Sussex Inlet and Jervis Bay

YZ250 · September 30, 2020

It has been a while since I have made a report and in the ensuing period I have upgraded the boat. I will post about that separately in the boating section but in short I now have a Haines Hunter V16R with a 90hp mercury on the back which means I can venture out a touch further than I could in my 3.5meter 10hp tinny.

This weekend was my first opportunity to get the new boat wet so we went down to Sussex Inlet on Saturday to start getting a feel for it. However the weather was not the best and when we arrived on Saturday afternoon it was blowing a gale, this meant the Basin itself was unfishable, as were most of the canals, so we gave up and went to the pub.

Sunday was much better, however with 20kmh winds and 30kmh gusts it was still pretty rough out in the bay. We had the place virtually to ourselves which was a sign I think that conditions were not ideal! However, we spent a couple of hours bobbing around the basin where we boated one small whiting on a Pippi and lost what I suspect was another. We didn’t see hide nor hair of a flathead though, which is what we were after, so we gave up and went for a belt through the waves to test out the Haines chop cutting abilities and to get a feel for the boat. After this we went into the canals for a cruise and further fishing.

The water inside here was glassed out (despite the winds) and absolutely gin clear. I could see the bottom in 2.5m without a problem at all, and was amazed at the variety and size of fish cruising about in broad daylight. Eventually I saw an absolute horse of a Trevally and a school of whiting so decided to drop anchor and soak some baits. Whilst doing that I pulled out my casting rod and tied on small purple yabby imitation to have a cast. I sent it along the bank and first cast, within five cranks of the handle, it gets walloped by a flathead. I managed to get him to the side of the boat before he spat the hooks! It was a beautiful dusky, around 40 to 45 cms.

That was the last hook-up for the day though as nothing else would cooperate. The next day was a much better forecast, and now having some confidence in the boat we decided to put it into Jervis Bay for a quick fish before we left for home. We were aiming for the Middle Grounds to do some drifting but I didn’t have the Co-ords on me for my GPS so just headed out based on some information I have in a book and from a post on this forum. I think I had just arrived at the spot when my partner tapped out – the swells were too big for either of our comfort at this point in owning the boat so we came back in a little bit to start drifting.

It didn’t take long, almost instantly in fact, until we were onto a small blue-spotted flathead. This became the norm as we boated one after the next in the 25cm to 30cm bracket. I finally cracked a better one at 35cms before we were back into the tiddlers. By now it was time to go home so we packed up and headed back to Canberra where we arrived in less than three hours from ramp to driveway including a petrol stop. Needless to say we had a great day and JB is going to be a regular haunt of hours.