Long Hot Summers

Some of my favourite childhood memories are of holidays at my grandparents' waterfront home at Empire Bay on the Brisbane Waters, Central Coast, NSW.

These long, hot summer days with my brother, cousins and friends were normally packed with adventure. Early mornings started with us pushing my pop's 12ft tinnie off the mudflats to deeper water and dragging well-used oars and rollocks from the boatshed roof, along with rusty anchors, ropes, nets, rods, reels and tackle.

Low tide was used to collect our bream baits of green nippers from the mud bank. "Bogging" was the term we used to describe treading up and down in the smelly mud until the green nippers would appear. The race was always on between the boys to collect enough for a session or two.

Used beetroot cans were turned upside down and pushed down over the many squirt worm holes along the sandy shoreline. Often with great success as these small soft worms would shoot skyward because of the air pressure forced down an adjacent hole.

READY, SET, FISH
The turn of the tide was like a starter's gun. As the tide crept in to cover our muddy bog holes, we raced around making final preparations. While my grandmother kneaded the last of the dough into a perfect round ball, our mullet and garfish bait was then placed into an old margarine container.

We readied our cork handlines and adjusted the timber floats we had carved earlier from my pop's leftover pieces of wood.

With my best and only important Christmas present, my new green plastic tackle box, in hand - loaded with longshank mullet and suicide bream hooks, swivels, sinkers - we were off.

We only had to row 150m from the house to be on the edge of an oyster lease. With anchors holding fast, fore and aft, we commenced our berley trail of crushed Weet-Bix and breadcrumbs. Our secret weapon, however, was oven-grilled fat. We would scoop this from the fat tray under my grandmother's griller and keep it in a glass jar. A few dabs of this in the water brought fish from miles around.

The first small swirls around the boat would be garfish, closely followed by some bigger boils as the mullet fed in our trail.

By the age of eight, we were skilled at catching these fish, and any sudden bob of our float or sharp twist would see us striking hard. Our bream rods, which were cast with green nippers towards the oyster lease, would often disturb our concentration by breaking into dance. Battles here were won and lost, as the bigger bream would tie us up in knots around the structure. We still caught our share, though, and our hessian bag would often contain more than a dozen fish by the time we returned home at the top of the tide.

LIKE A LIZARD
On our return we would fill our oyster bottles with bread and go about catching some poddy mullet for our run-out tide session on the flathead. The poddies were great fun to catch and were even better livebaits for our prized bottom-dwelling catch.

Over the summer months we would catch some beauties and, combined with blue swimmer crab sessions, prawning the flats at night and building cubby houses in the mangrove swamps, what better life could a young boy have? Hence, my lifelong love of fishing and my particular love of the Brisbane Waters.

It is a terrific system of mangrove-lined islands, white sandy beaches, deep channels, weed flats and, of course, oyster leases. At its mouth it meets up with the Hawkesbury River, and this combined waterway yields enormous catches for both recreational and professional fishermen alike. Lying within easy reach of Sydney, only one hour north of the city proper, it is a trailerboat fisherman's dream, with a number of boat-ramps lining its length.

Charterboat operators, like Greg Joyes from Calmwater Fishing Charters, allow novices and experts alike a first-hand view of what lies beneath this large expanse of water. Greg has been fishing in this neck of the woods for years and specialises in huge jewfish and monster flathead. My last outing with Greg resulted in four jewfish between four and 10lb, so a session chasing big flathead was in order to complete the double.

ENOUGH REMINISCING
We left the wharf at Woy Woy around 4pm, because the run-out tide towards evening is prime time for big flathead. Greg likes to use large livebaits, so we spent a session catching mullet and yellowtail pike under a bobby cork, which was something I was used to. I enjoyed reliving some childhood memories.

The spot we fished was a drop-off towards the mouth of the Brisbane Waters - a perfect ambush point for large flathead. As the tide roared out, Greg put a spread of mullet, squid and yellowtail baits out on heavy-duty tackle. Jewfish often frequent this point too, so fishing light would ruin any chance of landing one of these beauties.

A squid strip placed on a light threadline outfit and cast between the heavy lines resulted in five nice bream and a decent tailor coming to the boat in the hour before dusk. Some quick bumps on the rod tip and a slow but steady stream of line pulling from one of the livebait rigs signalled a flathead on the move. Greg rigs his baits with three 6/O hooks snelled to the 60lb trace, and once a livebait is taken a solid hook-up rate is assured. After a few deep runs, a beautiful 10lb flathead surfaced in the fast-moving current. What a magnificent sight. Fishing with Greg is always a great experience, his knowledge of the area and his theories on catching the various species means there is always a new skill to learn.

The proximity of Brisbane Waters to Sydney offers the perfect escape for thousands of trailerboat owners. The chance to do battle with huge flathead and monster jew, catch bream, whiting and my old favourites, mullet and garfish, in a relatively safe system is about as close to perfect as you could get.

Greg's custom-built plate aluminium boat handles the roughest water with ease, and his charter operation often takes him across Broken Bay to the Hawkesbury River. For owners of trailerboats over 5m, the chance to sneak outside to chase salmon, kingfish, bonito and tailor as they boil up the baitfish over the summer months in Broken Bay is also an attractive option.

Greg Joyes can be contacted on 0419 239 882. A day out with him will keep you coming back to this brilliant fishery for more. If you are looking for somewhere to stay that is near the water, try the Watersedge Motel opposite the main wharf in Woy Woy, tel (02) 4341 2888.