Tina (pictured above), our former landlady and now a very good friend, tooks us down to Wollongong to see her big brother Ching who is a keen fisherman for over 20 years. He knows the good fishing spots in the surroundings. After more driving, we then arrived in Crookhaven Heads, Culburra Beach NSW.
We started fishing in the evening and got some not wow but legal size tailors:
I also caught a Shovelnose Ray:
Another fisherman gave us a fish he caught, probably a barracuda, that we used the next day as burley.
After a great diner that Tina has prepared, I went for an early bed time.
The alarm rang at 5am, but Chung was still asleep, he was on a night shift last day so was really tired. At 6am he finally woke up and the two of us went back to the fishing spot. At around 7am, the fish were on, in the next couple of hours we caught 16 really good size Tailors and Salmons all on pilchards.
For this trip, I brought with me my cheapo Saratoga Mawler Spin 11' rid with a Shimano Aerlex 8000 XSA. Chung gave me as a gift his old 12' Shakespear surf rod and lent me a small Bite 'N Run reel. I ended up buying his other Daiwa Regal 4000 BRi reel. They are equivalent to Shimano's Baitrunner reels.
Our rigs were simply a running sinker and a ganghook.
After 9am, the fish all went off, no more bites so at near 11am we called it a day.
Back to the holiday house, Tina prepared us a Sashimi of Australian Salmon. I can see most of you frowning here "What, you really eat Aussie Salmom raw?!". Well I was pretty new to Australia, having arrived just a year ago and started fishing even more recently, but I trusted Tina and his bro. So? I wasn't deceived it was tasty and Sashimi Soy sauce and wasabi complement it very well. Aussie Salmon don't have good eating reputation but there are definitely some ways of preparing/cooking it to make it good enough, sashimi is one of the way. I heard that butter fried is another way and my auntie also stuffs them with veggies and tomato and oil and put them in the oven. If you guys know other great eay to cook them, please hit the comments.
Here are some more pictures:
To finish, Chung gave us two very nice Black Breams he caught on the night before we arrived. Back home, we fried them Vietnamese way and they were really tasty:
Every one was really happy with this trip, the title says best winter fishing trip of the year, but I must say it's the best fishing trip of the year, period.
