Botany Bay
There's nothing better than seeing the sun rise over the Heads at Botany Bay - especially when there are fish to be found.
It's a beautiful morning on botany bay, and we're doing some soft plastic lure casting over flats and dropoffs. Just off Kurnell, we've got Botany on the other side of the bay and there are planes coming in regularly to the airport behind us.
There should be a few flathead, I often catch them on squidgies - soft plastic, a dark shade, mono trace , 15 pd onto 4 pd fireline, not a bad little rig.
Mark starts the charge with a nice flattie… and I'm not far behind…
Now as you know, we usually release almost every fish we catch.
Today we're keeping them - but it's all for a good cause. We're fishing the Botany Bay research challenge - where every fish will be studied to find out how well different species survive after they're caught.
All fish we catch will be sent back to holding pens, where the guys from fisheries keep them there for a week, look at them and see what the survival rate's like.
The X97 Lowrance tells us we're in 10 and a half foot of water.
Botany Bay and the surrounding river systems have been closed to commercial fishing for 2 years - so most species are now making a comeback. We venture into the Georges River to bail up some bream.
We're casting as close as we can to the rocks, then wiggling our lure near the bottom like a baitfish - and the bream love it.
There we go - a nice bream, good start, second cast, we'll put him in the keeper tank as well.
This is a squidgy bloodworm, a wriggler like a worm. This colour works well in this river system.
Unfortunately, it looks like we're plundering the nursery. I reckon we might have more luck back out on the bay.
Well this is great fun. We're working a school of tailor. They're feeding on whitebait, so we're trying to match the hatch.
Here we go - Mark's tapped into the tailor. Just shows you the selection of species in the Bay. While we're targetting tailor, our mates Brett and Joel have landed a fatty of a flattie.
With quality fish like that around, I can't resist another go at the flathead… Finally, a good-sized flattie. You stay with us buddy - you're a prime specimen for the folk at fisheries.
A new day and a new team of anglers for the Botany Bay research challenge. This morning, I'm joined by Frank and his 12 year old son Mark - and we're cruising for kingies with local guide Scotty Lyons.
We're using 35 pound line and freshly sharpened mustad hooks - on Scotty's special snood rig. Top it off with a kingie's favourite food - fresh squid. Now the secret with landing a kingfish is not to fight too hard once they're hooked.
The harder you go on them, harder they go on you, we've hooked up on light tackle, kingies up to 80cm on 6 kg line - taking our time. Good fishing.
Kingfish love clean water on the incoming tide, and they usually stay close to rock walls or structure on the hunt for food. So we're dragging our baits just off the edge of the wall… and young Mark's had an early hit.
Mark's biggest catch until now was a 40cm flathead, so this kingie's giving him the fight of his life. Well done Mark… a good size to start, and you've done your Dad proud.
Here we go - Dad's turn. Frank's managed to land a kingie with a tag. Luckily our fisheries expert Heath is on hand to tell us what to do.
If you are going to keep the fish, remove the tag and send it back to NSW fisheries, along with the fish's length, date and where it was caught. If not keeping it, record details of the tag number and post the details back to fisheries.
Looks like we're onto a good patch of them… and Mark must have the best looking bait.
I tell ya, after this session - my young mate's muscles will never be the same!
Next we're targetting trevally.. so Scott throws out a few burley balls to get them on the bite. If we can cast our yabbies right into the burley trail, we should nab a few trevors.
You can catch trevally in the Bay all year round… and they love reefy structures or gravel areas near the reef.
After a truckload of trevally, we have one last crack at my old favourite, the flathead.
Our fishing fun's over. Now we're taking our catch to a tag station set up by NSW Fisheries.
All our fish are tagged and measured here.
The team takes down the vital statistics of every fish - what it was caught on, how long it was out of the water and the exact time and place it was caught.
It all goes onto the fish's history sheet.
OK, next stop - the research pens - where we deliver our Botany Bay bounty. Time to unload our fish, the necessary bits of paper, and hand over to the guys who know all about research.
Our fish are separated into different holding pens. Talk about thorough! The fisheries boys even test the water in our live tank - testing temperature & dissolved oxygen levels.
All this data helps find out how different fish survive catch and release.
All up, 351 fish have been caught in the comp - from kingies to leatherjackets. They'll be monitored over the next 2 weeks to see how their stress levels change, and how many survive.
Every kind of catching method has some kind of stress involved, so we want to control effect of tagging, handling, isolate affect of hooking fish, playing fish, bringing on board, all these sorts of things.
Early results from the project have shown that more than 75% of fish released DID survive. And some species did better than others. 97.8% of trevally survived, 72.3% of bream, 68.8 % of snapper.
The next step is to find out the best catch and release techniques for each different species… so we anglers can cause as little damage as possible.
The Botany Bay Research Challenge was set up by NSW fisheries. For more details on their findings - and how you can improve your catch and release techniques, phone fisheries or log onto their website. The fisheries boat uses a Yamaha outboard and Lowrance sounder. Go to the Yamaha and Lowrance websites for more info on these fantastic products.
If you'd like to fish with guide Scotty Lyons, contact Southern Sydney Fishing Tours. A full day costs $100 per person including gear and refreshments.
NSW Tourism can help you find accommodation near Botany Bay or give details on all the sights around Southern Sydney.
We fished the
Bay using gear from Big W. You can pick up a great range of fishing
gear from Big W stores, including my new "Escape with ET"
estuary rod and reel combos.
