Author Archives: ESFISHOS

September outing for  the ESFC saw three members set off with a 5am start heading over the mountains to Thompsons Creek Dam at Lithgow.
Having a short stop for coffee and fuel, arrived at the dam, to be greeted by a beautiful  crisp morning and frost covered ground.
As always at this location, several large trout were seen cruising the shallows, but seemed oblivious to the endless array of soft plastics and hard body lures cast at them.
After many hours of frustration, a small brown/green Tassie devil started to get some attention, and a lively 20cm rainbow was caught on the drop of a long cast.
Soon after in the same area a larger 38cm rainbow was hooked and landed, a PB trout for Grant. The same lure worked again with another rainbow of similar size hooked but lost in the shallows.
With several more sightings, and endless casts for no reward, the three members decided to call it a day and head home, all agreeing that a good day was had by all even if the fish won again.

Our first of many Memorial Trophy events for ESFC, taking place at Lake StClair a very special lake and place for our close friend Bruce. With 8 ESFC members and Bruce’s sons Cody and Sean and their friends it was a great turnout and a great weekend. Arriving Friday arvo we were greeted with lots of wind and strongs gust rolling over the lake, after we had pitched camp and had dinner we all settled down round a roaring fire and the stories started flowing. With Bill trying his luck night fishing we kept hearing the bell ringing, they was the break where we were wondering if that trophy Bass was around, but only Catfish.
The next morning with 6 boats headed out for the days fishing with windy conditions on the lake we all headed for sheltered areas on the lake, Cody and Sean boats soon found where the Bass were holding (local experience and know how really helps) and started working those areas with great success, Bass and Golden Perch were about.
The first years winner went to Paul with a very healthy 380mm Bass, with PB’s for Steve H with his largest Bass at 330mm and Steve for his first and largest Golden Perch at 420mm, Cody and Sean with there mates certainly took the honor of most fish caught and released for the weekend. Largest fish for the weekend went Bill with a 500mm Catfish.
Thanks to everyone who went to Lake St Clair for making it a great weekend.

The Sydney International Boat Show is on again August 3rd to 7th 2017 at Daring Harbour.

The boat show is back at Darling Harbour Sydney in the ICC Sydney on 2 levels for those wishing to go you can purchase
tickets online at Sydney International Boats Show Website

Full location and times, “What to See” – “What’s on”  – Who’s There follow the link to there Website

We have an annual Dad’s and Kids trip away every winter and this year we spent 4 days staying at Buckenderra Holiday Village, fishing Lake Eucumbene.
Although it was cold, we had a few good days fishing and a campfire to keep us warm at night.
In total we landed 14 fish, the biggest was a monster 66cm Brown Trout! When Mark cleaned it, he pulled small trout about 15-20cm out of its belly.
The fish caught trolling were all caught on Tassie Devils, off the bank Scrub Worms and Power Bait also worked well!
A big congratulations to Johnny who won the trophy for weekends biggest fish!

Our end of Autumn club outing to Brooklyn saw 2 boats with 5 members head to Brooklyn boat ramp for a morning’s fish on the Hawksbury, With the smaller boat with 3 members opting to head upstream to Spencer, the larger Haines headed for Broken Bay on the way out we trolled a couple of large Rapallas to no avail. Finally opting to drop down bait rigs just north of barrenjoey lighthouse. With a small flattie on the first drop we thought this was going to be good, unfortunately they didn’t get any bigger just lots of them. With catch and release the order, we kept saying the big one’s down there, if they were they weren’t interested in our bait. After drift fishing for a couple of hours we headed back following the cliff line trolling repallas again to no avail. Rattles crew did a bit better than us with 2 Flatties over 49 and 2 Blueswimmers. Apart from the swell on Broken Bay in the morning, the weather was a great day on the water.

What a weekend it was!

