Saturday/ Sunday

I woke at about 4.30am on Saturday, to a big storm. I must be getting less keen. In the past I would have put my wet weather gear on and headed straight out to fish the dawn. Instead, I rolled over and slept for another hour. When I woke up the rain had stopped so I pulled on my fishing boots and drove down to Fraser’s Reef.

As I pulled in to the car park the sun was well and truly up. My late arrival was underscored when a local acquaintance – John, appeared with a bag full of Blackfish. He had caught them all using the green string weed and had already finished for the day. He did not tap his fingers on his watch but he may as well have. It was about 8.30 am and I was only just starting.

I walked out to Middle Bluff, which is the headland to the north of Fraser’s Reef. The swell may have herded the Blackfish into a few holes where they could be easily extracted, but it made fishing for anything else pretty difficult. I started with the heavy rod and a GULP Crazylegs Jerkshad in the Curry Chicken colour , which I rigged on a 3/8th oz, 3/0 jighead. I cast out a few times but the sweep and swell threw the lure around and I could not really control it. I worked through a few more soft plastic lures in various colours and shapes. I tried the heavier, ½ oz, 3/0 jigheads, but these just kept getting snagged.

In a repeat of the conditions of the day before I just could not get the lure into the area close to the base of the rocks where, I was pretty sure the school jewfish would be hiding. While I was trying, I had to retreat a couple of times to avoid a soaking but, inevitably, I soon copped a drenching from a big wave set. You cannot run across these rocks and the recent rain and big seas means there is a thick coating of black green slippery, slimy weed. If you have barnacles under foot you are ok, but the black and green stuff is like ice. I use felt soled rock boots from Cabelas in the US, but even these can slip in the slime.

I swapped down to the light rig and put on a GULP Jerkshad, in the Pumpkinseed colour on a ¼ oz, 2/0 jighead. I threw this into the foamy swell and hoped it would sink a few feet before getting washed against the rocks. It did and as I took up the slack I felt a fish on the line. I did not have to do much, as the swell more or less threw the fish at me. It was a good sized Bream, just over 34cm long. I moved along the headland trying to fish in a few spots but as the morning went on, the swell got worse and I gave up at about 10.30 am.

In the afternoon, the tide was low at about 3.40 pm so I tried to fish around the Frasers Reef headland, but this yielded nothing except a lot of lost gear. I could see bait in close to the rocks, jumping ahead of my lure but I could not leave the lure in the strike zone long enough. I had caught dinner and avoided a duck but only just.

Saturday – a grey morning and a big swell

Middle Bluff bream on GULP Jerkshad

This is where I wanted to put my lures

This coating of weed is like ice

The swell was kicking up

I was in position from sunrise on Sunday

I tried the same spots on Sunday morning. This time I was in position to see the sunrise. The swell had eased a little but it was still making it pretty tough to fish. The wind dropped off around dawn but then gradually built up again until it was blowing at about 15 knots from the east. I tried a few spells with some big hard bodies and slugs but these did not tempt the fish.

In the afternoon I tried fishing off the rock platform at Woody Head but the wind and swell made it impossible. So after an hour of trying and losing gear, I gave up. So on Sunday I scored a duck and went for dinner at the pub. I went to bed on Sunday night hoping that the wind and swell would ease off soon.