Boat Harbour 14/8/14

So I got out and fished Boat Harbour last week, it was the 16th of August so winter and I got sunburnt! It was great haha! 

What an amazing stretch of coastline. We saw a large seal meander on through up towards the beach and sat back and watched, it was a bit far away to get a clear photo but what a great site.

The spot we picked had a large rockpool on one side that swept out with the waves every few minutes and a lot of white water movement in front. I used the rockpool to hold berley, I threw a few handfuls of bread mix into it which let it release into the open periodically and spread throughout the feeding channel as food washed off the rocks would naturally.

There were several Wrasse and Drummer about, all very healthy and happy to fight.
Though we didn't get one legal sized they were all beautifully coloured and they were all a lot of fun.

We used running sinkers with a green bead on the line as running sinkers will catch less on the rocks and the green bead would hopefully attract more attention from fish. After losing several rigs I chose to use a float (my favourite form of fishing) and it worked pretty well.

This salmon was caught in the afternoon, on bottle squid under a large float out in open water. It put up a great fight and though they get a bad rap as an eating fish I recommend giving them a go.
Bleed them straight away by cutting between the gills down to the spine. I put mine into a rock pool to let it flow easily but sitting it tail up will help the process too. This removes the blood from the flesh leaves a nice white meat instead of a dark red, stronger flavoured one.
I used it to make salmon patties, which I have made several times before and they are always great. There are several recipes online but I may post mine up later.

As the afternoon wore on and I ran out of bait I decided to go bouldering. It's rock climbing but on shorter lengths without harnesses. Most of the cliffs there were only twice my height so it was fun and a great workout but not too big for something I'd never really given a go before.
This photo below was the section I was climbing and I would recommend it to anyone looking to get out and try climbing.

So in the end it was a great day. I got to see all of Port Stephens from Gan Gan Lookout, caught a decent salmon, saw a seal, found some geocaches, went climbing and spent some time with my dad. Couldn't get much better than that.

Cheers,
Andrew

Myall River Camp

This is another place that I love and have been camping at for many years. 

Right on the edge of the river, this private campground has its own beach and boat ramp, well looked after pit toilets and caretakers who look after the park.

There is some good fishing to be had in the river, its clean and the fish are healthy and pretty. Dolphins run up the river most mornings and afternoons, there are goannas, possums and other critters to watch and its still close enough to an urban centre to be an easy weekend away.

 

There was four of us this trip, our set up was pretty simple. Two tents, a fireplace in the middle and a gazebo off to one side with the icebox and food underneath to protect it. I took an old tarp just in case it rained and when it did I pulled it over the fireplace to keep our wood dry. 

We also had a single burner gas canister stove, one of the best things to take on a camping trip. They are cheap and the canisters are too, and can cook in most conditions when an open fire isn't feasible.

I caught two stingrays while we were there, one was about 70cm across and the other was the little guy below. Though fun, they were too much hassle to clean and were released.

There was an abundance of smaller fish around, with many mullet, bream, whiting, tailor and a few flathead being caught. I caught a few poddy mullet and threw them out on my large line, this took the large ray but nothing else this trip.
This whiting below became dinner, as it was Kyle's first ever eating sized fish.

 

There's not much else like a campfire cooked fish. To prepare the fire, let it burn pretty hard for an hour or so, try to use larger pieces of wood as you want to create a good coal layer at the bottom. When you can see this, rake them to one spot and leave flat. They should stay hot but bring the fire back in around the fish to keep it cooking evenly. This was the whiting coated in lemon pepper, wrapped a few layers of foil and left in the coals for about 20 minutes. Once it was unwrapped the bones pulled away with the tail, leaving a perfectly cooked piece of fish ready to be eaten.

 

This is another place I recommend visiting if you have the time. I've never had any trouble up there and there are so many fishing opportunities in the surrounding area. Whether its open water, beach, estuary or pier there is fishing for everyone!

Lostock Dam Caravan Park

So I've talked about this place a lot but it is genuinely one of my favourite places in the world. Please get out there and support a great place run by great people. Dave and Janet make sure the place is well looked after and obviously take pride in what they do.

 

Check them out on facebook, they have regular music "shindigs", a full cafe stocked with anything you could need in an emergency, full amenities and some of the greatest people I have met. https://www.facebook.com/TheLostockDamCaravanPark

 We got up there in October 2013, and although the wind picked up, it was a great trip and plenty of good fishing was had.

