Opening the 20/21 LBG account

New South Wales Fishing Reports
DougieK
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Opening the 20/21 LBG account

Post by DougieK » Fri Dec 11, 2020 7:47 am

Following what's been a horrific year in Melbourne, and a consequent 2 week delay when my car blew up, I finally made it away to attempt to open the 20/21 LBG account.

Working at Aboslute until 9pm on Wednesday night, I -thought- I was organised enough to get up and get moving at stupid AM on Thursday morning. After an hour of running around in circles before the sun came up, followed by making it to the end of the street before realising I'd forgotten things TWICE, I finally made it onto the highway, before realising I'd left my brand new polaroids in the Iron Princesses car. Rather than making the trip into her work to collect them, I picked up a pair of servo sunnies and a giant McCoffee from eastlink, topped the tank and headed east. I made the choice to head through Eden rather than battle the now peak hour traffic through Melbourne to get to the Hume.

Through the outer reaches of the suburbs and past the power stations, the sun slicing through the clouds and assaulting my new $19 pair of sunnies, the double divided highway and endless roundabouts leading up to Sale give way passed Bairnsdale to a single ribbon of road, twisting it's way through the recovering forests of East Gippsland edging closer and closer to the bottom of the East Australian Current at Eden. Some areas seem to be regrowing extremely quickly, while others are just getting started.

I stopped to fill the car up and grab a Schnitzel burger at Eden, and the strong easterly wind bringing relief from some of the sun. I cannot, possibly, describe how good the Pacific Ocean smells after being stuck in Melbourne for 6 months.

An averted disaster occured when I called the Currarong holiday park only to find out they were booked out, forcing me to stay 30 minutes further north at Culburra beach. Culburra is a beautiful place and I would even move there, but it's a 30 minute drive to the ledge, turned into a 45 minute drive with roadworks, but has the advantage of a full supermarket, so there's a trade off.

Up at 2am on Friday morning having arrived late the night before, I headed through the roadworks to the carpark at Beecroft Head, shouldering the 20ish kg pack, and slinging my three rods over my shoulder, the first 300m of the walk is straight up, and had me questioning the meaning of life. I put on about 15kg over covid, which is basically the weight of my pack minus the berley, and I felt every single one of them. After the first little bit, the track to Mermaid's inlet, known to the LBGers as 'Big B' (for Big Beecroft) winds gently along the ridgeline to the North east corner of the headland, before dropping into a gulch and walking around onto the ledge. It's long, but is not by any means a 'difficult' walk.

In the dark with the moon high, the place is mystical, the ghostly moonlight reflecting off the water, the gentle wind causing it to shimmer seductively, while not being able to see the swell the sounds of waves crashing reverberate from the cliff faces, giving the impression the sea is much much more violent than it actually is.

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As the sun rises, the spray and light fog see the entire area engulfed in a blue mist. It looks like something out of a Pirates of the Carribean movie, and is absolutely spectacular.

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The land based game is extremely physically challenging. Before you even start fishing, a small paddle pool needs to be set up then filled with water, done so by a bucket and a long rope thrown over the side of the ledge, hauled back up and tipped in. They key to keeping Slimey Mackeral alive for a long time, is well aerated water, with a large surface area. The problem with this is it means in order to get a pool 6 inches deep, you need about 30 buckets worth of sea water, hauled one at a time. The whole process takes about 30 minutes and is an incredible pain in the ass, but necessary.

There is a very, very small window of time, from the crack of first light until a bit before the sun hits the horizon, in which slimey mackeral can be caught pretty much on tap. These are the best live bait for almost anything, and LBG success is often determined by how effective your collection, keeping, and livebaiting techniques are. I'd managed to get in early enough that my first 20 minutes of casting resulted in nothing, then a sudden explosion of slimeys saw them coming in 3 at a a time.

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Yakkas, or Yellowtail Scad also make a good Kingie bait, and are more available throughout the day. I usually like to send one slimey about 30-40 metres out, and have a yakka 5m off the front of the ledge.

This particular Friday, a group of about 8 other guys showed up and started spinning. They were friendly enough, but had no idea of personal space, spinning for 5 minutes before lighting a smoke and coming and standing half a metre away from me for a chat, on a ledge that's 284 metres long.

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There was nobody else on the ledge at that stage, and you can see my livebait rod in it's holder. I have no idea why people do this, as the Kings swim up and down as they please. No one spot is better than any other, and I put myself right down the very far corner. They were friendly enough though, but the rest of the ledge was empty.

