Lay down hardie

nikoniko · Post by **nikoniko** » Sun Oct 25, 2009 3:30 pm

Over the last month I managed another three trips to Hardies. The water levels are dropping fairly quick and the fishing has slowed aswell. I reckon it peaked late August early September. The first trip I managed a swampy 74cm casting and a 70cm on the troll.

I went back last Saturday with my old man and found the water had dropped more. We started casting at the weedbeds and lillies landing a 79cm on a small techi colour yawn squidgie.

The fish was released

After a few more hits things went quiet. We tried jigg trolling lucifers with a few hits landing a 60cm fish. It was very quiet so we pulled the boat out at 11am beating most of the heat.

We went back yesterday as the old man hadn't caught a legal fish last week. We started flicking the lillies and weeds again when the old boy hooked up a nice 55cm. It was cool to see him happy with a thrashing barra on the deck.

We tried trolling again but couldn't even get a sniff after an hour. With it starting to get breezy we punted on casting in the lillies again. Pulling heaps of weed we started to get a few follows and touches. After a fair bit of weedy frustration I manged a swampy 74cm which gave me a good work out in the cover.

Pulled out at 11am again to bump into fisheries police at the ramp. They didn't put in but checked my esky and trailer rego. One bloke stayed and chatted while the other went off and checked all the other trailers. It was good to see them out there and I was glad my trailer was up to scratch. To top it off a slow moving kite got in the way of my right hand side wing mirror taking it clean off at 110ks. That makes my tally for 12 months at one wallaby, one crow, and a kite.

NIKO

mariner_22 · Post by **mariner_22** » Sun Oct 25, 2009 3:58 pm

Nice work mate nothing beats fishing with your loved ones. Good to see your old man with a smaile on his face

meterclubwannabe · Post by **meterclubwannabe** » Sun Oct 25, 2009 7:08 pm

great report and some nice pics! looks like a really nice spot with some great fish too

meter_seeker · Post by **meter_seeker** » Mon Oct 26, 2009 12:14 am

You surely like the ease of freshwater fishing Niko, doing it well with some more great billabong fish

...Top post as always mate

kernal · Post by **kernal** » Mon Oct 26, 2009 10:11 am

Hey Niko,

I was out there on saturday morning as well...

Little red and white fibreglass (really need to get myself a FFF sticker).

Had a shocker, arrived at 6am, put my deckie onto a nice small toga within about 10 minutes of arriving. Moved a bit further up & flicked the weedbeds he then hooked up on a nice fish... I reckon about 70 - 80cm chrome model, it jumped as soon as it was hooked. Then swam straight at the boat and he was unable to keep any tension on the line, it jumped again, and we had to duck for cover as the lure came flying at us..

After that it slowed down a bit... I hooked up on four occasions and dropped every one....

Been using dropbear soft plastics rigged weedless. Get a heap more hits, fewer hookups and it appears even less landings. Oh Well! I agree that Hardies has slowed down, been out there only three times this year and each time the acitivity has got less and less (along with the water levels).

Pulled out at 3pm... was a bit annoyed by some of the other boat users out there... there were some young guys out there having fun... (which is all good). but i picked up 3 or 4 empty beer bottles as well as a couple of coke bottles too...

Anyway...

Glad to hear that someone had some success...

nikoniko · Post by **nikoniko** » Mon Oct 26, 2009 6:30 pm

Thanks for the comments guys. Kernal I remember seeing you out there as it was an unusual boat.It looked a nice smooth ride with some character. You should have popped over and said hi. The mob you were talking about in a couple boats were certainly having a good time and they couldn't be bothered waving back.

It a shame about the rubbish but I cant say I noticed it when we got back.

I have gone off weedless SP's after trying them for a while. The hook up rate just doesn't do it for me although I got more hits from using weedless. Now I use normal SPs and put up with heaps of weed and snagging lillies etc. but at least when I got hit it was about a 50% hook up rate. Picking gaps in lillies or sounding out weedbeds using the SP by letting it sink a bit, if I pull weed I cast back in the same area but keep the lure as high as possible using lightweight SPs seemed to work for me.

NIKO

Moonman · Post by **Moonman** » Mon Oct 26, 2009 9:44 pm

Nice work Niko! Good to see someone still pulling a few fish from there... Good to see you put the old man onto a couple as well. Must be about time I got my old man out on the water again too...

Cheers
Moonman

kernal · Post by **kernal** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 9:57 am

nikoniko wrote:Thanks for the comments guys. Kernal I remember seeing you out there as it was an unusual boat.It looked a nice smooth ride with some character. You should have popped over and said hi. The mob you were talking about in a couple boats were certainly having a good time and they couldn't be bothered waving back. It a shame about the rubbish but I cant say I noticed it when we got back.

I have gone off weedless SP's after trying them for a while. The hook up rate just doesn't do it for me although I got more hits from using weedless. Now I use normal SPs and put up with heaps of weed and snagging lillies etc. but at least when I got hit it was about a 50% hook up rate. Picking gaps in lillies or sounding out weedbeds using the SP by letting it sink a bit, if I pull weed I cast back in the same area but keep the lure as high as possible using lightweight SPs seemed to work for me. NIKO

Yeah the boat is good... go's well, nice and smooth, although by the time i put my esky in, theres not a lot of room

The rubbish I was picking up was actually in the water, was just cruising along the edges at one point flicking at snags etc. and the young guys went flying past and I saw em chucking bottles over the side...

Anyway, thanks for the tips on the softplastics... i think i will just have to suck up the fact that in places like hardies you gotta deal with weed!

I'll definately come over and say hi next time (if we ever cross paths again). what sort of boat you got? do you have a FFF sticker?

cheers,
Kernal

nikoniko · Post by **nikoniko** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 6:22 pm

Cool Kernal, I was in the small red tinny with FFF sticker on each side.

NIKO