Nice Drummer in Terrigal

My alarm was set at 5am, but I woke up in panic and it was 6.15am! I set the wrong alarm, weekdays instead of weekend one...

Got to Terrigal at around 7.30. I realised I forgot my bucket and burley box. That's a great start...

I soaked some bread and hand throw them. But I was too lazy today and water plus cold weather is not great. It was also raining but i was hoping it was good for drummers. After an hour walking around I finally got to the end of the first platform, my favourite location. An Iso fisherman was seen on the opposite platform he then went away half an hour later. Two other fishos came and started to burley around with bread, sweet! Free burley for me hahaha. I went around the hole and started to cast around. I was running out of time, so best for me is to chase the fish. After 10 mins I got a spat out, casted again and yoohoo!!! The rod bent as I've never seen! It's a difficult ledge because it's a sort of big amphitheatre with bit staircases and The good spot usually 20 meters away and snagging easily happens. But fortunately for me this time I managed to steer the fish away and brought it back to me. It definitely was a drummer by the feeling on the rod. After maybe 5 minutes I got the beast at my feet and used the net for the first time to land my catch.

A 40cm drummer, I estimated as the Ikiboard was too short to exactly measure it. I left the fish in a pool and went for another quiet 30 minutes before killing the fish using the Ikigun.

I did take some video footage but it was a failure, I switched off the camera in the middle to save batteries and forgot to turn it back on before the catch. I recorded the Iki Jime process but my arm was hiding the action... So next time.

Here are the pics:

Huy

Homemade telescopic burley scoop

I've been using a pen fishing rod for quite a while and just love it. Now that I discovered Iso fishing, I think of the pen rod as a mini Iso rod. It is similar in the sense that it is all about finesse and light tackle.

I have few spare parts provided by penfishingrods.com in case I brake something which mostly happens by human mistake (stepping on the rod...) and very rarely while fighting the fish.

For my Iso fishing I used a small cooler bag from Coles, it has a hard inside which makes it perfect for a portable burley box that I can put over my shoulder and be very mobile and have my hands free for the rod.

Until now I used a kitchen scoop to throw the burley, having lost my DIY burley scoop during a night session.

I didn't build another burley scoop because I wanted it to be able to be stored in the burley box so I can close the lid and not having an extra accessory.

The problem with the kitchen scoop is it is not great for throwing the burley further than 4 or 5 meters away or the burley will spread around.

So I bought a burley scoop head piece and used pen rod spare parts to build a telescopic scoop that would fit in the box but would also extend for distance casting.

Great end of the week with breams and drummers

I'm on annual leave since Wednesday as I have family members coming to visit us in Wyoming. Yesterday morning I went to catch some fish for our diner tonight. So I went to  to Half Tide Rocks, nearly 40 minutes drive from home! I was hoping it will be worth the effort.

After a walk to the point, I went and choose my fishing spot and started the burley ritual and did few cast right in front of me. At first there were small bites and few misses. But then big breams were coming for the burley! It was really cold, 8 degrees when I arrived. I made it 2 hours and kept 3 breams for diner.

I have recorded about 1h20 of the session but used iMovie to make some time shifts effect to fast forward boring parts.

Here is the intro video:

And this is the full version:

The keepers:

Then I went back home and took my wife and boy for a lunch and then drove the missus back home while father and son went for a ride to three different playgrounds. On the way to the third playground Thien-San, my boy, felt asleep so I drove to Narara Creek where I can park the car just one meter away from the water so I can fish and keep an eye on him.I started burleying in the middle of the creek but then nothing, not a single bite. So I decided to burley closer right in front of the little bush and bang bang bang! 4 more breams to end this awesome day, here are the two legal ones but I released them anyway:

This afternoon, I took the cousins to Terrigal beach, as the kids were playing with my wife on the beach, my cousin, his wife and I went on the tiny rock platform on the right hand side. I didn't think well of the location, but it seemed OK to the view of the weed beds and rocky bottom but we didn't want to go too far away from the kids anyway so we stayed around.

Luckily after the burley took effect, breams and Blackfish were caught one after the other until it was time to go back home as the little one was hungry.

Once back home, I posted a report on OzIsoFishing forum and the more experienced members told me the two fish I thought to be Ludericks were actually Drummers! My first pigs on my Iso setup!

What a wonderful week really! I'm not sure if it's because of the Iso fishing technique, or because Central Coast is just the fishing heaven as most are saying or maybe a bit of both, but this week has been really fun and I learned a lot about this awesome fishing technique.

I gave my wife the rod so she can have some fun fighting a large bream, but unfortunately he spat out the hook right at her feet.

Here are some more pictures of this afternoon taken by my auntie:

And of course, we had a great diner. I cleaned up the fish, my wife cooked them and my auntie did the salad, what a yummy diner:

7 hookups 1 landed

Up until today all the Iso sessions I made were just an intro to Iso fishing. What I meant by this is the fish did not put an awesome fight and I felt it was just like fishing with a regular rod. Yeah the rod did bend and all but it was not spectacular.

Until this afternoon, I went to Terrigal, first time on this platform and it looked awesome. The tide was raising and the swell was safe. Not a fisho out there, the platform was for me so I picked my spot and started burleying.

My first hookup happened 40 minutes after the first cast. Something really big was on the other side. Unfortunately my drag was not at 100% so it pulled under a rock and busted me off.

It carried on like that three times eventhough the line snapped too early to be rocks I think it was a big fish and my 8lb was too light. So I switch to 12lb and landed a nice Blackfish.

As the tide went up and sun went down, the fish went mad over the big rock step on top of which the white water was bubbling. Until 5.20pm I lost 3 other big fish. I finally got to learn how to use the lever drag. At the beginning I got busted cuz I was holding the lever and tension was too high. On next hookups, as soon as I recognised the breaking tension I released the lever and the rod straighten up allowing me to fight for around one minute but I always ended up in the rocks at the end of the rock step.

By 4pm some other fishos have been fishing around me I didn't notice them coming, too focused. The sun went down, I casted my last one but not being able to see the float I decided to hold the rod tip high and pulling the line a bit. I noticed the fish were so aggressive that I didn't need to see the float. And bang another big one and another bust off... :-(

So either the fish snapped the line or the line got stuck to deep rocks far in front of me.

Even with just a single blackie and multiple busted ones. I feel that this session was a real Iso one which I learned a lot from.

I now need to get some 16lb fluoro leader!

More bream on Iso in Sydney

After my first visit to Clifton Gardens the other day, I decided, yesterday, to give it another go but went to the rocky bits on the right side of the beach accessing it through the walk path from the beach.
15 minutes after my first cast, the wind went mad, black clouds were forming and a massive dead branch felt off a tree and landed two meters from my feet. That was it for me, I packed up and went to the jetty. But the wind got even stronger and some fishos left for their cars. So did I.

However, I didn't want to waste an afternoon so decided to find a protected area and remembered of place I read from other forums as being more productive. And from memory it's location should protect me from the wind coming from that direction. So I headed there and walk down the path and hill to access the small rock platforms. I chose a group of four rocks and stand on the first of them. As I stepped on the rock, a blackfish got spooked and swam away... Before deploying my rod, I burleyed in front of me. 20 minutes have past and not a single bite, I became impatient as it was around 5pm and the sky was getting darker. So I casted on my left, nada... I casted on my right, trying to reach as the other set of rocks further back, and as the float settled it went down, bang! Smaller fighter, it was the first of three leather jackets.

An Iso fisher man was standing further up by the point, he was on a good location but it was too far for me and I didn’t have a lot of time so I decided to stay here.

I had enough of leatherjacket and they bit through my 6 lb leader so many time I’ve lost about 5 hooks, so I casted again in front of me in the hope the burley had kicked in. Again as the float settled it went for a dive, I strike and hooked up to something good! Letting the Iso rod do the work for me, the fish finally got to the rock and I lifted up as my platform was very low at near water level, my landing net is still a virgin! It was a nice bream, I estimated it to 28 cm. Second cast, a second bream of the same size, third cast got me an undersize bream that went back to the sea.

It then got quiet again, the sky was now at near zero visibility, I used what’s left of burley and made a last attempt, the float was barely visible, but I managed to see it went under for one more time and got me another good bream. That was exciting!

I called it a day and started packing up when $#&&@~!!!, in my excitements I forgot to check the water and my way back is now under water. Oh dear! Quick lets check Google Maps, it seems to be another exit on the opposite side, so I slowly jumped from rock to rock and got stuck again as a stack of small boats and kayaks were in my way and the rock on the side was too far to make a jump.

After some hesitation, I knew the only way out is to climb that bushy slope in front of me, so I looked around and see a low enough edge and used my landing net pole as a probe. Slowly, I made my way up avoiding fragile roots, branches and other obstacles and finally made it up there…

Behind me:

In front of me:

From the top:

Got home after one and a half hour drive and measured the fish. I released one small bream and two leather jacket. Here are the keepers, the breams were all around 29m.

What an adventure...