We managed to jag some cheap air fares, so we headed up to the Whitsunday’s to see the inlaws, I have never fished the Whitsunday’s before and dreamed of catching something decent and couldn’t wait to get up there and have a crack. Mick, booked a charter for Sunday morning and we met at the local boat ramp and headed out, on Board was Mick my brother inlaw, Tony my Father inlaw, my son Jarred and myself, there was a little bit of wind and swell but nothing major just got a little wet.
After driving for over 30 minutes, we tried our first drop, but no luck so moved to a couple more spots, then we arrived at “Spot X” and we dropped our lines, we had a quadruple hook-up we were all on and couldn’t believe how much power they had! Mick’s fish bent his hook and got away, the rest of us managed to keep them on the line, my fish was first on board a nice big red Nannygai, followed by my son’s Jarred’s Nannygai who trumped my fish by about 20cm no wonder he had trouble, Tony the father in-law thought there was something wrong with his reel as he had trouble getting a wind on the fish, until the guide told him you just have a really big fish, then with a lot of effort, he pulled up a monster cod.
After that we tried another spot and pulled in a few more great fish, although we really only fished for less than an hour as most of our time was spent travelling, we decided to stop fishing as we had more fish than we could possibly need, and as we were fishing in 60 metres of water the fish wouldn’t release well, so thought it’s best to not take anymore.
We went back home, had a few beers and a great feed of fresh fish, we couldn’t believe only ½ a fillet fed 6 adults and 5 kids, we were all stoked and can’t wait to do it again someday!
Congrats to all on the trip – certainly looks like PB’s all around from the ESFC and some very envious fishos

Brooklyn overnight stay
Club member Steve’s friend gave him a call and wanted to take our sons overnight fishing on his boat, as we heard the hairtail were on!
We arrived in the afternoon found a quite spot and anchored for the night, after setting up our beds a good feed and a few beers we put a few rods out, 1st catch was a small port Jackson shark, we thought that was all we were going to catch but later in the evening we managed to land around 5 Jewies, the biggest was around 70cm, we put them all back to grow larger for next time. In the morning the boys were up early and fishing of the back of the boat, us old boys made breakfast and had a cup of coffee whilst watching the kids land some tailor and pinkies, then my sons rod buckled over and started taking line, it was a hairtail, he only had light gear on so it was a good fight, luckily he had a wire trace on as we were bitten off a few times the night before.

Sorry Mr Hairtail you are coming home for dinner!

Congrats to the boys – what did the Dads catch ?

Trout fishing in the Snowies
This year we had a few new members join us for a great trip down south, the weather was fantastic, the fish were around and accommodating taking bait, hard bodied lures and tassie devils. This trip also had a number of first’s – newly setup sounder and electric on a members boat first fishing trip to enjoy the new hardware – one of our youngest members with there first rainbow trout caught spinning from the bank with her dad on dusk – Thanks to all for a great trip

I have been keen to explore the Nepean River after not fishing it for a while, Saturday was stinking hot so waited until late in the afternoon before heading out in the kayak, tried to avoid all the Jet Skis and Ski Boats but river was busy as normal.
Found a shady spot and started casting my spinner bait out and it got nailed within the first few minutes and landed a nice little bass.
After that I had many strikes but didn’t land any for a while I even had a bass hit the lure whilst I had it in the water when changing lures.
I tried a cicada lure but no interest, when back to the spinner bait and had more bites but wasn’t landing them, so changed to a basic Gillies Spinner as it didn’t have skirts to impede the hook from penetrating, and bam landed 2 more bass.

I found the spinner bait was excellent in all conditions, and the Gillies spinner the hook-up rate was better, but travelled deeper in the water and was more prone to snagging on weed etc.

Had a great day out on the Yak fishing the local “Nepean Riffer”

Thanks Steve for the report and photos

Fishing down south was very quiet, only caught a couple of Trevally, Leather Jacket and Wrass. Only a few Salmon were caught off the beach in the whole two weeks I was on holidays, tackle shop said the water was a bit too cold and it has slowed down a lot.
Thanks Steve