When the weather is unpredictable, and after ridiculous swell has just calmed down, it may be time to put the boat back for a week or two. With a warm weather spell that has lasted more than two days, and with little rain lately, I decided a few days ago that I would get back to the beach to do something that I think will always be close to my heart.

I have spent nearly 30 years growing up within a stone’s throw of this patch of sand, where thousands of people come & go every day. I must say that while I love all forms of fishing, there is something about the mobility, and simplicity of beach fishing that brings me some kind of deep connection with nature. Some kind of inner peace.

Any one man or woman with little experience can turn up to a beach, throw a line in, and catch a fish. In fact, anyone with much experience has almost the same chances. Here the environment is constantly changing, the factors are seemingly endless, and just when you think you have got it licked, mother nature changes the rules.

We choose to collect beach worms for bait, which, again, adds some kind of beautiful simplicity to this branch of the sport that many people probably don’t understand.

So after collecting bait, and finding a likely looking gutter I wade into the shallow, warm water and stare at the horizon. I think this dawned on me recently. This is the edge of the Earth. This is the last piece of terra frima for a thousand miles, and you are perched on it. Nothing interrupts my view of a flat table of ocean here. Nothing interrupts my thoughts. All but for the quick rattle and shake of a whiting’s bite, that is.

I lift the rod tip skyward and line peels off my little Caldia 2500 in short, sharp bursts. I wrangle the fish on 8lb gear and I know this is not over until the fish succumbs to gravity and lays on the sand. Getting quite excited now, I finally get the fish to shore, and it’s a big, fat, healthy whiting of around 40cm. These are one of the tastier morsels in the ocean, and a prize catch on the beach.

Upon looking at this ghost of the wash, his prehistoric head, his semblance to the fabled bonefish, his silver scales bright in the afternoon sun, I do something I don’t frequently do with such a fine table fish. I tell him to have a good day, and I hold him in the wash until he paddles himself away.

Something at that moment, caused me to knock back my dinner for beans on toast. It is then that I realise that this is so much more than sport, it’s life. Lessons I’ve learned, things I’ve seen, I can only hope that others can be as fortunate as I to take so much beauty from something so incredibly ancient, a sport that started tens of thousands of years ago, and has changed little.

Come February the water has warmed, the Christmas crowd has gone, there is space at the ramp and the weather is hot. Well not in 2012. La Nina is in swing, and with what seems like constant rain it’s been tough to get the boat out.

Nevertheless last week the commitment was made that we would see a few launches and hopefully some fish.

Tuesday; My brother and I decided to have a shot in Sydney Harbour and after a quick trip to grab some yakkas we set out with a tank full.

We got to our spot and after not much time at all I was hooked up to a king on a drifted yakka fillet. Measuring a paltry 65cm he went back in the drink and no sooner had my first ballooned yakka gone off. Up comes a healthy, fat Sydney Sambo, the first of many for the afternoon.

Hampered by just-undersized snapper, and the odd tangle, I sensed my brother’s frustration and I started to will him to get a nice fish.

Before you know it, the excited sound of a “ooh, ooh, yep… I’m… I’m on! I’m on! I look over to see my Daiwa Tierra bent to the butt, so I urge him to take it easy and he’s on a good fish. We are in 6M over sand and with a small amount of encouragement the fight is played out and up surfaces his first jew!

The only feeling better than catching one yourself is to help someone else catch one of these elusive estuarine creatures.

Following the success of the evening, my mate and I set out the next night (full moon) to the same area and fished the top of the run in, with not a great deal of luck. With 20 minutes to the ramp closing, I set a whole squid on the bottom and within a minute my Caldia 2500 is singing out loud. We finished this time with two solid bream and a school jew of around 60cm.

After little sleep and lots of filleting, Sunday morning was the next day we set out for ourselves.

This time the tank was primed with a dozen tiny yakkas, and we fished from dawn with wind against tide. In adverse conditions but with the sun on our faces we set balloons first. Rod in holder for two minutes, the first yakka gets scoffed buy a thumper flathead. A tasty by-catch on a ballooned bait. The next outfit was baited with yakka fillet and within another minute we had another flathead in the esky.

