A couple of weeks ago I decided to get fishing a go, and went to buy my fishing equipment. The guy from the shop asked me what type of fishing I would be doing, and I answered: I will be finishing from the rocks. The setup he suggested (and I accepted) was:
- Rod: SHIMANO SAKANA SENTIRE SERIES II Coastline: 10'6" 3-5kg line, 7-21g Lure weight
- Reel: Shimano Sedona 4000 XG
- Line: 15 pounds braid (he said it was actually 10 pounds)
- Leader: 10 pounds fluorocarbon
I noticed that the rod was insanely long, but I assumed he knew what he was doing. Anyways, after I got home I googled "rock fishing" and then I realised what was going on. When I said "rock fishing", I actually meant fishing from land (which is usually rocky), as opposed to fishing from a boat. Little did I know that rock fishing was about being down there, right next to the waves. I was kind of disappointed, had bought the wrong setup, but the good news is that that same setup works well for beach fishing, which didn't sound crazy to me. So here I'm, trying to learn how to fish, and more specifically, learning how to fish from the beach, by myself.
I watched all the YouTube videos I found, but none of them said anything about putting your bucket in a very safe place, otherwise the wind would turn it over and you would loose all your bait and your measuring rule 🙂 I learned that on my very first trip, when trying to fish from a jetty. Actually that was the second trip, in the first one I learned that if you want to learn how to cast, you have to try when the sun is up. I went to a close by beach at sunset, and I couldn't see where my sinker was going at all after casting.
So, I watched even more YouTube videos, bought more gear (knife, cap, etc...), and went to my first official beach fishing trip.
Destination: Greenhills Beach - South Sydney
Time: 6:30 am
Bait: Pilchards
Result: Got 1 crab. Didn't know you could get one of these.
That was last week. The beach was super quiet, almost no waves and low tide. This time I learned that you should leave your bait exposed to the birds 😕
I looked at the weather forecast and today seemed like a good day to try again: wind from my back and high tide at 7:30 am. So, I prepared myself again: watched more videos about beach reading, read more about how to use circle hooks properly, and convinced my wife to give me her old backpack to put my fishing gear.
Got at Greenhills beach today at 6 am. The beach had nothing to do with the ones from the videos in YouTube, it was a total mess. The waves were insane and were breaking all over the place, couldn't identify gutters at all. Decided to go to a spot that seemed less chaotic than the rest. Put my rod holder on the sand, setup my tackle, and my bait was frozen to death. I couldn't believe it, all that preparation to get there in time and now I can't fish because my bait is too hard.
Tried with a couple of frozen prawns but they broke easily. After some attempts decided to put some pilchards to defrost in water, and then started with that. Got a crab, again. People laughed last time when I told them I only caught one crab, they would laugh even harder if that happened again. My honor was at stake. It has been more than two hours, my wife texted my to ask how everything was going, not a lot of hope in my side.
It was clearer now, so I went up again to take another look at the beach, this time I could see some gutters, the spot where I was wasn't one of them. I moved. And then it happened, I felt some bites, I tried to not pull too hard so that the circle hooks could do its job. I felt its pressure, the fish was on. I started reeling it in, and then suddenly didn't feel anything. Did I just lost it? No, it was the waves, the fish was just moving towards me so I couldn't feel it. And after some seconds there he was, an all handsome Australian salmon.
Hold it in my hand, took a video and sent it to my wife. Then put it on the sand to iki jime it. Stabbed it on the brain, also did the cut to bleed it, and when tried to put in the water the fish started to move like crazy again. It seems I missed the brain 😧 I stabbed it like 3 more times, hoping that one of them would get to the brain. None of them worked :frustrated:. But after some seconds bleeding it it stopped moving, so I assume it died. Putting it in a bucket with ice and go back to work.
After 20 minutes got a flathead that was around 35 cm - didn't actually measured it, but didn't look big enough to take it home so returned it to the water.
Headed home, filleted it, cut the bloodline and my wife cooked it. It was quite nice actually, I was a little worried because of all the negative comments salmon receives, but it didn't disappoint me. Maybe it being quite small helped.
In case you want to meet him, here is it: