Tenkara or Japanese fly fishing

Interesting fishing techniques seems to usually come from Japan, to no surprise really. I lately adopted Iso Tsuri, a japanese rock fishing technique using long but light rod and gear and absolutely love it and use it not just for rock fishing but anywhere I can.

Recently I was more and more interested in fly fishing. After few months reading and watching documents about fly fishing I discovered Tenkara, the fly fishing japanese way. Tenkara uses light (more or less 100gr) but long (usually 12ft) telescopic rods with fixed line (no reel, length varies from 10ft to 20ft). So you could basically hit the water with just a rod, a line and a fly.

I've always been attracted with smaller or lighter gears such as Iso Tsuri or the Pen Fishing Rods. And those also requires more finesse skills as opposed to rough ones where you would use heavy duty rods with big lines and sinkers.

I'm still in discovery mode and reading what I can trying to understand the system before buying something. But currently I'm limited budget wise so I will probably be looking on Aliexpress for my next Tenkara purchase of a 12ft 6:4 (light to medium) action rod. Then the following strp would be to start learning fly fishing which is totally new to me. 

Bread and butter species in Woy Woy Bath

II've been fishing the public whatf in Woy Woy for quite a while but recently discovered that the bath just around the corner is very productive at good tide.

So I usually bottom fish by casting a whole worm or pilchard on a gang hook over to the opposite side and then Iso fish for luderick inside the bath.

On my first session I hooked up with a big bream and in my rush I drop my Iso landing net!! And lost the fish. It was a cold morning but I decided to dive in and find the net but gave up after half an hour. 

Not having a net on the second session I hooked up with a good blackfish on a 4lb line so had to drag it back to shore.

On my third session I finally caught that big bream. A nice 35cm specimen, along with a trevally and two mullets.

I will be trying to do some fly fishing in this area for blackfish and mullets.

Tandem kayak fishing from Davistown/South Kincumber to Empire Bay

Yesterday after work  I picked up my mate Dom at Artarmon and he stayed with us in Wyoming for an early morning kayak fishing.

For this first tandem kayak fishin trip we decided to head down to Davistown on the south side of Kincumber and paddle around to Empire Bay.

I was pretty quiet but we managed to catch a long-tom, 5 flatheads with one keeper of 42cm on soft-plastic on a pen fishing rod, a 27cm bream trolling a crank bait and two nice squids.

It also was the first trip out with my Garmin Echo 201DV fishfinder on a DIY mount I made for the yak.

Great day out!

Brassy Trevally (Carangue Mouchetee) from New Caledonia

I'm currently in New Caledonia visiting my family in Noumea.

At the same time, it's a great opportunity to do some fishing as NC is very good for this sport. I took with me a YongSung Power Carbon Alpha 3.9m cargo iso rod.

First day catching 11 garfish with my mate Thai who came with us. This spot is a little jetty at 10 minutes walk from my parent's place.

We also went camping on a remote island not far from my place. What an experience. Lots of mosquitoes but it was so good to be with friends and family out there in the nature. We caught a bream and several fingermarks. The next early morning, we even spotted a shark not far from the shore.

The day Thai's left NC flying back to Sydney, I hooked up with a big fish on a metal slice but the 8lb line was too weak and my drag was too tight, so the line broke. On the second day I hooked up with another one but the fish spat put the soft plastic Kamikaze shad.

On the third attempt, it was a quiet start, it was 3 hours before low tide and the sky was well covered but not raining. I had bought a popper and more metal slice but it was so quiet that I decided to target smaller fish using a Gulp 3" prawn. I lost all my jigheads to the snags so ended up using a regular hook with two splitshots above it. No seagulls or jumping baitfish today, I was starting to doubt I would get any results today. But after 2 hours of persistance, something took my lure. I thought it would be a local grouper but it wasn't heading back to the rocks, instead it suddenly pull my line out to the depth. I could not stop it from going deeper and deeper. The fish just peeled my line from my Okuma Lebra (lever brake reel) 2500 spool which I've upgraded with some 15lb braid line as I didn't want to loose another fish.

After 7 minutes of fight, I managed to bring the fish to the surface, it was a Brassy Trevally of a very good size. Not wanting to take any risk of loosing it, I used my DIY landing net (potatoes net bag) I safely landed the fish.

This was the fishing spot (Port Moselle), I was standing at the corner of the rocky edge on the right.

The fish measured 66cm, but as it was cut at the throat, I think it's more or less 65cm.

I hope I will get the opportunity to get more fish like this before my return.

Hope you guys had a lovely Christmas, best wish for the last days of 2014!

Update:

The brassy trevally could actually be a young bluefin trevally

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