This action continued for several hours and in the end saw us land 3 kings, one of which was Tom’s first. Along with that there were a dozen or so trevally, a snapper, bonito, and a few sambos for good measure. I don’t think we had a dull moment all morning. The theory behind this was the area is sheltered from swell and contains nutrient rich water from the heads, which after all the rain could be some sort of haven for bait and predators alike. We fished wide of the usual point, which may have produced out of luck, but more so because we fished from low tide. On leaving at the high tide we bid the other 14 boats in our vicinity goodbye, and we were off.

The week saw us land many fish, and achieve a couple of milestones for my fishing buddies. I cannot explain to you the feeling I get when I see the elation of a friend, when I can share this pastime, my addiction, with another person.

The October long weekend is notorious for crap weather, so after a weekend of ridiculous weather, a Sunday of torrential rain and wind, Monday morning was the last shot.

A late call was made after seeing the forecast, and a simple plan was laid out; find bait, find Kingfish in Middle Harbour. The rule today was simple. Have a target, stick to the plan. Discipline!

So readied were the heavy outfits, including a brand spanking new Daiwa Saltiga Surf overhead which I bought for the purpose of downrigging, live baiting, and building bird’s nests on the beach.

We set out at 630AM, and after a quick run back to pick up the downrigger bomb we headed out.

First stop, Spit Bridge. Burley trail is lain, and after twenty minutes, and finding what looked like bait on the sounder, no livies were in the tank. Next on to the moorings at the Spit, none there either. Clontarf Pool. Zip. By this time it was 10AM, and a tiny baitfish that I have had no trouble with in the past has seemingly come into extinction. At this point frustration got the better of us so the decision was made to head to ‘old faithful’ Forty Baskets, and to try there for the elusive yakka/squid combo.

Notwithstanding the fact we had a 15knot wind and 3m swell to head through, the wet, bumpy journey was made across from Grotto to Dobroyd where we searched high and low for slippery, slimy fish. Zip.

Back across the slop, worse by this stage, soaking wet, over to Balmoral pool. And guess what? Nothing.

To exhaust all avenues, we attached a Yo-Zuri squid and downrigged it, for little gain. Actually, that’s a bit of a lie. No gain is more accurate.

We pulled the pin at 240PM after giving it what we called a ‘red hot go’. Perhaps it was too much fresh, too windy, too swelly, or just not our day. In the end we felt like we did it all right but sometimes it just doesn’t go your way.

Good weather, bad weather, and everything in between. There is not a day that breaks where I don’t want to go fishing. I’ve endured howling wind, belting rain, and sloppy swell – all in the search for a bend in my rod.

We are at the beginning of Spring, the air was around 25C today, but the water is still well below at around 16.5C in the ocean. Nevertheless with the afternoon off, a 3:40PM high tide and a bag of plastics, I ambled across the sand to Queenscliff beach and tied a 1/8 4/0 on with a 5″ Curried Chicken Gulp soft plastic. The target is flathead, not great sport but a great way to whet your appetite. Who knows, you can get anything at the beach so away I go.

Traditionally, soft plastics dominate the estuaries, bream tournaments and of course inshore and offshore snapper fishing. The fact of the matter is, though, that presented in the right way, almost anything seems to want to eat a soft plastic lure.

I get some funny looks when I buy 5″ shads, 4″ minnows, 2″ shrimps and pogy plastics to throw around the suds. It seems to be difficult to break the desire to cast a big, heavy sinker, in a paternoster rig with a pilchard or a squid on a 2/0 suicide pattern hook and play the waiting game. But this last year of fishing has proven to me that right place, right time and right presentation is a productive method to say the least. Casting metals at the beach has, after all, been done for years to spin for greenbacks, salmon and anything else that moves.

Agreed, the conditions must be under 3-4ft. You can’t fish in a raging current. You mostly fish the midwater, rather the weight you use is normally not above 1/4Oz and not below 1/8, so the waves wash you around a bit. But; the beach is like a plain. The structure at the beach is changing, and no-one really calls it home. Think of the beach as a buffet for many species scouring the ocean looking for a feed. By using just a 7′ graphite rod, I am able to cast over the first gutter and then retrieve as necessary. I am awaiting the release of the latest hi-tech casting gear from Daiwa, and at 11′ this should give me plenty more distance. Also, I find that the closer you fish to the rocks, the more action you tend to see.

