Holiday Fishing

January 16, 2024

Christmas started early with an invitation from Drax to fish the Colo River, just west of Sydney. Green is launch spot, red is fishing spot:

The plan was to chase bass and also, check out some big carp at the red spot – which Drax had spotted, on a recent trip. One problem! We had misjudged the tide, which was way too low for bass fishing:

All good! After some boating – and a lot of dragging – we got to the carp spot. It’s the first bend upstream from the main cement bridge:

Whatever else you might say about carp, they pull like a bullock on PCP. I used my sneaky non purist rig, which is absolutely deadly. Just a small razor sharp Japanese treble, with a corn kernel on each barb. It didn’t take long:

This big beast took ten minutes to boat on 3 kilo gear (our 602 combo.) Can’t recommend this spot too highly for our western Sydney readers! They’ll pull a barramundi backwards. It's a great spot for a swim too:

602 COMBO

Next trip was between Christmas and New Year. My son-in-law, Ian, is from the USA and had never caught a decent fish. The obvious target was kingfish but we had the usual Christmas rough weather to deal with. We launched at Bayswater ramp in Pittwater and stopped by the Valiant wreck for some live bait. Then, on to South Whale Beach. The cliffs between the renowned Ovens (red) and North Avalon headland (green) swarm with juvenile kingfish, at this time of year:

and we just wanted to get him hooked up. That wasn’t too hard:

Having said that, the swell and the backwash were awful so we gave it away early. But it’s a great spot for downrigging.

BAY JIG COMBO

Next trip was on the Black Rat, a 32 foot Black Watch I’m fortunate enough to have a regular spot on:

Tough one! The target was marlin and we fished hard, but the only result was a small – but legal – mahi:

We found two private FADs, which will deliver results later in the season. A couple of days later, James and his crew did way better, capturing this beautiful 35 pound mahi:

But judging by feedback on the Facebook page, most of the marlin are up at Port Stephens.

Next trip was some rock hopping at South Curl Curl beach, in Sydney. Jeremy and I met at Manly wharf in the half light of dawn, and put six or seven tiny yellowtail in an esky with an aerator. Straight over to the rock ledge at South Curl Curl. I stuck to live baiting under a bobby cork for kingfish. Jeremy focused on shore jigging for bonito. He did way better than me, including two on one jig:

He ended up with four for sashimi, and I got a big fat zero:

All good! We’ll be back there soon. Next up was last Saturday, with a run to the deep reefs off Terrigal. Crew was Drax and Jeremy. The action started with small kings, but the good news was I was running a berley pot full of cut pilchards off the downrigger 30 metres deep. Soon, we had them up on the top – even though the sea bottom was 140 metres beneath us:

The fishing got hotter and hotter, but still the kings were borderline legal. But they came right to the top, and we were getting visual hits on 25 gram jigs. Pretty exciting:

Then, disaster:

Jeremy got one hook of his two hook rig in his hand – with the other hook in the mouth of a king. We cut the fish off and took a better look at his injury. Too close to call! So back into Pittwater, where Jeremy headed for Emergency and got it cut out. Back out again this weekend coming and hopefully we can make up the lost time 😊 Thanks for reading
Andrew Hestelow