Drop a fishing line in Sydney Harbour
HE flight from Melbourne to Sydney was a harbinger of the weather to come.
There was no meal service on the flight, due, our pilot said, to the conditions. The foul weather left behind in Melbourne was following me north along the east coast.
The next morning at the Rose Bay ferry wharf, where Al McGlashan picked me up, the wind was a 20-knot nor'easter but, as McGlashan rightly pointed out, it doesn't matter in Sydney Harbour because there is always somewhere to fish.
There were two other crew members: the British Labour Party's former angling spokesman, Martin Salter, who retired from the House of Commons in April and now lives in Sydney, and young-gun angler Thomas Eisenhammer.
First stop was Double Bay, around the first headland west of Rose Bay on the southern side of the harbour.
Several boats were already drifting and casting lures and flies to schools of fish busting up on the surface.
The target species were not big. We were using light tackle, 3kg to 5kg spin outfits, and our main lure was a 15cm clear soft plastic called a Sluggo, which was rigged on a worm hook. Worm hooks are a strange shape and most often used when fishing terrain where a lure is likely to get hung up on weed or rocks. When properly rigged, the worm hook point lies flat along the back of the lure and the bend of the hook protrudes below the lure to act as a weed guard.
The fish churning the water to suds turned out to be bonito, albeit small bonito averaging about 30cm long. These fish are like gold when you are looking for trolling baits.
Salter is no slouch with a rod. He had three bonito in the boat before anyone else hooked up. Half an hour or so of small-fish action and McGlashan decided we should go out to North Head at the entrance to the harbour to check out conditions outside. And conditions looked uncomfortable, at best. The sea was up and running, and the water temperature fell from 20C in the harbour to a chilly 14C.
Still, we gave North Head a few drifts, casting soft plastic and popper lures into the white water caused by the surging sea breaking against rock ledges.
After 10 minutes of rocking and rolling, McGlashan fired up the outboard and pointed his boat back into the harbour.
There were reports of bonito, yellowtail kingfish and salmon and tailor schools along the northern shore so we headed for Taylors Bay.
The method was the same and this time a few salmon and tailor were caught. Then we moved to Chowder Bay, next to Taylors Bay, fishing along as far as Bradleys Head.
There is a naval facility in Chowder Bay with a couple of large mooring buoys, about the size of small road tankers. It was from underneath one of these that Salter, who had changed his lure to one with a weighted jig head, somehow plucked out a yellowtail kingfish.
Most of the action, though, was close to Bradleys Head and McGlashan says the fish sit in an eddy just inside the headland and ambush baitfish schools as they swim past.
As the action tapered off along these bays, we moved into the middle of the harbour, and here the schools of fish were running along wind lanes. It was more of the same as far as bonito, tailor and salmon were concerned, but at least the action was constant.
We didn't hook a big king, but we had plenty of fun conditions on a day so windy that fishing would be out of the question on most bays.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/znfipad/escape-storytemplate/drop-a-fishing-line-in-sydney-harbour/story-fn6c8qmd-1225975342562#ixzz198VG2UEu
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