Roadtrip to Manly
Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 2:36 pm
Last weekend I road tripped up to Manly for a friends birthday, and of course took a couple of rods with me. I drove up with my housemate Jake on the Friday and after 10 hours in the car, we found a nice quiet spot in a national park near Jervis Bay to spend the night. We awoke the next morning to sunshine and clear skies:
This rock ledge looked very fishy, and I’ve marked the coordinates for a future trip, but the reason we had camped here wasn’t to fish – it was to check out a pretty spectacular waterfall:
It took a lot of effort, but eventually we made it down to the bottom, and it was worth it:
After a pretty dicey climb back to the car, we continued on to Manly. On the way we passed this very sick looking wombat:
He looked like he was suffering from a terrible case of sarcoptic mange. I tried to catch him to take him to a vet, but he disappeared into his road-side burrow. This emu looked a little healthier though:
Anyway, we arrived in Manly a few hours later:
It’s quite lovely, but bloody crowded. We had planned to fish Manly on the Sunday after the birthday, but the crowds turned me off. So instead we decided to wake up hideously early on the Sunday morning, and drive to a little estuary down the coast:
We made our way straight to the mouth, and started flicking lures at these oyster-encrusted rocks, hoping for a couple of yellow-fin bream:
And it didn’t take long before we found one:
We spooked a lot of flatties in super shallow water, so I decided to toss a lure up onto one of the shallow sandbanks, and sure enough up popped this guy:
Not a dusky like I was expecting, but a nice sand flathead. And a couple of casts later, I caught another:
After this it soon went quiet, so after collecting a couple of crabs for dinner (we hadn’t brought any food with us):
We started making our way further up the estuary:
Jake tied on a double clutch, and landed his first bream on a lure:
He followed this up with an upgrade a couple of casts later:
While I snagged a nice little trev:
As we fished our way through some slightly deeper water, I tied on a blade to see what might be lurking closer to the bottom, and landed a pair of nice duskies:
Jake followed this up with one of his own:
Interestingly, the further we went up the estuary, the more big sand crabs we saw:
I’ve always found them closer to the mouth – maybe just the time of year? Anyway, over the next couple of hours we landed a steady stream of bream and trevally:
Including this big blue nose:
And a couple of double hook-ups:
Before stopping for lunch under the watchful gaze of this lovely yellow-breasted robin:
And this cheeky kookaburra, who was pretty chuffed with his stolen piece of bread:
After lunch we headed back to the mouth to see if there were any whiting around:
And to collect some muscles for dinner (check the size of them!):
There were no whiting, but all the blue water pushing in with the tide had brought heaps of little salmon into the estuary:
When we hit a school, it was a fish a cast:
As the sun started to set, we decided to head back to the car. On the way we saw some baitfish busting on the surface, so we flicked out our lures, and up popped these guys:
I’ve never seen couta in an estuary before – pretty cool. Jake threw out one more cast and landed this nice little bream:
But with no light left, we decided to head back to the car to prepare our seafood bonanza:
Can’t complain about fresh oysters and muscles:
Our dinner guest seemed to approve anyway:
After stuffing ourselves stupid, we made the long trek back to Melbourne. Not a bad trip!
Cheers!
This rock ledge looked very fishy, and I’ve marked the coordinates for a future trip, but the reason we had camped here wasn’t to fish – it was to check out a pretty spectacular waterfall:
It took a lot of effort, but eventually we made it down to the bottom, and it was worth it:
After a pretty dicey climb back to the car, we continued on to Manly. On the way we passed this very sick looking wombat:
He looked like he was suffering from a terrible case of sarcoptic mange. I tried to catch him to take him to a vet, but he disappeared into his road-side burrow. This emu looked a little healthier though:
Anyway, we arrived in Manly a few hours later:
It’s quite lovely, but bloody crowded. We had planned to fish Manly on the Sunday after the birthday, but the crowds turned me off. So instead we decided to wake up hideously early on the Sunday morning, and drive to a little estuary down the coast:
We made our way straight to the mouth, and started flicking lures at these oyster-encrusted rocks, hoping for a couple of yellow-fin bream:
And it didn’t take long before we found one:
We spooked a lot of flatties in super shallow water, so I decided to toss a lure up onto one of the shallow sandbanks, and sure enough up popped this guy:
Not a dusky like I was expecting, but a nice sand flathead. And a couple of casts later, I caught another:
After this it soon went quiet, so after collecting a couple of crabs for dinner (we hadn’t brought any food with us):
We started making our way further up the estuary:
Jake tied on a double clutch, and landed his first bream on a lure:
He followed this up with an upgrade a couple of casts later:
While I snagged a nice little trev:
As we fished our way through some slightly deeper water, I tied on a blade to see what might be lurking closer to the bottom, and landed a pair of nice duskies:
Jake followed this up with one of his own:
Interestingly, the further we went up the estuary, the more big sand crabs we saw:
I’ve always found them closer to the mouth – maybe just the time of year? Anyway, over the next couple of hours we landed a steady stream of bream and trevally:
Including this big blue nose:
And a couple of double hook-ups:
Before stopping for lunch under the watchful gaze of this lovely yellow-breasted robin:
And this cheeky kookaburra, who was pretty chuffed with his stolen piece of bread:
After lunch we headed back to the mouth to see if there were any whiting around:
And to collect some muscles for dinner (check the size of them!):
There were no whiting, but all the blue water pushing in with the tide had brought heaps of little salmon into the estuary:
When we hit a school, it was a fish a cast:
As the sun started to set, we decided to head back to the car. On the way we saw some baitfish busting on the surface, so we flicked out our lures, and up popped these guys:
I’ve never seen couta in an estuary before – pretty cool. Jake threw out one more cast and landed this nice little bream:
But with no light left, we decided to head back to the car to prepare our seafood bonanza:
Can’t complain about fresh oysters and muscles:
Our dinner guest seemed to approve anyway:
After stuffing ourselves stupid, we made the long trek back to Melbourne. Not a bad trip!
Cheers!