Chen Loves Cooks River

That's it, I'm officially pissed at all my fishing mates simply because in the name of jewfish-on-lures! Hahahahahaha... kidding. Yup, I'm the only one yet to accomplish this accolade. Anyway, while I was out on a donut trip with Rocky on Friday night, the tackle shop owner in Matraville called me to say that me and Chen's rods are ready for collection after a super duper long wait. As my car is still at the mechanic's place, we had to take a bus down to collect it, that's how desperate and bored we were! Took bus 309 which took forever to reach Redfern and headed over there. Went up to his rod-building studio and showed us our rods. Pretty pretty no run water lah! He also brought out his other blanks to let us abuse it and I was amazed at how his 1-3kg rods are like unbreakable! Then as usual talk a lot of shit and Chen bought some salmon lures and off we headed back to HQ to test the casting of our rods, yes, at a grass patch behind St Michaels! Hahahahahahaha....

Since it was Labour day holiday and both me and Chen were not working, I arranged with Rocky to hitch a ride on his car and we proceeded to a new spot in Cooks River. Since I've always lured in bays and flats, had never really tried those narrow river types. Rocky was 1st on the scoreboard when he got a small bream on his kmart pak rat lure.

Then, he proceeded to kamikaze his lure to a potential snag. So me blo went over to help him save the lure using the tackleback retriever. Luckily it came out and he practically continue using that hb throughout the day. He then went on a solo mission even luring on a foot bridge! Later came back and told us only managed another small bream caught on his own camera.

Me and Chen were left to do the stretch that we came about in the 1st place. I was using the new Tango with only a small burst and didn't hook up, bastard! The current was pretty strong as we weren't used to luring a river since our usual haunts don't really have fast moving water. Chen was having some success on the camo worm and so I thought I'll go for it as well. The tide was rising and so I opted a 1/22oz Gamakatsu jighead. Few hits and misses and some lost tails, it was making me frustrated. But soon, as I noticed after one of my twitch, the slack line was moving and then it came up tight. Zzzzz... off it goes and what a FEELING! I can tell you that having not caught fishes for such a long time, it was truly amazing! This bream was giving me some curry but the Loomis rod was performing beautifully. The bad thing about this spot is that there's no steps or any means to get down near the water edge to grab or lip grip the fish. Luckily it was not a huge bream and I simply tried to high-stick up the fish to see how the IMX performs! No problems!

Measured 30cm and had a little net damage but by far a healthy looking bream. Released it and felt really rejuvenated. Chen had another problem with the Yamatoyo line and had to sort it out again. Slowly but surely he would soon be on the scoreboard when out of the sudden I heard his Tierra singing and rushed over to check out the action. Straightaway his Loomis was fully loaded and I knew it was a good fish. Chen said that it was heavy and I quickly took out my camera and grab a video of the action.

Argh!!! The fish dropped! Chen was absolutely gutted. I told him that was a pb-breaker for sure. This spot was starting to show its true potential. Then, he suddenly realised how the fish had gotten away, because of a broken hook point!

A big bruiser bream which is so used to crushing oyster shells can simply make a short work out of a fine wire gauge squidgy hook! Oh well, that's fishing! Not long later, I managed to score a small bream on the worm again.

Then, the best action for the day. A same thing happened when I heard Tierra singing and turned around to see that Chen was onto something again. The drag was louder and faster on the initial burst and Chen was baffled, thinking it might be another good bream. As I quickly pulled out my camera for a vid, he called out for something NEW...

Baby jewfish! Bloody hell this jewie maxed out my ruler! Lol.. Used the tape measure and it went 44.5cm. Chen was so ecstatic that I was so proud of him scoring something which I haven't! Bugga! Hahaha... nonetheless, was more than happy to take a few happy snaps for him.

And now he has to behave like GTK saying: "I Love Cooks River man..." Damn it! Hahahahahahaha.... The fish as usual released and it took awhile for this jew to be revived, they sure are quite a weak fish! Not long later, Rocky scored a flattie and he basically skull dragged the poor bugger up!

After the tide was starting to move out, the bites were slowly disappearing. We persisted awhile more but the heat and exhaustion was too much. We wrapped up the session and went to maccas for lunch. Rocky wanted to buy some sx40 lures and so directed him to the tackle shop at Matraville. He bought 6 sx40s and 2 ck40f lures! He said it's for his pacu luring back in indonesia.. POWER! Rock drove us back while he secretly went to recce a new spot at Cooks again! Dedication mate!

Ronald