Sydney Heads Saturday 2nd February 2008

G’day lads

crew this morning was my old mate Rod and Scrat Rat from Sydney Angler. We got away from Roseville about 6:45AM and had breakfast at Balmoral while simultaneously filling the live bait tank. The yakkas were in their countless thousands this morning and very hungry indeed.

Scrat has been having a bit of trouble getting kings on his downriggers. With the heavy overcast and water a bit over 23 deg C I confidently predicted we would bag out this morning. But as always happens Neptune decided to make me pay for my arrogance. We set two baits on the DRs and headed towards the inshore banks. Mark was already on station flyfishing and Swoffa arrived and started casting out in the deeper water. After two passes over the banks no bait balls had been seen on the screen and we had not had a strike. Yet patches of kings were clearly visible. We persevered, getting up over the shoal and burleying then turning to bring the baits back through the burley trail. This prompted a strike but the kingie got off. Another couple of passes through the zone and Scrat hooked up on a small but tough kingie.

We were on the scoreboard, but things were still quiet, so we decided to scoot over to Bluefish in the hope that there’d be a kingie or two under the suds.

No joy. We downrigged all the way back to North Head without turning a reel or seeing much on the sounder. Once inside the point (with the tide running out hard) we started to mark kings and soon after, Scrat was onto his second fish. This time a just legal one, which we decided to release anyway. Interestingly that king had a fresh treble hooked in the muscle under his pectoral fin, which we removed before release.

We took an early mark, stopping en route for a Maxibon and coffee at Cappucinos Afloat. A tough morning’s fishing compared to recent trips but the great company made it all worthwhile. Cheers to all, A

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