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.