle box. My two passengers were suitably impressed. As I stripped the clouser off the reef a dozen fish magically appeared in the crystal clear water behind it. My passengers began shouting and pointing as the fish shouldered each other aside until one devoured the clouser. I was quickly onto the backing but fortunately the fish ran away from the reef.

Five minutes later I gently released a Big Eye Trevally of around 4 lbs and two new flyfishing converts declared "Now that's what fishing is all about!"

Short and Sweet! (Jamie Chalmers)

Fished outside of Sydney on the long weekend.
There was little surface action, but did manage to locate some good Kings and Amberjack at Long Reef. Had them at the back of the boat for about an 1hr. Managed to boat 4 kings & an Amberjack, lost several others that reefed me on my 13wt. Took them both on clousers and large deceivers, with a change in fly required from time to time to reactivate the bite.

Archive - January 2002

Pittwater (John Knight)

I spent last week staying in Pittwater at Currawong. There were big schools of salmon out in front of Palm Beach. At times, up to an acre all going off at once. Problem was the bait they were feeding on was really tiny - about 10-15mm long. Early mornings, casting to some of the smaller broken up schools, they weren't too fussy and I got a few nice fish. Later in the day, when they seemed to congregate in to one or two huge schools it was pretty awe inspiring to drift through thousands of big salmon, especially just at the front of the school where you could plainly see packs of fish from the back leapfrogging across the surface to move ahead of the bait and keep it bailed up. Spectacular, but they were impossibly fussy. I had my tying gear with me and ended up going down to calftail "eye" patterns on #10 egg pattern trout hooks. I only got a couple of fish with the tiny flies, but it was very satisfying - nobody else could get a hookup and mostly left in disgust after half an hour or so.

Archive - December 2001

Springtime Sydney - Saltwater Action (Mark Rigg)

The expected springtime run of pelagics centred around Salmon in the lower reaches of the harbour has been very patchy. There are schools to be found mostly around North Head but they are very fussy fish and no even the tiniest Eye patterns perfectly presented are proving to be of any help. Bonito have been relatively absent and there are plagues of undersized chopper tailor working sporadically over much of the lower reaches. Kingfish are present in upper middle harbour and I spent a frustrating morning chasing an actively feeding school near Clifton Gardens. These fish were very hard to spot due to the absence of any birds, and the boil ups were mostly of less than 10 seconds duration. Very challenging fishing.

Deeply fished squid baits are producing Kings at most of the channel markers and beacons. Sinking a clouser deep next to structures like these early of a morning could well produce. Further up river, after having made the mistake of showing Leong Peh my pet blackfish spot, Leong has been having very consistent action presenting both baits and flies to these great fighters. An olive marabou creation did the trick I believe.

I haven't been bream fishing but the water's warming up and any of the shallower flats in the Parramatta River are well worth a go. There's nearly always a few flathead anyway. Around the mouth of Broken Bay there have been several large schools of salmon and unlike the Harbour, these fish have been both consistent in their appearance and much more willing to take a fly.

A day I spent on these fish with Justin from Sydney Flyfishing resulted in roughly a dozen fish each by lunchtime. (All just to test his new Hornet you understand!) Number six Eyecons tied in white did the most damage. There are schools of Kingfish working sheltered bays and the size of the fish that Justin found the following week was a real eye opener. Metre long Kingies on eight weights are a worry and my one hook up for the day reinforced that.

And here's a tip:- It's a lot easier to control the initial run of a Salmon if you are NOT treading water at the time. Enough said!

Archive - October 2001

Jamie Chalmers spent a lazy Friday with a client fishing at White Rocks, off Long
Reef. Anchored up, they had Kingies at the back of the boat for over 2 hours, landing 6 up to 70cm and dropping 3 more on Clousers and Deceivers. Bass have been caught in creeks off the Georges river to 40cm. They have been busting up the surface in most areas. Surface flies are doing the trick.