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On Sunday my dad and I went for a fish at Pittwater. We were greeted with warm sunshine, a welcome change from the last few days of rain - which had caused the water to be murkier than expected. We launched from the northern end of Careel Bay/southern end of Barrenjoey, and proceeded to fish the nearby moorings with SPs. We had a few small bites, but the only fish caught was a decent trevally, which put up a good fight on my 5lb outfit (released).
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After the pickers had moved in, we ventured out to deeper water, on the other side of the bay, where dad caught a 30cm or so bream on his handline.
We then paddled closer in to the bank, anchoring near some submerged rocks and a drop off, and continued to flick our SPs.
As soon as I had finished tying on my tiny ecogear blade...
zzZZZzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
...Dad hooked up to something very solid. His rod arched as his reel screamed. The enormous bend in the rod meant that it was either a shark (we have seen bronze whalers caught in Pittwater), or the elusive mulloway. Considering that sharks don't (if ever really) take SPs, it had to be the latter.
Dad continued to slog it out, with a beast that wouldn't budge. His 4-12lb rod was struggling to handle the fight. He managed to turn the fish, and then it surfaced from the depths. It was bigger than we had expected, and we were overcome with excitement as we brought our first jewie yak-side and hauled it aboard with the net.
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As we were focused on keeping the fish alive, and pumping with adrenaline, the photos were unfortunately not great (I'm holding the fish, as I landed it with the net) - however I'm sure it's a fish we won't forget anytime soon. I managed to get a decent measure with the paddle, and as the photo shows, I am fairly certain that it was easily a metre long.
![image.jpg]()
As the fish was caught in only 7.5m (notably 18'C) of water, and we were so careful with the fish - only keeping it out of the water for a couple of minutes, it swam off unharmed without any complications.
My dad caught the jew on an 80mm squidgy fish in silver fox on a 9g, 4/0 squidgies jigjead - and pinned it perfectly in the corner of the jaw.
After that we paddled over to the Basin, where I caught a 24cm hood calamari and dad caught a small cuttle. The calamari joined us for dinner, but the cuttlefish was released.
![image.jpg]()
![image.jpg]()
After the pickers had moved in, we ventured out to deeper water, on the other side of the bay, where dad caught a 30cm or so bream on his handline.
We then paddled closer in to the bank, anchoring near some submerged rocks and a drop off, and continued to flick our SPs.
As soon as I had finished tying on my tiny ecogear blade...
zzZZZzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
...Dad hooked up to something very solid. His rod arched as his reel screamed. The enormous bend in the rod meant that it was either a shark (we have seen bronze whalers caught in Pittwater), or the elusive mulloway. Considering that sharks don't (if ever really) take SPs, it had to be the latter.
Dad continued to slog it out, with a beast that wouldn't budge. His 4-12lb rod was struggling to handle the fight. He managed to turn the fish, and then it surfaced from the depths. It was bigger than we had expected, and we were overcome with excitement as we brought our first jewie yak-side and hauled it aboard with the net.
As we were focused on keeping the fish alive, and pumping with adrenaline, the photos were unfortunately not great (I'm holding the fish, as I landed it with the net) - however I'm sure it's a fish we won't forget anytime soon. I managed to get a decent measure with the paddle, and as the photo shows, I am fairly certain that it was easily a metre long.
As the fish was caught in only 7.5m (notably 18'C) of water, and we were so careful with the fish - only keeping it out of the water for a couple of minutes, it swam off unharmed without any complications.
My dad caught the jew on an 80mm squidgy fish in silver fox on a 9g, 4/0 squidgies jigjead - and pinned it perfectly in the corner of the jaw.
After that we paddled over to the Basin, where I caught a 24cm hood calamari and dad caught a small cuttle. The calamari joined us for dinner, but the cuttlefish was released.