The goal for this summer is to bag bream and mulloway off the beach on plastics. I’ll travel up the coast at one point, armed with only two outfits, a 7’/4kg and a 11’/10kg, limiting my options and forcing me to spend the time in working this all out.

The moral of this story is, no-one ever told the first person to stick a hook in a bait. Someone had to tie a float to a living yakka to develop a method. This wonderful sport is about trying something new. Our sport is nurturing to the inventive, and the reward of success by following your own head, and not someone else, is what makes it all worthwhile.

Well, it has been a tumultuous month, with winds afoul and enough rain to make half of us contemplate building our very own Ark.
Needless to say it didn’t take a lot of convincing to quickly nab the afternoon off work, seeing as though our thermometers reached a whopping 24C for the first time in what seems like an eternity.

My mates, Tom & Steve, and yours truly, hastily met at the Little Manly boat ramp around 1.30PM for a shot at the afternoon bite on sundown. With some absolute cracker pigs and blackfish coming out in the last few sessions
we all packed our bream sticks and something with a little more poke for the late afternoon shot. I felt as though I especially had something to prove after getting uncontrollably reefed by something big & nasty last time.

We hit the usual hot spots with Tom landing a very healthy blackfish on 6lb, and aren’t they just a blast on light gear… I also had dedicated the afternoon to having a shot on the new Downriggershop rod & reel combo which was kindly
loaned to me by Andrew which is about as light as light fishing gets – and didn’t I learn all about it!

Wash fishing from a boat on a day as calm as this lets you get in pretty close, so casting the distance was no trouble, and for a stick that feels as light as a feather it definately had some grunt.
This is some of the tightest turf you can fish, right up in the bricks, the fish were slamming surface baits like it was their last supper. Even in tough ground, I am pleasantly surprised at how much power I could get out of such a tiny little outfit.

Given we fished the last of the run out tide we did quite well, added to the incredibly warm, still air, we were all just as happy as clams. After the sun went down, we actually sat anchored in the dark just enjoying the water.

Thanks to Andy for the loan of the outfit, and to Steve for his generosity of knowledge and for putting up with my foul mouth all day.

___

After several months of deliberation, decisions, revisions & planning, finally I ordered myself a boat.

After many different options were reviewed, and all the pros and cons were weighed up, finally a carefully weighed and measured decision was made. My options were to go with a small, bare bones 2 stroke Stabicraft, for just under $30K, or buying a solid outside fishing boat which would accommodate 3 fishermen for just over $40K, or stripping it back to basics and get a stable platform aluminium Quintrex.

After growing up knowing the fun and productivity that can be had with inshore wash fishing, and skinny water estuary fishing, and with little knowledge of offshore boating, it became clear that the right thing for me was the Quintrex Busta 420 with a Yamaha 30hp 4 Stroke.

So when she was finally delivered, a quick trip was made to Roseville boat ramp for a quick christening, a quick toast and a swig of vodka later and Miss Belvedere had her name.

No sooner were we back at the shop with everything stripped off, lights, switchbox, extra battery, bilge, rod holders, Minn Kota Terrova iPilot and downrigger fitted.

So two weeks later she is finished we make a dash between hideous weather with a couple of rods and some plastics and away we go.

After seeking shelter from the 20 knot wind we eventually found fish in North Harbour, which saw us spending a couple of hours grappling some nice silver trevally and a couple of flathead which were all holed up in around 6 metres of water.

Wind, rain and time got the better of us, so the decision was made to pull the electric up and hit Store beach where we bent rods a few more times before the treacherous loading of the trailer would begin. We learned that Little Manly boat ramp is a fair weather ramp only but regardless of that a great day out was had. I must say I am feeling rather inspired for the summer ahead.

Diary:

Launched 0615
Sunrise 0630
Low tide 0626
High tide 1306
Moon 3rd Quarter 54% (waning)

So finally I’ve decided to get this blog happening.

I’m hoping to have as much detailed information attached to these reports about the conditions at the time, so we can use the reports as a diary of sorts… that’s the plan anyway.