Brisbane Water at Dusk - January 2001
| Once again the weather gods were not smiling on us as we got to the boat ramp at Gosford shortly before 14:30. Put another way - Waves were breaking over the retaining walls at the Gosford Marina and Iguana Joes Restaurant on our arrival at the Gosford Boat ramp. A very stiff South Easterly was blowing right up the middle of Brisbane Water and whipping up a swell with whitecaps thrown in for interest. It would have made for a wet and bumpy trip if we had have put in at Gosford. A few quick discussions saw the venue change to Correa Bay Boat ramp where there was still a breeze, but at least it was fishable. That was the easy part! The next task was to find some fish in the protected area of the bay. We headed up the creek a little an started to berley with some bread to get the mullet on the prowl. It took a while to see any action and when we did the fish were all of about 5cms in length. A move was in order. We moved back out into the deeper water and found mullet breaking the surface, so over went the anchor and the berley trail started again.It wasn't long before we had a school of mullet breaking up around us in search of some of the bread floating around the boat. Mark Williams and Dan Jonas had the run of the boat and started to cast to where the fish were feeding. Mark hooked up first on a small bream, that was quickly returned to the water. It wasn't long before Mark had the first mullet of the outing in the boat and ready for a quick mug shot prior to release. I kept the berley trail going while Dan and Mark continued to float flies in amongst the bread. Mark hooked up again, this time another bigger bream, but it slipped the hook at the boat. A short time later and Mark was into another fish, this time however it was Mark's first whiting on fly and not a bad one on a bread fly!Roy Browne turned up in his shiny new Hornet 390 and Dan jumped ship for less constrained quarters. Roy anchored just up from us and Dan and Roy started another berley trail and I picked up the fly rod and started casting into the trail. Dan soon hooked up and a nice bream was brought to the boat for release, Dan's biggest bream on fly to date. Browney foul hooked a mullet and quickly despatched it back to the water. Mark and I got tangled up and after I had undone the tangled leaders, I somehow managed to get on of the flies imbedded in my shirt and the other one firmly imbedded in my thumb! It went in all the way and the point was coming through the other side. I tried to push the hook right through so I could either de-barb it or snap it off and pull the hook free, but it wasn't budging. I ended up after about 10 minutes cutting the hook in half near the bend and feeding through my thumb. Mark was on the first aid kit and I soon had a band aid over the wound and ready to fish again. By this time the fish were off the bite and all we could see in the berley trail was those small 5cm mullet again. A quick call to Bob Williams who was now on the water out near Woy Woy and we headed up towards the railway bridge at Woy Woy to see what the conditions were like out in the main channel. Bob and Chris Martin had been fishing the leases and battling the wind for a while with two lost fish in the leases to Chris. Mark and I tried Lintern Channel for nil result and as it was getting dark we picked Dan up and headed back to the ramp. Bob and Chris continued fishing the leases. Chris got busted up again and Bob landed one small bream. Chris then donated a fly line to Bob's outboard motor and it was quitting time for them also.So despite the weather we still managed a few fish, found some spots to fish in a heavy SE wind and had some fun. I managed to hook up on myself and little else, but at least I know the easiest way to get a hook out of one's thumb!!! From now on we are playing "chess" whenever we talk about fishing. Maybe that'll confuse the weather gods and we will actually get some decent weather.   |
