Overnighter plus on Newry Island

Author: Carl

Category: Trip Reports

Created on Friday, 27 November 2009 23:28

Written by Carl Holland

I received my new tent (Black Wolf, Dragonfly) from Josh on Friday and had plans in place to head over to the Newry islands for an overnight stay. With perfect weather it was no surprise to find the car park that afternoon very full and the ramp a hive of activity. Luckily I found a quick convenient park and started putting my kit together gaining the attentions of several people who had the usual range of questions.

Getting out of the mouth into a head wind meant tacking a few times to make headway, but once out I was able to sail directly to my planned destination. Rabbit island has a lovely camping spot with BBQ, good shade and picnic benches, can't remember if it has a loo because I never landed there. As I got close I could see that the prime spot had been taken by about 6 – 8 people and I decided to camp over the channel on Newry Island as it was empty. This decision turned out not to be so good as on this side the beach is shallower and meant that I had to wait until the 10:30 am the next morning before I could launch to leave.

Getting there I quickly set up the tent and emptied the camping gear out, then headed off to chase some fish. The winds were light and variable so making heading out wide unrealistic given the late hour so I circle navigated Newry island getting back to camp about 5:30pm without a touch. I finished unpacking and setting up the camp then sat back with a coffee, only to be attacked by sandflies the moment I stopped. Skulling my coffee I went back to beach and set up my fishing gear for a night session.

On this trip I had planned to have a live bait session so I got the cast net and bucket and made for the shallows where I could a school of fish. The ground here is rubble mixed with mud with larger oyster cover rocks laying randomly here and there for you to stubbed you toe, cut your feet, put holes in your cast net and slice through you line. First cast saw me with 2 just legal whiting, bait or dinner? Into the bucket and another cast, this time 4 bream up to 20 cm. Quick release and another cast ,this time only 3 bream up to 15 cm. All I wanted was herring or mullet but after several casts catching more under sized bream and a couple more whiting I gave up.

Those whiting were now live bait, and one was soon adoring a fashionable 4/0 circle hook and sitting out in the middle of the channel that runs between Newry and Rabbit islands. This channel is about 50m wide and runs right to left, to the right it closes up to a sandbar that is exposed on low tide and closes the channel on very low tides. To the left it curves around for about 100 m or so to the left then cuts quite sharply to the right, either side are the shallows.

Once the rod is set and drag adjusted I quickly run up to the camp about 20 m away, and get some water boiling for dinner and to retrieve the camera. I had just set up the stove with water when I heard a slow Z     Z     Z, looking around I saw the rod with a slight bend and the spool slowly turning. Great I thought, I have hooked a ray: then the rod bent harder and the reel screamed. Running down I was shocked to see line disappearing off the reel at a rate of knots and knew straight away I had too much line out for the relative small fishing area.

Lifting the rod I placed my hand on the spool to slow it, then slowly started tightening the drag only to find the fish get stronger and stronger with the feel of big head shakes and lunges passing through the rod. It's still taking line and I know it will soon turn right bringing the line directly over the shallows and those oyster cover land mines. I now had more drag applied then you ever could in a yak and I was running out of space fast, time to lock it up. Grabbing the spool with my right hand I locked up the reel and dug my feet in. For what seemed like a minute the fish and I were even, no give, no take. I needed to turn it's head so it couldn't run right, so tried to step back. This displeased the fish and I nearly landed flat on my face when it really put the pedal to the metal. In the fading light I see my line cut through the water and into the shallows as the fish heads right. One last effort to wrench it back was to no avail as I felt the line starting to rub and then it was gone.

Back to camp for a quick feed after releasing the other whiting to fight another day and prepare for the nights entertainment of more live baiting. After re rigging both rods I made for the water as the sun dipped below the horizon. The shallows were a mass of little bait fishing being hammered by baby trevally, queenfish and barramundi and I silently kicked myself for not bringing the light outfit. The bait were however too small for the net and far too small for any of my hooks so went searching for bigger game. You guessed it, more bream with one lonely sea mullet that was too big for any of my hooks so he was cut up for strip bait. Loading my lighter rig with a running sinker to a long shank 3/0 hook I cast the first bait into the channel and waited.

