Location – Porto Bay and bridges

Date: 04-11-2016

Time: 0600 – 1600hrs

Sunrise: 05:22hrs

Pressure: Falling – 1014@ 0600hr falling to 1008 hPa @ 1500hr

Air Temp: 16⁰ – 31⁰

Wind: gusty in morning 10km/hr NW, still through midday then windy afternoon 20km/hr NE

Weather: smoky morning then fine and warm

Weather background: Fine.

Tide: low 5:15am, high 11:43am

Water clarity: fairly clear

Water Temp: approx. 19⁰

Gear: Mainly used the light gear today. G-Loomis IMX-S841-2, Shimano Sustain 1000. 4lb fireline + 4lb Sunline Super FC sniper leader.

Lures:

• Cranka Crab – Black (bream, flathead)
• Prolure S36 Crank – Tiger Shrimp (bream)
• Z-man GrubZ – 2” in greasy prawn and bloodworm (flathead)
• Z-man GrubZ – 9” shimmer pearl (mulloway, flathead)

Catch:

• Flathead x 6 – best went 47cm @ different times
• Bream x 3 – 25cm (dropped 2 better fish) early to mid-morning
• Mulloway x 1 – 39cm @ top of tide
• Lots of tailor that got in the way really

Lower Hawkesbury Bream, Flathead and Mulloway 04-11-2016.

Early morning launch from Bayview was the start of a great day. It was eerie morning with lots of smoke from the local back burning. Much windier than predicted, it seemed like the air was being compressed under the fog smoke and creating extra wind. It settled down as soon as the smoke lifted.

I fished the lower Hawkesbury around Porto Bay and the bridges. Not much to rave about but it was still a great day to be out. It was a mixed bag with fish coming from Cranka Crabs, Zman grubs and Proline crank tiger shrimp shallow diver. The biggest fish was a flatty @ 47cm but (even though it was a baby) I was probably happiest with the mulloway because I haven’t lure fished for them much before and it was just nice to get one on the board. Hopefully there will be some bigger ones as the season kicks in. The bream front was pretty disappointing really with only a couple of fish between 20 – 25cm. I did drop a couple of bigger fish which was disappointing but encouraging at the same time.

The trip back was pretty hairy with the run out tide through the middle of the Hawkesbury entrance really kicking the waves up. Note to self, cross over further upstream and come up the south side to avoid the run out waves.

All fish were released!

Cheers

Matt