Sydney Harbour - February 2006

Sydney Harbour

Date: February 2006

This month's outing was in Sydney Harbour. Members met at Kariong at 5.30am and after hearing from Bob that he was running late (suprise suprise), headed down the F3 through the North Shore to Roseville where we launched in the upper reaches of Middle Harbour. We all headed down the harbour, Rob Harwood and myself stopping at Bantry Bay to take a look before continuing on. Down near the Spit Bridge Rob spotted some surface action so we stopped to investigate. The action was sporadic but soon our attention was taken by a large fish cruising on the surface about 50 feet from us. At first we thought it was a shark, but the lack of dorsal fin gave it away as a small cobia about 1-1.5m long. We cast some large baitfish patterns at it, eliciting a half-hearted response and chased it down towards the bridge before it disappeared. We continued on, investigating the other bays before heading out towards the heads. A quick call to Bob and Hamsih indicated they had found some slimy mackerel outside and were heading up to Long Reef with Leon who had already caught a frigate. We cruised around in the 3m swell for a while before finding the patch of slimies. The water looked brown they were so thick, but hooking one proved tricky. Finally I managed one on a gummy minnow, but they soon went down and we saw no more of them before we decided to head back inside. From here were crossed over to the Naval Base and fished around there before moving around Middle Head to fish with a bit of berley. Some penguins indicated the presence of baitfish but there were no larger species with them. By late morning Rob and I headed back up to Bantry Bay and tried berleying there for a half an hour without success then headed back to the ramp with the rest of the group to have lunch. Most of the guys reported slim pickings with Dave and Jim hooking some tailor early on, but it was Bob, Hamish and Leon who did the best with some small kings and other pelagics between North Head and Long Reef.