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This is my 10th and final report and has me fishing Sydneys North Harbour at Fairlight with that well known UK barbel angler Steve Pope for company. Before the report its worth giving a few facts about the harbour itself.
It is a natural harbour lying towards the SE corner of the New South Wales coast. The harbour entrance itself is just over a mile wide and can accommodate the largest ocean going vessels. It has a surface area of 21 sq miles and is up to 45 meters deep in parts.
I took this first picture from the top of Westfield Tower,a must for every tourist. The aspect is looking east towards the harbour entrance. Just off picture to the left is the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. In the foreground is the Botanical Gardens,home to thousands of large fruit bats. To the east of the Gardens is Sydney Naval Docks - this is where a naval diver was attacked by a bull shark back in 2008 and lost an arm and a leg !!!
I took this next picture on the scenic walk from Manly to Spit. It shows the harbour entrance nicely.
Best get back to the fishing report now. My daughter dropped me off at Fairlight mid-morning and in no time at all I was at the waters edge and tackling up. I decided to try legering squid on the bottom first as all of the fish in the harbour seem partial to it. As per usual the bites were almost immediate and as normal I was failing to connect up. At this point Steve walked down the 100yds from his daughters house and joined me,setting up similar to me.
It was a cracking day weatherwise and there were quite a few other anglers out for the day,some had brought their families along as the rock ledges were very angler friendly.
After missing a lot of bites I did the usual and dropped the hook size. I eventually managed to hook one and it turned up to be a Chinaman Leatherjacket. I very carefully unhooked it as the dorsal spine is poisonous and took a quick picture before returning it to the water.
Steve said he had to pop back to the house for a while and so I fished on managing one more Chinaman Leatherjacket. At this point I decided to change tactics and stuck on a metal toby. After a few fruitless minutes decided to change over to a jellyworm fished behind a drilled bullet. A couple of casts with this and I got a real savage take and it started to take line against the drag. With a medium spinning rod and 15lb mono I could not exert too much pressure.
This must have gone on for about 10 minutes before I slowly started to get line back. Eventually I got a glimpse of it and could not believe what I had hooked - a TURTLE !!
There is no way I could have landed this by myself so I phoned Steve and told him to get straight back as I had a turtle that needed landing. When Steve arrived back the turtle was ready for landing but it proved too big for the landing net. He simply had to reach in and grab it by its flippers.
It had been hooked on the outside of its mouth so was it an accidental hook up or did the turtle go for the lure ??? I have since read that young turtles tend to be carniverous but as they grow older tend to just eat vegitation. I will never know the answer to this. Steve then borrowed my long nosed pliers and carefully removed the hook.
Quite a crowd had gathered by this time as it was an unusual capture. A couple of quick photos with the turtle then I carefully returned it to the water. It swam away,non the worse apart from a small flesh wound
We decided to call it a day at this point as how can you top catching a turtle in Sydney Harbour. On getting back to the apartment it was suggested that the local paper could be interested in the story so I e-mailed a picture to the local paper and gave my details.
Next morning the editor phoned me back saying that they wanted to publish the story and wanted a few more details from me. Well here is the picture of Snatcher making the Australian papers. As far as I could tell no one had heard of a turtle being caught from the harbour before.
Well this was my last report,I just hope you have enjoyed sharing my fishing adventures with me. In the 3 months I had added 13 new Australian species to my list which now stands at 33. There are still a few common ones missing so lets see if I can add more to the list on my next visit in 2013.
John
It is a natural harbour lying towards the SE corner of the New South Wales coast. The harbour entrance itself is just over a mile wide and can accommodate the largest ocean going vessels. It has a surface area of 21 sq miles and is up to 45 meters deep in parts.
I took this first picture from the top of Westfield Tower,a must for every tourist. The aspect is looking east towards the harbour entrance. Just off picture to the left is the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. In the foreground is the Botanical Gardens,home to thousands of large fruit bats. To the east of the Gardens is Sydney Naval Docks - this is where a naval diver was attacked by a bull shark back in 2008 and lost an arm and a leg !!!
I took this next picture on the scenic walk from Manly to Spit. It shows the harbour entrance nicely.
Best get back to the fishing report now. My daughter dropped me off at Fairlight mid-morning and in no time at all I was at the waters edge and tackling up. I decided to try legering squid on the bottom first as all of the fish in the harbour seem partial to it. As per usual the bites were almost immediate and as normal I was failing to connect up. At this point Steve walked down the 100yds from his daughters house and joined me,setting up similar to me.
It was a cracking day weatherwise and there were quite a few other anglers out for the day,some had brought their families along as the rock ledges were very angler friendly.
After missing a lot of bites I did the usual and dropped the hook size. I eventually managed to hook one and it turned up to be a Chinaman Leatherjacket. I very carefully unhooked it as the dorsal spine is poisonous and took a quick picture before returning it to the water.
Steve said he had to pop back to the house for a while and so I fished on managing one more Chinaman Leatherjacket. At this point I decided to change tactics and stuck on a metal toby. After a few fruitless minutes decided to change over to a jellyworm fished behind a drilled bullet. A couple of casts with this and I got a real savage take and it started to take line against the drag. With a medium spinning rod and 15lb mono I could not exert too much pressure.
This must have gone on for about 10 minutes before I slowly started to get line back. Eventually I got a glimpse of it and could not believe what I had hooked - a TURTLE !!
There is no way I could have landed this by myself so I phoned Steve and told him to get straight back as I had a turtle that needed landing. When Steve arrived back the turtle was ready for landing but it proved too big for the landing net. He simply had to reach in and grab it by its flippers.
It had been hooked on the outside of its mouth so was it an accidental hook up or did the turtle go for the lure ??? I have since read that young turtles tend to be carniverous but as they grow older tend to just eat vegitation. I will never know the answer to this. Steve then borrowed my long nosed pliers and carefully removed the hook.
Quite a crowd had gathered by this time as it was an unusual capture. A couple of quick photos with the turtle then I carefully returned it to the water. It swam away,non the worse apart from a small flesh wound
We decided to call it a day at this point as how can you top catching a turtle in Sydney Harbour. On getting back to the apartment it was suggested that the local paper could be interested in the story so I e-mailed a picture to the local paper and gave my details.
Next morning the editor phoned me back saying that they wanted to publish the story and wanted a few more details from me. Well here is the picture of Snatcher making the Australian papers. As far as I could tell no one had heard of a turtle being caught from the harbour before.
Well this was my last report,I just hope you have enjoyed sharing my fishing adventures with me. In the 3 months I had added 13 new Australian species to my list which now stands at 33. There are still a few common ones missing so lets see if I can add more to the list on my next visit in 2013.
John
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