 I set out for an early morning fish, hit the river as the sun rose and it was an absolutely great morning. Below is the view I had as the sun rose. Above is the biggest bass I caught that morning. I picked out a nice deep hole being fed by the running river and I had a good view of the stretch above it. Three large bass came down the river with the current and as I saw them I threw a cricket in front of them and almost immediately hooked this one. It was a great fish, healthy and strong and it was worth the early morning.

The caravan park is a great place, far enough away to miss most of the city folk and in the one morning I saw two echidnas, a platypus, a mob of kangaroos and many other native creatures, such as the kookaburra below.

 There was just two of us on this trip so we kept the set up simple.
One icebox, one tent, one fireplace, two puppies and a good weekend.

 I pegged the tarp out to protect against most of the wind and sun, and having the icebox behind it kept it cool. Everything else was easily put away at night and by using the existing table I didn't need to open my usual gazebo.
 Our two puppies were set up on a runner, tied to the table and looped around a nearby tree. By pulling this tight they could each have one side and could not cross over, it seemed to work well.

So if you want a good weekend away, get to Lostock Dam Caravan Park, I've been going there for years and will be there again soon :)

Paterson 22/5/13

So I had a few hours free today so Dad and I went and fished around Paterson.
We found a great stretch of river for testing lures, lots of different forms of cover and a small tributary outlet meeting under a bridge.

It was a great day out, a touch of rain but got to have a good look around and mapped out a few more potential fishing spots. Fishing mostly onto river sand and mud, we used yabbies, worms and grubs for bait and threw a few lures around. The yabbies were caught elsewhere and most weeks I get more for either bait or fish food. My pet bass love them and so do the wild ones, this one took a small one.

We took extra care with this one as it was possibly full of eggs and with breeding season starting soon it could of been an early bloomer. She hit hard on a great little lure made by Bob (Links to lurelovers.com, sign up and have a look around.) It swam off strongly and hopefully will make it to the estuarine waters before letting its eggs go.

The end of the day was spent at a spot I've fished before with mixed results but it is a lovely little spot that I will fish many more times. It is a fairly popular spot inside the town of Paterson and I've seen people swim and rope-swing there but there was nobody else around today and it made a quiet, peaceful afternoon. No fish were caught here this time but there was a lot of movement in the water and plenty to see. A few bites and a big hook up that I lost all added up but in the end I just scooped a few shrimp for my pet bass and a gudgeon for another tank.

 Hopefully I can get out again next week and put some more photos up.
I'll show off a few of my lures if I get a chance and a few other bits and pieces I have been saving for a rainy week.

I've added a contact form to this blog so if you want to ask anything feel free to email me.

Lake St Clair 1/5/2013

So this week I planned an early morning fishing trip with my Dad. He taught me most of what I know now and he is the reason I love fishing and the bush and can appreciate and enjoy it without destroying it. So thank you for everything you have taught me so far.
Alright so we left at 4am, got up there on daybreak and it was a beautiful morning. A bit of cloud cover, not really hot and the dam was sitting higher than when we were last there by about a metre.
I spotted a few wallabies on the hill behind us and I missed them with the camera but they were still a great sight.

We got into the fish early, with dad pulling in a nice little Bass about 30cm first up.

I got the biggest one at 41cm and between us we pulled out 6 Bass all 30cm+.

We had no luck on lures this time, but they were loving the grubs and garden worms.

I'd love nothing more than to spend every day doing this, but the real world doesn't let me.

Lake St Clair is still fishing great and is a beautiful spot. The water was clean, the fish were very healthy and are stocked frequently so I will definitely be back there again soon. I would love to get a Golden Perch as I haven't caught one yet so I will try to focus more on them next time.
The Singleton Tourism website says that the dam is stocked with Australian Bass, Golden Perch and Silver Perch. I am yet to hear of a silver coming of there but if it's stocked then I'm sure they have been caught. I will look further into this too.

I'll post next time I get out.

Cheers,
Andrew

Lake St Clair 29/12/12

As you can see it was a beautiful day up at Lake St Clair, in the hot hunter weather reaching 40 degrees. It was hot and humid and by the end I got a bit sunburnt but it was a great days fishing.
We got there about 1 in afternoon and scouted around a bit until we found this spot. There was a large sunken tree on one side, with a big weed bank running along the bank. Half shaded, half sun with a big deep hole in the middle. Honestly it looked a great spot with the best of everything you could hope for.
we pulled 7 bass, all over 30cm out of this spot with the largest about 42cm. Scott my cousin also got a large catfish at about 2pm.
This was a great spot and a great trip with plenty to look at and plenty to show for it.
The fish we caught were all healthy and all hit hard, hinting at a healthy system and plenty more good fishing trips to come!

