BLOG: Deerubbun dreaming

The people of the Dharug, Kuringai and Darkingung once lived, slept and painted stories of their lives and dreaming on the sandstone cliffs that I often pass. The Hawkesbury river or Deerubbun as it’s known by its people, is a place of infinite beauty, in some spots you feel like you could be anywhere, yet it’s only minutes from our country's largest population centre. For a river that has suffered so much over the past 100 years it still produces exceptional fishing.

I have lots of fond memories of fishing the Hawkesbury. It was there I shot my first cover photo for Fishing World Magazine, a 1.6 kilogram blue nose winter bream that I caught on fly. I can still vividly remember my hands shaking as I approached the outside rail of the oyster lease, inside a high tide was covering the open flat trays by less than half a metre. The water was oily calm, stained brown from the recent rain, its smooth surface broken only by the backs and tails of big bream that were spread out along the length of the racks feeding and tailing like golden trevally.

This was a time long before the QX virus wiped out the Hawkesbury’s Sydney rock oyster industry; looking back it was probably some of the best bream fishing I think you would find anywhere along the east coast of Australia. It was a combination of the sight fishing, the size and numbers of fish that the Hawkesbury’s oyster leases attracted that made the big river so special.

Today as I pass bays that were once filled with rows of racks I can’t help but think about how much it has changed, but then again some things never change. The winter wind is still cold and the fish are still there for those that can drag themselves away from the home heater to put in a few casts.