BLOG: Cyclical patterns

ARE you the kind of fisho who keeps a journal or diary of fishing sessions, or do you have an acute memory and can piece things together?

Fishing conforms to specific patterns and cycles and those who can read these blueprints are consistently catching fish. Fishing patterns are usually the smaller idiosyncratic happenings that exist, whereas cycles are more general and can be related to seasons and species.

Local knowledge plays a huge part in this. Fishing patterns can be endemic to a specific waterway. I recently fished the Port Hacking system in Sydney. As a local Sydney angler I had never fished the Hacking in boat, only shore-based. While I have fished the other three local waterways extensively (Botany Bay, Sydney Harbour and Hawkesbury River) this was by far the most challenging. It was apparent that immediate success was not possible even if I employed similar tactics used ten minutes down the road in the Bay. The patterns to catch fish there were certainly different to those I had encountered and as such I had a very poor day - one of my worst performances in recent memory. I found it difficult to tune in and knuckle out a strategy.

Fish have a habit of changing the ground rules. The local supply of food impacts on fish behaviour and also on what lures are best suited. Let’s take bream as an example again. In Botany Bay where the majority of their diet consists of molluscs and crustaceans usually sourced from the expansive flats scattered around the periphery of the bay, plastics resembling prawns or crabs are particularly effective. In the Hawkesbury where invertebrates are the main source of food, lures resembling small fish or worms are deadly. Reading the local patterns helps to devise a sound game plan.

Then we have cycles. Specific cycles might be the spawning run of bream in winter or the summer whiting run. The use of a good diary is often beneficial for this purpose as cycles are often repeatable from year to year or month by month such as the lunar cycle.

This is not a hard and fast rule and cycles are not concrete. The changing weather patterns do influence cycles. The summer run of whiting has progressively shifted to later in the season over the past 15 years and it is my belief this has to do with our changing weather. November used to herald the beginning of the whiting season whereas now, you are wasting your time if you pick up your beach rod before January.

Also, over the past few years I have uncovered another anomaly. The standard theory is that flathead are best caught as the water begins to warm. This has been contradictory to my findings in a few waterways where late autumn and winter have been bay far the better. I’m not sure if this is a pattern or a cycle just yet, only time will tell, but we have been experiencing 50 plus flathead sessions all winter. One session even tipped the magical 100 mark. Not bad on a day where our fingers were frozen stiff.

Having an open mind might be the best overall technique we can possess.

Have you noticed any changes in patterns or cycles?