I am not a big fan of bait fishing like this and can't remember the last time I did it. It felt a bit strange standing out there but the yak was too high and dry and the terrain made the trolley I brought with me redundant. Soon however the pickers moved in and a quick succession of baits saw me down the last 2 pieces. Changing tactics I removed the sinker and just floated the baits on hooks out. Only to receive a quick hard bite then nothing, the leader has been cleanly cut through. Tie on another hook, last piece of bait and the same result.

I then proceeded to cast a couple of sp around with no real interest so packed up and hit the hay. I set my alarm to wake me a couple of times leading up to high tide to make sure the AI was secured. As it was the tide only reached it's rudder and it was never in any danger of floating off.

Next morning I was up and about nice and early wanting to get another live bait in the water ASAP, however I could not get one single mullet or herring, plenty of friggin bream though. So back to lures I went as I waited patiently for the tide to rise so I could get the AI off the beach. Again I curse myself not bringing the light gear as the same action from last night repeated itself and none of my 'big' lures were getting a look in.

Clearing camp was quick and easy, so was loading the AI, however it was already 10:30am and I needed to be back that afternoon. The light winds continued making it necessary to pedal and I almost considered ducking out early as there no action to report at all. It was a slight wind change and increase that saw me head out wider and taking the outer route back to the ramp. Glad I did as what followed was a hot little session.

It started with hooking a ribbonfish, heralding the very likely presence of mackerel, a quick release saw me, eyes peeled heading further out past several boats fishing the rocky outcrops around the point. Then I saw it, bust up, another, another: pedaling with much vigor now, reach around to get casting rod loaded with a squidgy flick bait, release mainsheet, furl sailing, cast, wind and hit.

The mackerel were launching through a small but tight bait ball hammering hard and ripping the water to foam. My squidgy lasted one hit before it was half eaten, and was quickly replaced by the trusty metal slice. Second cast and it's on, the reel screams and a small 50 cm spotty mackerel succumbs to a rig ideally suited for bigger targets. Upon releasing the fish I look around expecting to see a herd of tinnies heading over since the fish were still being very active, but nothing, they just sat there soaking baits. Tinnies chasing and sounding schools of fish is something that has happen to me many times and is a very frustrating thing as you can imagine.

For the next 40 minutes or so as I made my way slowly around Outer Newry island and C & R several mackerel all under size except one. It was very much like a mini Fraser experience, there were many bait schools over the whole area and not enough mackerel to go around and many of these were being left alone. I had small bait ball shelter under the AI for a few seconds and I thought I would get a mackerel in my lap as they cut between the hull and the ama.

Then only problem was my cameras weren't working the xacti didn't catch a minute of it probably not turned on properly and the lumix battery I have is losing it's charge very fast. Sorry guys no footage, so I had to go back the next day and try again didn't I?

So this morning (Monday) I am off again having just unloaded the camping gear the night before, and having recharged all batteries and cleared all SD cards. Heading out was hard work and took an hour or so before I was out the front were the bait schools remained and to the mackerel. This could have been another great little session except for one boatie that was being a real PITA, he trolled through schools I was casting into and used his boat to get between my and the fish. In the end I resorted to sticking with one school and he went off following the bite. The bite then stopped and I was surprised to see just so much bait in one area being left alone. I cast, trolled and followed the bait for about ½ hour before the action heated up again with several more undersized fish being caught and released before a keeper was boated.

Then another boat, this time to guys that didn't seem to know what they were doing, just trolling in circles and riding over the fish every time the action the started. For the whole time I was out there they didn't get one fish to my 3 or 4. Staying out to get a couple of more undersized fish I then headed in for a nice smooth sail heading down wind and with the tide. It was good to see the mackerel here although most were undersized and considering the amount of bait very few fish. I did see one lonely tuna, but otherwise it was all mackerel.