Off The Rocks
This was our first ever rock fishing expedition, and for quite a few of the attendees, their first ever time fly fishing off the rocks. The day was perfect, sunny, very little wind. Looking good. We arrived at the Elizabeth Bay Shops at 1pm and moved on to the car park in the National Park, got our gear out and started the walk down to the rock platform. On arrival however we noticed that there was a bigger swell than anticipated and as the tide was coming in, there was a feeling that some of the holes we intended to fish would be more than a little tricky to fish as the tide progressed.
We split up so that we had a few people fishing in different holes. The berley started flowing and and it didn’t take long to get the rods rigged, the flies attached and line shooting out into the wash.
I hooked up first but lost the fish shortly after. Big Bob was next and he had a solid hookup on a fish that was like hooking up to a freight train. The line was running through his fingers and it wasn’t long until his rod straightened out and the fish was gone. The leader snapped about 8 inches from the fly line!
We had a few more bites but no more hookups. The swell was big enough to either wash your fly up onto the ledges or back at you. We were starting to get wet and we decided to move. As I moved back to the point where we had left our gear I noticed that John “Stix” Grant had quite a bend in his rod as he was playing a reasonable pig down along one of the ledges.
It was a fair drop down to the water and we had to work out how to land the fish. Luckily Steven Call had brought a short handled landing net and I grabbed it a moved to a position where Stix could try and use the swell to wash the fish toward me and into the net. Easier said than done and it took several attempts to get the fish actually into the net, and no doubt a few nervous moments for Stix!
Anyway, it was the only fish we saw and a great way for Stix to get his first drummer on fly. Well done Stix.
