SUCCESS WITH PROSPERITIES

Riches in Bream

Headed out with my partner Jessi yesterday with Blue Groper and Drummer in mind from the stones of North Sydney. Jessi hasn't fished properly in over 12 months from having our son Jack, so the aim was to get into some arm stretching species.

Weather was up a little, with 1.6 metre ENE Swell and wind at 10 knots NNE, being very early in the season for Drummer  Jessi and I decided to open it with a bang. Jessi had hooked her first Drummer on sunrise and what a rocket it was, Done and dusted just like that just as quick as it was on the hook, This Drummer bricked her in the cave very swiftly. The Drummer today were rouges, every Drummer hooked seemed to just peel into the rocks and bust us off.

Steering away from Drummer, I collected some crabs and rigged up for Groper. Yet again massive Gropers had the upper hand, with some very strong monumental wipeouts. A few Drummer pulled us in the caves and crevices of the rock ledges, but the most frustrating wipeouts were the mountainous Gropers. The towering drag screaming pulls from them were had us uprooting our feet from the ledges before being dragged into the underwater rocks busting 80 pound leaders. Extracting one of these monsters became a test, a test that was failed, these Gropers were to good for us today and we didn't land a single one with huge tackle loss.

The tide was on it's turn and without wasting any more time and tackle on the Gropers, we decided to utilize the out going tide and fish the wash for big Bream. There are some seriously big Bream to be caught along the ledges on tide change. I was the first to hookup on the first Bream, straight off the bar with a 40cm Yellow fin Bream, great way to open the account.

Jessi soon had the ball rolling, joining the catch rate at two fish to my one. Jessi then landed her first and second 40cm Bream, the action was incredible fish after fish were caught in the wash beating right up against the ledge metres in front seemed to have the most concentrations of Bream.

Our target species were not playing the same game as us, to be more accurate and be quite frank.... the Groper especially played the game better than us and wiped us out everytime. But the great thing about rock fishing is.... the prosperities and options continue, the vast array of species on offer can make up for a day that would otherwise be lost.

All in all it was a fantastic day to be on the water and even special to have fished with my partner Jessi that seems as though it's been an age since we have, and even a school of Dolphins circled metres from the ledge showing off for us as we fished for around 30 mins but only ever resurfaced as the camera was shut off.

Great day on the water, sun was shining, fish were biting, fish were also bricking. stay tuned for some more blog entries as I will be returning to extract one of these monumental Gropers for a photo with him.

For anyone that enjoys my articles and blog entries, or even fisho's that enjoy rock fishing in general. I am currently in the process of writing an article for an magazine (I will withhold the name of for now) on the history of Sydney rock fishing. Anyone that would like to help out with old photos of rock fishing in the Sydney areas and would like to be featured, please contact me on my email in the contact section of this website. All photos used will be credited for the photographer and the angler. Cheers

Dale Ward