I fished this ledge pretty hard on Friday, and then hit 'The Tubes' from 4am the following two days. These three days of fishing saw a whole heap of near misses, including a slimey getting mauled and the hook missing by an inch.

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About 10 minutes later, the float bobbed under and the drag took off. Tightening up and striking, I thought i'd finally cracked a small King.

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Nope, just a big dirty salmon. The wind was kicking hard and that was my last livey so after watching Milan on 'the lateral line' decided to balloon this guy out instead. While he swam around in circles I used plastics, bait jigs and metals to hook an endless stream of 25cm pinkies, stink pike, yakkas, more salmon, more stink pike, sweep, a couple of big wrasse, one nice snapper and some more stink pike. The white bucket brigade at Mordi would be so proud.

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I was fortunate enough to spend every morning fishing, and most evenings teaching Jiu Jitsu a my good friend Richard Kemp's "Kemp's Thai Boxing and Martial Arts" in Nowra. Richard is a wonderful human being who does a heap of work through community projects, and also has a couple of very good prospects coming out of his gym. On Monday I took a charity seminar, in lieu of getting paid asking for non perishable donations for Xmas. I had 43 people on the mat for the seminar, which is a record for me, and we raised about 2K worth of assorted things for people in need. I taught quite a few classes there, and really enjoy any chance I get to share some of my experience and knowledge. A truly noble group of people.

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The Tubes are closed during the week, so I headed back to Big B for the remainder. On Monday I managed to snag a campsite at Currarong, meaning I could sleep in until 230 most mornings. A combination of violent weather and rapidly changing forecasts caused me quite a bit of grief, but decided to head out anyway. Tuesday was fairly quiet.

On Wednesday I woke up to the sound of rain, thinking that I might just call it and drive home a day early. Telling myself to harden up, I crawled out of the swag, smashed a coffee, shouldered my bags and hauled ass back into the ledge.

Violent skies but calm seas awaited.

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The slimey's seemed to have switched off completely, but I managed a little pool of yakkas.

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By this stage I'd been making 2am starts for 6 days. Fishing until just after lunch, and training in the evenings with the Kemp boys was starting to take it's toll. Every step felt like it was straight uphill. Every bucket felt filled with stones, every cast felt like I was slinging a 200g popper, instead of the tiny metal I was casting.

By 10am I needed to chill a bit, so setting my live baits I hid in the little that steps up behind the ledge. Thinking I might call it a day and drive home that night, I decide to grab my salmon rod and cast a 25g Gillies a couple more times while the last of the livies swam themselves.


Standing next to my baits, third cast in, there is an explosion of emerald and gold violence on the bait school I have berleyed in front of me. A school of maybe 150 Kings have appeared out of nowhere, and a clearing house in a 20m arc directly at my feet. Slapping my little slug in front of ones nose, I instantly hook up and am on....on my salmon rod. The 903 pe 1.5 assasin bending at the grips, 12lb tasline peeling off my screaming 5k stradic, I managed to get my feet into a purchase on the ledge to hold the rod out far enough to not get instantly broken off on the overhang. A 5ish minute battle ensued, each time me getting the little king up, seeing him flare up and his golden tail thrash the surface before disappearing into the depths again, almost taking me with it a couple of times. Both of my other live baits got smashed, and I could see my 20k gosa and 5500h expo lose some line, then fall silent as the king spits the hook out and makes off with a free meal.

After working the little king 20 odd metres to a bit of ledge that's low, I decided to chance it and lift him in. I've been a really big fan of this little assasin since the day I replaced my Tcurve with it, and it didn't let me down. After 6 days, 75 odd hours of ledge time and despite the countless $100 stickbaits and $1000 reels, my first king for the season came on my salmon setup, with a stock Gillies 25g glow out of the packet. I hadn't even changed the hooks.

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59cm and approximately 2.5kg. 6cm short of legal. When I had it hooked I could have sworn it was a 6kg fish. These things pull like nothing else you'll ever hook short of going to the tropics, and every hour and every dollar and every drop of sweat and every bit of lost sleep in the pursuit of these amazing predators is worth twice as much back when you finally find success.

I fished another couple of hours and called it a day. A quick spin the next morning resulted in nothing, and the long drive back to Melbourne was made easier by knowing that at least I'd landed something.

