 
The Plastic Soup that is the Pacific
You know there’s something seriously wrong with the planet when parts of the Pacific Ocean contain more plastic than marine life.
In fact, it’s estimated there’s 100 million tonnes of plastic circulating in the northern Pacific. That’s about 2.5 per cent of all plastic items made since 1950!
It has now been suggested that unless we cut our use of unnecessary disposable plastic items, the ocean dumping ground will double in size during the next 10 years. It’s already twice the size of the US continent!
Yet efforts by Manly Council to ban plastic bags, plastic coffee cups and suchlike at a new local shopping and residential development called the Totem have met with commercial opposition.
Mr Clean-Up Australia, Ian Kiernan, this week came out and praised Manly Council for its initiative. Every harbour angler should join in the chorus and welcome bans on plastic packaging.
The harbour is no less of a plastic soup than the Pacific these days, with everything from foam coffee cups – they should be banned from the ferry wharves – to plastic water bottles, plastic fish-shaped soya sauce containers and, we’re to blame here, bait bags invading our precious waterways.
About 20 per cent of the junk in the ocean is thought to come from marine craft, with the balance washed out of storm water drains. Do your bit, collect some plastic each and every time you go fishing, and leave the plastic bags at home and, better still, the shopping centre.
Undoing Fish Evolution
Theories abound in this day and age, but there’s irrefutable evidence that industrial-scale fisheries have changed the biomass of fish in our seas forever. Some experts are now warning that only smaller and less fertile fish remain, leading to an irreversible evolutionary effect in years to come.
“We are running up a Darwinian debt that future generations will have to pay back,” says Dr Ulf Dieckmann from the International Institute for Applied System Analysis in an article I stumbled on in past issue of Science magazine.
According to Dieckmann, overfishing has resulted in fish that mature smaller, earlier and carry far fewer eggs at their first reproduction. It’s kind of like survival of the weakest. Dieckmann recommends less commercial fishing, avoiding catching small fish by using wider-meshed nets, and banning fishing in areas where fish spawn.
He also expects that there will be a big change to the remaining fisheries in 40 years, but that it might take up to 250 years to reverse those effects, if at all.
Meantime, there’s more research underway at the Sydney Institute of Marine Science into mulloway or jewfish stocking.
To date, fingerlings have been raised in captivity and released in estuaries without any consideration for native fish stocks.
It would be a calamity if genetically weaker, farm-raised fish entered our estuaries and then crossbred with wild stocks. Years of evolution and survival of the fittest could be undone with one foul swoop.
Holiday Lessons
There are many angling challenges – catching the first of a new species, learning the latest techniques, and landing the biggest fish on the lightest line, for example – but none greater than getting a new location wired without the help of a local guide.
I faced this very prospect during a working holiday to Maroochydore in southeast Queensland last month. A visit to the local tackle store for some gear and free advice then, armed to the hilt and about $250 poorer, I hit the local beach for some worms.
But after several hours, I spotted just one beach worm poke its head through the sand and, in my haste, banged it on the head with the bait. Off to Noosa for some live worms and a look-see.
And with that I returned with high hopes of finding a whiting. But woe is me. Hours of soaking worms around the mouth of the Maroochy River at various tides produced one lousy dart.
To make matters worse, a local from the caravan park landed a big flathead from a gutter alongside. So I switched to pilchard baits the next day and immediately had a follow from a flattie. Encouraging, but after a week that was it. I lucked out.
Like many holiday hot spots, the Sunshine Coast is a busy place these days and it may seem that the fish are few and far between. But that was apparently far from the case.
The local paper was reporting great catches and printing pics of successful anglers with whiting, bream, flathead, jewfish and some big mangrove jacks.
Fact is, no matter where you are (except perhaps the Yahtzee River) there are always fish about. It’s just a matter of finding them and catching them! Other than hiring a guide, there’s no substitute for putting in the time at a new location. Hasta la vista. I’ll be back. I won’t give up and nor should any angler.
 David Lockwood’s Guide to Fishing – May
By sea or stream no fish is sought, sweeter than blackfish freshly caught.
– C. J. Dennis.
Okay, the above ode refers to our native freshwater blackfish, but the saltwater variety is no less tasty on the tooth.
And the herbivorous blackfish or luderick are now in season, you just need to know how to catch them.
Start by gathering some green weed for bait, either the long stringy type, which grows along the estuary foreshores and around ocean pools, or the cabbage leaf variety found clinging to the rocks.
Next, find the luderick’s lair. Prime fish-attracting structures include wharves, seawalls, and deep rocky shores or, if you have a boat, try the navigation markers such as the Wedding Cake or around Sow and Pigs reef.
Tackle? You will need a long, whippy rod to cast the necessary delicate float rig. The fish are tough fighters, but 3kg line will land the biggest luderick around.
Suspend the aforesaid green-weed bait on a size eight hook about 2.5-3 metres below the float. Weight the line with just enough split shot so only the tip of float can be seen above the water.
Toss some chopped weed mixed with sand in the water and then cast your bait into the berley. Let the float drift naturally.
When the float disappears – what’s known as a down – count to three and then raise the rod and set the hook. A great battle will then ensue. A landing net will come in handy, too.
Bleed quickly, kept on ice, filleted, skinned, and cooked like a schnitzel, our blackfish make great tucker. And so much so even fishing laureates wax lyrically.
