Welcome

The spectacular sunset that bought a close to day one of our trip.

During late September 2006 my brother Ryan and myself planned on visiting Weipa for four days. Any trip to the west coast generates considerable excitement and even a sense of expectation in my home in Cairns. My previous Weipa trip took place in late 2003. It was probably one of the most memorable fishing experiences I’ve had with several excellent barra lure casting sessions, some top queenfish action, and some exhilarating golden trevally jigging. That trip spanned over 14 action packed days fishing at several landbased locations close to the Weipa township. The plan for our recent trip was to return to these spots keeping in mind the successful tides from three years prior. That initial trip occurred during my uni holidays. Since then a rather busy continuous work schedule has followed. As a result this time around we were forced to make do with a mere four days. When you subtract the time taken stuffing around unpacking/packing on the first and last days it is really only three days of fishing (if that). The advantage this time was our ability to plan the trip to coincide with the tides that had fired before. We also knew where to get supplies and importantly where to fish.

Looking along the sand at The Spit.

Living in SE Queensland were blessed with some beautiful shore fishing opportunities from Jacobs Well to Tweed heads, but one of my favorite spots to sped a day is The Spit, on the Gold Coast. Besides been incredibly scenic, it offers some fantastic bread & butter fishing including Whiting, Bream & Flathead with the occasional Squire (small snapper) thrown in for the mix.

A Day on the Bay by Gary Brown and Scott Lyons

Now this DVD is not shore-based, but some of the techniques that are covered can be used by angler when they are fishing from the shore. Also all of the fishing spots shown in the DVD are for those anglers who fish from a boat in Botany Bay.

During the early nineties I teamed up with Scotty Lyons and started running on the water fishing classes at Hunts Marine, and it was during that time that Gary and Scott decided to put together this DVD on “A Day on the Bay”.

The DVD covers how to catch live bait for yellowtail kingfish, techniques on how to target dusky flathead with soft plastics, bait fishing for yellowfin bream and silver trevally and lure fishing for tailor, places where to fish on Botany Bay and even how to clean your catch. It also covers what type of baits to use and how to rig them, the type of gear we used, plus much more. There is 55 minutes of running time, plus 20 minutes of extras.

If you are interested in getting hold of a copy you can contact me by email at gbrown1@iprimus.com.auand I will let you know where you can get one.

Wading in the clam water flicking lures.

Woodgate Beach is a sleepy little town lying between Burrum Heads & Bunderberg Qld, about 4 hours north of Brisbane. It’s a place where no one seems to be in a great hurry & the kangaroo’s have free roam. It has a caravan park, local shop, news agent, pub & a bowls club, but besides the residents that’s really about it and it seems to be missed by most of the tourism and development of the surrounding area’s. The beach it’s self is sandy white, with crystal clear water, that is home to both Whale’s & Dolphins alike.

I’ve been lucky enough recently to spend a week down there camping in the local caravan park. It has all amenities and is in general, filled with the more established members of the community, or can I just use the term elderly. Be warned, if you happen to stay here on a Monday night, the locals gather for a “Happy hour” in the camp kitchen, which is basically a drunken sing along for those who are “established” enough to know the words.

Fishing Guide to Sydney – Hawkesbury by Gary Brown.

The Fishing Guide to Sydney- Hawkesbury-Botany Bay-Broken Bay-Port Hacking-Georges River-Parramatta River was first published back in 2002 and there are 39 maps that list 495 different fishing spots that will give you a bit of an insight of when and how to fish these parts of Sydney and about half of them are land-based spots.

Within Sydney’s 4700 square kilometres you will find some of the best fishing in the world. There are numerous fish species, so many so, that it would take ages to name them all.

Visitors and local’s alike fish with artificials and bait for Australian Bass, bream, dusky flathead in the pristine areas of the Nepean, Port Hacking and Woronora River. They can also chase Australian salmon yellowtail kingfish, tailor and tuna at the entrances to Botany Bay, Sydney Harbour and Broken Bay.

There are also the fishing brigade that will fish for bream, flathead and mulloway by either trolling or casting the many kilometres of river banks in the Georges and Hawkesbury rivers and for those who like to spend an early morning on one of the many ocean beaches can chase whiting, bream or tailor or maybe chase drummer and luderick off the ocean rocks.

