BLOG: Braving the elements

IF you live in Sydney you would know how ferocious the weather has been in the last couple of days. You would have to be an absolute fool to consider fishing. Well, you guessed it, I'm that fool...

Not only did I manage to brave the elements once, like an idiot who doesn't learn his lesson, I did another double header. So if anyone out there wants to question my obsession with fishing, I think the driving rain and monsoonal winds we have experienced should put that firmly to bed. Mind you, it does make me think I have a slight problem!

In such conditions, especially with strong sou-easterly winds, the Hawkesbury River is just about the only place you can fish in Sydney with some degree of comfort. I have been flogging the place to death lately and want to give it a spell to recover but it was our only choice. In fact, there is a semi-protected stretch of shoreline in Broken Bay about 500m long where we could fish on both days and it was a real challenge to fish flogged water for so long. It was a matter of changing target species and lures to keep things fresh.

Monday was our most productive session. Dad and I targeted flathead as this was the easy species to fish in the conditions. We had to upscale our jigheads in the wind and flathead are not usually discriminative on jig weights. It turned out to be a good tactic as we grafted away for our bag limit of fish. Surprisingly there were no big females caught as most of the fish were frisky males around the 40cm mark. The fish were grouped tightly together meaning if we caught one fish several others were caught in a short space of time. This indicated to us a big fish was on the cards but it didn't eventuate.

On day two, seeing as we'd pestered the flathead the day before, we decided to target bream. This was a real challenge as the wind made fishing light heads supremely difficult. It's a real test of faith. For less experienced fishos you never really know when your jigheads on the bottom meaning you spend far too much time mid water; and mid water means pesky tailor.

The old faithful 3" Gulp! Grub in pumpkinseed was the standout lure for the day and we bagged a good catch slowly mooching our lures off the bottom in 30ft of water. We also caught a dozen flathead as by-catch which is par with course.

In the end considering the conditions we had to contend with, I think we did extremely well. It beat sitting at home watching telly that's for sure.
P.S. If you need convincing how bad the weather was, take a look at the accompanying photo with the ol' man...the over-engineered wet weather suit should be enough!

What about you, been out fishing in challenging conditions of late?