The Australian Salmons are back in Curl Curl

I'm switching sleep cycle again and this is my first sunrise day. Low tide at around 7.23am, got to Manly at 5.45am but got only undersized Tailors so I drove off to South Curl Curl. On the rocks at 6.30am and I noticed there were lot of fishermen today on the rocks 200 meters on my left. One of the guy was fishing with live baits and caught 3 fish in less than half an hour, seems to much of an easy fight to be king fish, so I think it must have been sambos.

20 minutes after my first cast, the line straighten and my rod tipped down, fish on! Seeing a jump on top of the water, that is definitely a salmon. He then went straight to the rocks, damn! So I let go of some line to release the pressure and he turn back to the sea, after a nice fight, I finally landed a nice one.

Then a second hookup, but unfortunately this time my sinker got stuck on some oyster on the rocks, after a moment I managed to have the sinker line to break still keeping the fish on the dropper line, but that was too late, the line above the hook was already damaged and with a little pull it snapped, releasing the fish back to the ocean. Good for him :-)

After a pretty quiet beginning of Spring, it's great to see them back on the Northern Beaches!

Bondi Beach saves Spring fishing sessions

I joined FishRaider forums recently, amongst the members that commented on my Facebook Page, it turned out that one of them, Duong is a relative of a good friend from France. The world is small as the say.

Yesterday Duong decided to do a session in Bondi Beach targetting Sambos. I was tired from waking up at 5am (unplanned), but decided to join Duong anyway. For the whole of this Spring, all I caught were undersized whiting, sharks and undersized Tailor, so I was really hopping this session would be a success.

I got there at around 8.23pm but found that somehow the rig I prepared got tangled with a sabiki rig that slipped out its bag. So I wasted time trying to undo the tangle to end up tying a new one.

Duong arrived not long after with a sea popper rig and he too managed to get it tangled. There are days like this :-P

Rig done, I casted a fillet of Yellowtail with my Alvey rod and the 6000BCVRRT reel from my mate. The rig was a paternoster rig with a single twisted dropper loop with a two size 3/0 ganged hooks and a 3oz no-roll sinker.

Right after my cast my friend's bait net and the rod holder used to secure it to the sand got washed by a big shore break. So I dropped my pants and was going to go in the water to fetch it. But then my friend who then was holding my rod yelled fish on and it was bloody heavy. So I ran back and continue the fight. After few pulls and jumps, it was a nice 59.5cm Sambo!

Second cast, not even a minute after the bait touched water another big Sambo!!

After that it was my friend's turn to have his reel's fish alert hissssing through the night. Two other Sambos, one on full pilchard one on yellowtail fillet, and a Shovelnose Shark.

The other fishermen who arrived a bit later were not as lucky. The two main reasons being I was the first on the beach and made camp right in front of a nice big gutter, probably the only decent one on the night. And then when they arrived, I think the school was on its was out and my buddy was just placed right on their way to catch the two last one we got.

What a night! That was my first decent session of this Spring. I was a good decision, I was a bit sleepy before leaving home but the fish did wake me up hehehe. At the end we've lost the rod holder (DIY) and the bait net, but the 5 fish made up for it, no regret from any of us.

Cooking side, one of the Australian Salmon will go in the freezer, the other one will be partly eaten as Sashimi and the Shovelnose Shark is nice in Vietnamese sweet and sour fish soup.

We are having our neighbour from downstairs for a fishy diner tonight.

Pen Rod Goliath combos

Just received two pen fishing rods combos from penfishingrods.com, I already own one but wanted a backup combo and a fly combo.

These microlight fishing rods are tougher than you might think. I got decent size breams, trevally and flatheads on them ưith the biggest being a 55cm flattie.

These reels are the Pen Rod Goliath version, they are telescopic and extend to 1.6m long! Once collapsed they can fit in a pocket or anywhere so are always available.

Here is the fly combo once mounted.

There is 8 yards of double 0 float fly line and 4lb leader. Still waiting for my prawn flies then I will head to Narrabeen lakes for some practice.

Hitcase turns your iPhone to a waterproof actioncam

I recently killed my iPhone 5 after getting submerged by a wave while beachworming. So I decided to get myself a waterproof case. While looking for one I stumbled accross the Hitcase which not only protect the phone against waterdamage but also turns it into an action camera you can attach to your chest and various places just like a GoPro camera which it is also compatible with their mounts.

So I ordered it from their US website http:// www.hitcase.com/ and to my surprise it arrived here in Australia 3 days later!