The fishing wasn't particularly good. I mis timed the moon and currents, and probably wanted to be either a week earlier or a week later, but this solo trip puts a little bit of light into what has been an absolutely horrific year in Melbourne. If I could find a way to spend the rest of my life fishing and sharing my love for the martial arts, I'd be a happy man until the day I die. I'll spend the next few weeks trying to find an empty ledge in Melbourne, then have a seriously epic trip planned for February next year.

Until next time.

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Chasing LBG and sharing a love for the Martial Arts, everywhere, all the time.


LBG Season 2023/4 :

Kingfish : 61

purple5ive
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Re: Opening the 20/21 LBG account

Post by purple5ive » Fri Dec 11, 2020 8:07 am

Lovely write up as usual dougie. Appreciate the time taken after spending long hours away fishing and then come back and put together something fantastic like this!!
Hopefully some better fish next trip, those sunset/rise pics look great..

DougieK
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Re: Opening the 20/21 LBG account

Post by DougieK » Fri Dec 11, 2020 8:17 am

purple5ive wrote:
Fri Dec 11, 2020 8:07 am
Lovely write up as usual dougie. Appreciate the time taken after spending long hours away fishing and then come back and put together something fantastic like this!!
Hopefully some better fish next trip, those sunset/rise pics look great..
I'm watching the currents, and with a couple of other little signs I saw it wouldn't suprise me to see a Marlin get landed in the next 14 days. Jumped the gun by a week I think.

I enjoy writing these a lot, it's a pleasure to share the experience and I don't get to do much writing anymore. The fatigue and the sun killed me this trip, but that's what happens when you spend 9 months going f all in Melbourne.
Chasing LBG and sharing a love for the Martial Arts, everywhere, all the time.


LBG Season 2023/4 :

Kingfish : 61

CannonsJS
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Re: Opening the 20/21 LBG account

Post by CannonsJS » Fri Dec 11, 2020 9:11 am

Great write-up mate. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Some really good info about equipment and techniques in there too.

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mazman
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Re: Opening the 20/21 LBG account

Post by mazman » Fri Dec 11, 2020 11:11 am

Great work Doug, absolutely love the effort you put into LBG and the way you've integrated these trips into BJJ.
Youtube channel:Hawkesy Fishing

DougieK
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Re: Opening the 20/21 LBG account

Post by DougieK » Fri Dec 11, 2020 11:28 am

mazman wrote:
Fri Dec 11, 2020 11:11 am
Great work Doug, absolutely love the effort you put into LBG and the way you've integrated these trips into BJJ.

If you can get paid for something you genuinely love you never work a day in your life.
Chasing LBG and sharing a love for the Martial Arts, everywhere, all the time.


LBG Season 2023/4 :

Kingfish : 61

purple5ive
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Re: Opening the 20/21 LBG account

Post by purple5ive » Fri Dec 11, 2020 11:36 am

DougieK wrote:
Fri Dec 11, 2020 8:17 am
purple5ive wrote:
Fri Dec 11, 2020 8:07 am
Lovely write up as usual dougie. Appreciate the time taken after spending long hours away fishing and then come back and put together something fantastic like this!!
Hopefully some better fish next trip, those sunset/rise pics look great..
I'm watching the currents, and with a couple of other little signs I saw it wouldn't suprise me to see a Marlin get landed in the next 14 days. Jumped the gun by a week I think.

I enjoy writing these a lot, it's a pleasure to share the experience and I don't get to do much writing anymore. The fatigue and the sun killed me this trip, but that's what happens when you spend 9 months going f all in Melbourne.
Yeah I used to enjoy writing reports, these days its dwindled on me a fair bit.
Yeah no fishing for a while does a bit of getting used to. I went hammer and tongs as soon as we opened up and rest has been few and far in-between trips..

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Kenle
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Re: Opening the 20/21 LBG account

Post by Kenle » Fri Dec 11, 2020 11:48 am

Great read, love your adventures mate. One day I'll give LBG a crack but knowing my luck I'd fall off the cliff and into the drink. Looking forwards to reading another one of your report ;)

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Re: Opening the 20/21 LBG account

Post by rb85 » Fri Dec 11, 2020 1:22 pm

Great report Dougie K if I happen to do a Marlin trip early next year I might just plagiarise the **** out of your opening paragraphs.
This is a warning regarding the following post made by you: viewtopic.php?f=14&p=349277#p349277 .
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This is your last warning!

Texas
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Re: Opening the 20/21 LBG account

Post by Texas » Fri Dec 11, 2020 1:25 pm

Great read & photos Dougie
Geez, a long way around, I would have thought.
Cheers Gra

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