Lostock Dam trip 9/4/12

 I spent Monday to Friday of last week at Lostock Dam. I've spent a lot of time up there over the years and its one of my favourite camping/fishing spots.
Top Photo - Where my Dad and I spent every morning fishing and watching the sunrise. 5 30/6am rise, 2 beers each, rods, tackle and bait. This little hole is up the top reach of the Paterson River, Just below a stretch of rapids where a deeper hole has been dug out by the wash. We turned out a few good bass, including the one below I named Breakfast.
Second Photo - The view of the dam wall and surroundings from our campsite. A big storm came through the day before we got there and cleared out everyone, it was bad enough for people to leave tent pegs, chairs, a saucepan and several broken tents behind. Peace and Quiet ensued.
Third Photo - Breakfast. If you look closely you can see he has a huge chunk out of the back of his head and half his top lip removed, I can only assume when he was younger as it has healed well and he was delicious. Fried up after our morning fish with a bit of Bush Spice, OMG.

Fourth Photo - Our campsite. One large 4 man dome tent under a 3m square tarp held up by 5 poles down each side. Pretty compact camp, 1 hour set up with a focus on space efficiency. Big fire with firewood we scrounged from around the park, a single burned gas cartridge stove, two chairs and an icebox made up the bulk of the set up.

Fifth photo - Large catfish I caught on the first day. One of many, including one that was laying eggs and many different colours and sizes were on display. As frequent as eels and bit all day, but more readily early morning and late afternoon.

Last photo - An echidna we found sheltered down in the caravan park underneath a patio. I watched him for 20 minutes and in that time he stretched out, moved over to the tree and layed back down and fell back asleep. I want one as a pet!!!

So it was a highly productive trip, 5 days to clear the mind and get away from work and get back in touch with nature. Every night, we sat there with a fire at our feet and stars above our heads, discussing anything and everything and meeting a few new people.
We caught a fair haul of bass, more than a hundred small ones and by my count about 15 over 25cm long. There were a couple of good sized ones, with Breakfast being about 33cm and I lost one a lot larger under the dam wall and didn't I rage! We could have kept many more than we did but honestly we didn't need to and I've been raised to support the ecosystem where I can. We only ate one bass over the 5 days but it was in every way worth it.
It is a very healthy system that high up in the river, we checked every little bass that we pulled up and not one had a previous hook hole and there were only a few with any visible damage. To this point my dad and I both have a couple of small bass taken from the river and are now living happily in our fish tanks. I will post pictures and more soon.
The only thing that we noticed were a couple of small bass and a few large catfish had really pink and raw spines on their pectoral fins. Not sure if it was just natural or something was causing it but I will look into it and see what I can find out.

So if you are considering a trip to the Hunter Valley I would recommend Lostock Dam and the caravan park, Dave and Janet obviously take pride in the park and do everything they can to provide every necessity and home comfort they can.

Lostock dam photos 26/3/12

Lostock Dam Wall - Andrew Parr

Just posting the pictures of what we caught at Lostock Dam in the last post.
Top photo is where we were fishing, looking at the base of the dam wall. Second photo is Nick's mullet caught on a lure, a simple shiny metal one.
Third is my first two little bass.
Last is Nick and his catfish. We were considering taking it to clean and eat but decided to give it a go another time.

Mon 26/3/12 - Fishing

Ok so Monday the 26th, I got a chance to fish one of my favourite childhood spots. We went camping several times a year, and every second I got, I spent it fishing. My mates Nick, Chris and I spent the day fishing Lostock Dam, The beginning point of the Paterson River. I'll be writing plenty more about both of these places later.
Between the 3 of us we caught a large catfish about 60/70cm(Nick), an eel over a metre long (Nick), several bass about 20/25cm long, 3 mullet and many more small bass and eels.
We caught more earlier in the day, and while the sun was covered. Once the sun came out I only pulled a couple of smaller bass from the deep holes.
Nick and Chris both caught a mullet on metal spinners and another on a worm.

Friendly tip - Don't throw your only water bottle down a hill, it will break and spill.

As it had been raining, the dam wall was spilling over. This caused the river to run high and murky, but from above the dam outlet pump we could make out several large carp feeding in the weed beds. I think they were carp as in polarised sunglasses I could make out diamond shaped scales, too big for bass.
When running high the rapids in the river were harder to make out, but with a ready food source of the dam wall overspill and the rising water reaching over the shore there was a lot of activity. That means better fishing higher up the river and closer to the banks.
My next post will be something about fishing no doubt. I want to write down how I go about getting ready and finding a spot so maybe that will do.