The package I ordered is composed of the Hitcase itself, a lens cap, their StickR mount and ChestR mount:

First impression, it seems quite robust but a bit bulky, it's not a case you would leave on all the time although some might want to. Inserting the phone can't be any simpler and once inside you can still use the touch screen and access all buttons except the mute switch which is not critical. You can also use your earpiece or cover the headphone hole with the cap that comes with the case.

I don't intend to use the StickR mount that came by default, the extra ChestR mount I ordered was the mount I wanted. This will be awesome to take fishing or beachworming footage.

The image quality at first glance seems quite decent thanks to their glass wide angle lens. The image is sharper at the center but very acceptable around the edge. This is not a definitive answer, I have only tested it in bad light indoor conditions:

As the fish will start to bite I will be doing more tests. In the meantime my iPhone will be safe when I'll be out there.

My first fish on Alvey: a Port Jackson Shark

I've met chu Linh (uncle Linh) fishing in Dee Why about a month ago, I was then trying to catch some whitings but only got undersized ones. Chu Linh lives at walking distance from the south corner of the beach and often go fishing in Curl Curl too. Today he suggested we go fishing the rock pool. So we met at 6.30pm, I got there a bit early to catch the sunset:

Half an hour after we started we caught this shark, which I believe is a Port Jackson Shark.

As the beast was heavy and pulling strong my friend walk down the pool and headed to the beach. We were going to move anyway as the tide was coming with big waves that would make fishing the pool dangerous.

Then about an hour later I caught mine on my new Alvey outfit. He so lazy at the beginning I thought I hooked a seaweed. But as I brought him to the shore the shallow water woke him up! And he gave me a hell of a fight especially as I'm not used holding my rod with the left hand, my spinning outfits all have the reel handle on the left so I can use my right hand to hold the rod when fighting the fish.

I usually like sharks but I find this one quite beautiful, it's quite something to hold them. Of course both of them have been release back quickly to the sea.

This is my first fish on an Alvey outfit and I'm glad it's a big one.

I made some good progress with the casting but there is still a lot to improve, I sometimes get some kind of tangle om the cast when wearing a big jacket, somehow as it unspool, the reel hit my jacket and got out of axis and a block of line jumps out of the reel and gets trappes between the handle, this was handled by holding the reel a bit further away from my body.

Using your reeling hand as a drag by pressing it against the bottom side of the reel felt a bit awkward but fun too. I was originally scared it would scratch or burn with the rotation of the reel but it was quite smooth actually.

I noticed though the open runner is very useful for lowering the pressure of the line on the guide finger it also remove quite some of my leverage on the rod as the hand is holding the rod at a low position. Will need some use to.

It's quite a challenge to switch from a spinning outfit to an Alvey but when surf fishing I think it is worth it although I'm missing a bit of the simplicity (of use) of a spinning reel.

Still waiting for a Sambo or Tailor, it's been weeks I haven't caught one from the beach.

Hope you guys have more luck.

First day with an Alvey outfit

Woke up at 5am today and headed to Dee Why to try out my new Alvey ROD650GTS / 630 A1 reel combo.

It's no more winter times and the light was on earlier than me! Hmmm

Anyway, my first impression is that I can definitely like/love Alvey gears. The combo is surely heavier than my Saratoga Mawler Spin / Shimano Aerlex 8000 XSA combo, but it is well balanced so that is compensated and being an Alvey reel and a 13.4 ft rod the cast distance is being increased while decreasing the effort. Although, currently, I can cast farther with my 11 ft spinning combo but I think with time I will be able to cast much further with the Alvey.

Thanks to my mate who lent me his outfit during our other session together, I didn't have difficulties with casting. Today I managed to "master" casting by holding the line with the thumb instead of the index (not sure if one is better than the other). After a few casts I got used to synchronizing the release of the line and positioning of the right hand high up the rod.

Laying the line on the reel with my left hand fingers was much less painful than I originally thought.

One thing I noticed is I usually have my reel handle on the left side with spinning reels, but it doesn't bother me too much on an Alvey. But I'll try to mod my reel to have it on the other side an see if my right hand fingers are OK with laying the line on the spool.

Near the end of my short session, I reeled back the line and noticed that I hooked a small whiting but didn't know it cuz the rod was not sensitive enough, it's not made for small fish anyway!

So far so good, just need to hook a fish!

One other good point is being telescopic, it fits well in the back of the car.

It's now time to go to work. It'll be a bit tough this afternoon as this is the first day I switched back to waking up early!