natedawg

Thanks for the help guys. BalmainBob thanks for the link, I think you are right no use of hand hauled net at the entrance of lake and within the keys and will double check with the locals when I arrive. I did see on the RMS map of Wallis Lake a few things called prawn pegs, no idea what they are but they are marked!

Hi Everyone, I am heading up to Wallis Lake this week and just got myself a 6m prawn drag net and thought I would get some practice in with the old man in anticipation of some xmas prawns this year. Now we have never prawned in our lives, but have heard a drag net is the way to go on a dark night (new moon) and run out tide so later this week seems ideal for some practice. Can anyone shed some light on: Are we likely to get any prawns this time of year? Any recommended spots to try with the drag net? Any hints or tricks that have helped you in the past locate prawns or catch them? Thanks in advance for any help!

Nice catch mate, well done!

Hi Ryder - it took the pillie after the rig change.

Flickn Mad - bait for the whiting was mostly peeled prawns cut in half as we were using small hooks. Went through a bag pretty quickly. We used some fish guts to try and imitate a worm as we didn't have any on us but the whiting would go tap tap and go away. I don't think they liked it!

That is a dream fish, nice work! Was hoping to head out wide off Sydney tomorrow and repeat your effort but conditions don't look the best.

G'Day Raiders, First post! Here goes... Headed down to North Narrabeen beach yesterday for a fish in the surf with a good mate of mine. The plan was to meet up at 6am and have the lines in the water half an hour later. Well I get to the car park and my mate is no where to be seen, I give him a call only to find out he only just woke up! "Classic, no worries" I said, "lucky you weren't in charge of the bait this time"! In hindsight he is lucky, he didn't end up arriving until 7:45am!! I geared up by myself and headed to the top of the dunes from the car park to check out the beach, the tide was out and coming in with a vengeance. The only decent gutter I could see that looked accessible was about 150m down the beach so off I walked. Got my line in the water quickly with a home made surf rig with 2 sets of gang hooks and used whole pillies for bait. I enjoyed the sunrise and shortly after I could see some bait jumping behind the breakers, obviously something big was chasing them but the action was too far away for me to get in amongst it. Oh well. About an hour or so later I had only 2 decent bites (no hookups) and my pillies were disappearing quickly (frozen servo pillies turning to mush - not the best I know!). I saw my mate walking up the beach hanging his head in shame so I headed over to say good morning, or something along those lines! I decided to change up my rig at the same time, I went for a single hook with half cut pillies near the sinker and tied a silver halco twisty at the top. My theory was firstly I wouldn't lose as many pillies and secondly the twisty would act as a nice attractant flashing about in the surf. We both got our lines in the water and about 10 mins later my mate is on, obviously a salmon as it was darting up and down the beach and providing a good fight. He lands it and the fish came it at 64cm and was a fat little fella, a pretty decent fish. I personally couldn't believe it, my mate rocks up late, lobs his line in and gets a fish 10 mins later. All I hear for the next half an hour was how much of a good luck charm he is and what a superb fisherman he is! We traded blows "well if I didn't feed them for the last hour and a half you wouldn't have got anything" was the line I was sticking too! Just as the banter was starting to heat up my reel starts screaming. Woo hoo I'm on - my turn! I landed another salmon coming in at 55cm and it provided a good fight, happy days! The bite was on. We kept our lines in the water and next my mate is on again, a 44cm salmon caught on a prawn. A few more hits with no hookups followed and just as quickly as it started it was all over. We kept our lines in the water for another hour or so and no bites so we decided to have a fish in the lagoon instead. We packed up our beach gear and cleaned the fish we kept (we had already bled them). We got the smaller rods out with super small hooks and light flurocarbon rigs. We fished a few spots around the lagoon and only managed a few small whiting but it was enough to keep us occupied. We used the salmon guts as burly mostly to keep the toads in close whilst we fished deeper water. After a nice day fishing and some good company we packed up and went our separate ways. I think I will turn my fish into a soup or maybe a curry, something to drown out the blandish taste anyways! Attached are some pics of the morning, I am the guy in the third pic so say gday if you happen to see me out one day!