Another option is to travel offshore to one of the many reef and gravel complexes dotted up and down the coast and drift or anchor for snapper, morwong, leatherjackets, sweep, trevally, flathead and pinkies. Or maybe you would like to try trolling or live baiting for yellowfin tuna, dolphin fish Spanish mackerel or even a marlin. Sydney has it all.

For me, fishing with Soft Plastics is one of the most satisfying ways to catch fish.  Convincing a fish to bite a small soft piece of floppy rubber is not as hard as you would think.  To fish efficiently and comfortably with Soft Plastics, you need to have a setup that will allow you to cast all day long (If you put in that much time!).  You will also be casting fairly light weights, so the setup needs to be able to cast the light weights as far as possible.

The setups I use are pretty cheap, but I have never had a problem with them.  You can spend a lot of money on Soft Plastic setups.  Rods such as G-Loomis are worth a fair bit of money, but the old adage does ring true…  You get what you pay for!  However, you can also get away with spending a medium amount of money, and you will get a decent outfit that will provide years of use provided you look after your gear.  By saving money on the rod & reel, it allows you to have a little bit more money to spend on the Soft Plastics.

There are 6 parts to this setup.  Reel, Rod, Line, Leader, Soft Plastic & Jig head:

The Knot Magic tool.

Every fisherman has stood in the freezing cold before dawn, trying to make stiff frozen fingers tie knots in fine fishing line, struggling to see what you are doing in the dark, getting frustrated to the point of giving up. Good news is here, we’ve found a product that may help you out of those rod breaking moments.

Knot Magic, designed by Mark Champion, is built to help fishermen in these exact situations. What does it do? It ties the knots for you. Knot Magic turns what can be a fiddly difficult process into a few simple easier movements.

Knot Magic has a few handy functions, a hook threader for feeding line through the eyes of hooks, a line cutter for trimming those tag ends and keeping your dentist happy, and of course ties knots. Knot Magic simplifies the process of tying the lure or the fly fisherman’s best friend, the unit knot. The unit knot is popular with lure and fly-fishermen because it holds a small loop in the line that draws tight when under tension. This loop allows the lure/fly to move freely as it’s pulled through the water without any restriction to its action that may be caused by the fishing line.

Starting in Fly Fishing

If you are interested in catching trout or even estuary salt water species here’s some basic information about buying your first fly fishing outfit.

Rods

Fly fishing rods are made predominately from graphite, and range in price from under $100 up to $1000+ (You can still buy the ‘classic split cane rod’, but they are expensive!). Clearly you pay for what you get, like most sports to become proficient takes time and practice, and you can learn to fly fish with a fairly modest outfit.
I recommend a 6 or 7 weight rod, 8-9 feet long to start with. Most rods come in two pieces, you pay more for the travel rods which come in 3-6 pieces. It’s worth getting a solid rod tube; more rods are broken while traveling than actually fishing.

The Mirafont Leader and Rig holder.

When I came across the Mirafont site on the web my first thoughts were what a great idea the Mirafont Leader and Rig Holder was and how much easier it could make my fishing. Once I got it into my hands I put it straight to work preparing for my next trip.

When I fish I generally travel light. Land based fishing can involve a lot of walking sometimes, and carrying a large load of gear can get in the way and be just plain tiring. The Mirafont Rig Holder’s light weight means you don’t even notice you’re carrying it; however its size does mean that it takes up a bit of space in a small tackle bag. Each Mirafont holder can take up to eight different rigs so I found that at the most I carried only two on any given fishing trip but usually managed with one. I did find it useful however to have several at home so I could have them setup for different types of fishing and just grab the one or two I needed and throw them in my tackle bag.

Because of the way I travel to most of my fishing locations and the amount of walking sometimes involved, I usually end up setting up my equipment when I get to my location rather than beforehand. It can be frustrating to arrive at your location and see that the action is hot only to have to setup your gear. You can be hurriedly tying knots and rigging up to get in amongst it all only to find what when you hook that big fish you loose it because your hurried knot wasn’t as strong as it should have been. Using the Mirafont Leader and Rig Holder has at least halved my setup time when I get to my destination, now it’s a matter of tying at the most one knot or attaching my directly to my swivel with a clip or loop and I’m done, safe in the knowledge that my setup has been pre-checked for strong knots and weak points in the leaders. If I do break off from hooking a snag or a bigger than expected fish, it takes me less than a minute to unclip the broken setup and clip on a new one.