Not really estuary but...

[wrasseman]

...There's no rock fishing section.

I headed down to West Head today with a mate (Nik) for a crack at some of the salmon reputedly hanging out down that way. We started off flicking metal and flies for salmon without much luck though the wrasse soon made their presence felt with Nik quickly scoring one on fly and me on a spoon. A dropped snook by me lead to Nik changing to a big deep plastic which was soon taken by a snook, but this was the last one we saw.


Meanwhile I managed this little fella.


After this, we got serious about the wrassing, scoring several on spoons and sps as well as attempting HBs and poppers.

This blue nailed my tango and took off on an awesome dive into the reef, easily stripping line from my ultralight trout gear and actually hung me up before a bit of judicious slack line and waiting brought him back out.


Nik also managed some of the biggest purples I've seen.

[wrasseman]

While all I could get were more blues




Though we both managed a couple of new species.
First senator wrasse:

and these (I think they're barber perch):
.
All in all it was a fun day even if the salmon didn't want to play (I pulled the hooks on the only one we saw all day). The wrasse certainly kept us entertained.
Cheers
col.

[adidaspeteman]

nice colours on some of them fish...

[ActiveAngler]

Gday Col,

That is a great sesssion mate and it appears that gold metal lure gets a work out.

What are the eating qualities like of all those fish except the Snook.

Cheers

Ben

[wrasseman]

Gday Col,

That is a great sesssion mate and it appears that gold metal lure gets a work out.

What are the eating qualities like of all those fish except the Snook.

Cheers

Ben

It would have been nice to get a few of the salmon we were after but both Nik and I lack the patience to chuck lures at the horizon when there are fish at out feet. I actually spent much more time on the SPs than the spoons this time (unfortunately, as it would have been nice to add to my species on spoon tally as well as the total species tally).
I'm not a big fish eater by any means (don't eat things without legs) so all ours went back. But there is a commercial fishery for the wrasse and the prices aren't bad, especially in the live fish trade to asia and to asian markets within australia, I've also been told by a mate that the blue-throats are good to eat but the purples aren't. Generally in tassie they aren't highly regarded on the plate however. I think they are better suited to asian cooking styles than the lazy tassie habit of just chucking in a frypan. The wrasse do go hard on a line though, especially the first power dive (great fun on 2lb gear).
The perch are apparently good eating if you can find big enough ones though and the sweep also are apparently ok if big enough. Any info I provide on eating is hearsay however as I've only eaten 1 fish in the last 3yrs (that was a trout).
Cheers
Col.

[Beevor]

Awesome Sesh there Col....

You guys managed some wicked new species mate!