But the biggest problem facing anglers has been the persistent La Nina. Constant onshore winds, rough seas, rain and colder than normal temperatures conspired to make April a tough month for wetting a line.
According to the doomsayers or weather forecasters, May will be much the same. It sounds bleak, but there are ways to stave off the winter or late-Autumn blues. Invest in a decent wet-weather outfit, one of those lightweight breathable ones, and you can go fishing without discomfort during the not-so-off season.
And don’t rule out game fishing in May. Last month, anglers locked horns with some big late-season big blue marlin. One fish taken from the NSW south coast weighed 339kg or 750lbs on the old scale.
And last month’s Peter Goadby Game Fishing Tournament held out of Sydney Game Fishing Club saw Black Pete weigh a 232.2kg and 181.7kg blue marlin. There was a 104.6kg striped marlin and mako sharks to 152.7kg weighed as well.
The winning tag and release boat tagged five marlin. May usually yields more big blue marlin, a smattering of striped marlin, and traditionally big yellowfin tuna. The latter aren’t so common these days, but make certain you run a tuna lure in your spread.
The bottom fishing is even better in May, with a slow current and generally light winds. As if to prove as much, the crew from the Hero Hill Fishing Club headed out to the Plonk Hole on Anthony deBruyn’s charterboat Sheerwater in mid-April for hundreds of leatherjackets. But John McGuigan of Revesby took a huge 55cm long John dory, which tipped the scales to 1.8kg cleaned, amid the melee.
Although we’ve banged on about it before, now is the time to target big snapper on the close reefs. Yours truly lucked out on them last month, but I’ve found plenty of morwong and marbled flathead on the gravel grounds. And before the tempest, Terrigal skipper Paul Minto took his charter fishers to a local reef in 40 metres of water for arm-stretching action on the kingfish. He bagged out over three days on fish around the 4kg mark.
Closer in, May will see more tailor, trevally and bream in the washes. We’re still hearing about bonito here and there, but they are likely to swim north and, instead, you can expect vast schools of Aussie salmon.
The mullet run is on in earnest and Hawkesbury River guide Greg Joyes is betting a few big jewfish will be shadowing them in Broken Bay. Of course, the top bait is a whole mullet fillet, but smaller cut baits will produce many more bream.
If you struggle to keep your lunch down offshore, fear not, the estuaries are a safe haven and the fish are enjoying the flush. Though the squid are hard to find, kingfish are snaffling them around their usual haunts.
Harbour guide Craig Mcgill brained the kingfish last month, scoring 11 solid specimens over 70cm in Middle Harbour during a frenzied bite before a big storm.
Botany Bay has a few kingfish, but local guide Scotty Lyons found the trevally, bream and Aussie salmon more common.
And there was at least one good catch of flathead taken on soft-plastic lures around Towra flats.
Oh, and we’re hearing good reports of luderick gathering in the estuaries from Pittwater to Port Hacking and, though early days, there’s word of a few John dory lurking about.
Contact this column at lockwood@intercoast.com.au
 Fishing Key —
B Bream
Berleying with chopped pilchard and floating lightly weighted pilchard fillets back into the berley using light tackle and fine line. Suitable method from both boat and shore. Hook size No 1 to 2/0. Or try using the latest soft-plastic lures jigged around the harbour wharves, jetties and rock walls on ultra-light flick sticks and 4kg braided line with a 4kg monofilament trace.
Berleying with chopped pilchard and floating lightly weighted pilchard fillets back into the berley using light tackle and fine line. Suitable method from both boat and shore. Hook size No 1 to 2/0. Or try using the latest soft-plastic lures jigged around the harbour wharves, jetties and rock walls on ultra-light flick sticks and 4kg braided line with a 4kg monofilament trace.
K Kingfish
Fish the deep, tidal shores or around the harbour channel markers with live or strips or heads from fresh-caught squid. Stagger the depth at which you fish the baits until the school is located. Berley helps keep the fish around your boat.
LU Luderick
Herbivorous, with a taste for green weed, luderick are one of the most common fish in temperate estuaries. They inhabit deep rocky shores, sidle-up to pylons and piers and school over seagrass beds. Suspend some green weed bait (collected from the rocks or around ocean pools) about three metres below a perfectly weighted float. Berley with chopped weed and sand. First hour of the run-out tide is best. Bleed the fish, fillet and skin them, and cook and serve as you do veal schnitzel.
S Snapper
Fish the inshore reefs in 30-50 metre of water with 6kg-10kg tackle. Anchor up and berley with chopped pilchards and chicken pellets. Drift a half pilchard bait on a 4/0 chemicallysharpened hook back down the berley, with a pea-sized running sinker or just enough lead for the bait to waft down to the bottom. Dawn and dusk is best.
T Tailor
An aggressive schooling fish, named for its ability to slash baitfish to ribbons, the tailor is a snap to catch. Troll or cast and retrieve lures around the schools of fish hunting around headlands and estuaries in winter. Or cast a pilchard from the shore or boat during the flood tide and at night around Sow and Pigs or The Spit.
TR Trevally
A soft-mouthed schooling fish that generally lays low in the water column. Use plenty of berley, light line and soft baits such as peeled prawn, tuna cubes or pilchard fillets. Drift the bait to the bottom on a 1/0 light-gauge hook. Go slow when fighting the fish or you will tear the hook from its mouth. Bleed and eat fresh. |
