Fishing in Sydney Harbour

I woke up at 5 am to join Doug and Claudia on an exciting fishing expedition - something I haven't done since I was 7 years old. We hired a motor boat in Rose Bay for $20 an hour (what a steal!) and spent an idyllic morning exploring the harbour and fishing to our hearts content.

Dad taught me how to cast when I was a very young pup - and must have taught me well, for I still remember vividly how to do it. My memories of tieing fishing knots are not quite so steadfast and I needed some patient reminding from Doug .

I'll never forget my first fising expedition with dad. After learning how to set up my rod, I cast into the Uilenskraal Lagoon and literally 50 seconds later pulled out a 3 kg steenbras. Exhilerating it was. After that, I never caught another thing, despite many hours of trying. Talk about beginners luck!



Here is Claudia with her Xmas present. Doug bought her the net, a rod and a full fishing box of tackle and wrapped it all individually. Talk about a clever present. In our relationship, it would be the equivalent of me buying Ally a set of camera lenses!! Not a bad idea :)



Suddenly there was a mighty splash and this enormous, thrashing fish leapt over our boat, in a desperate attempt to escape my hook. For a minute, I thought our boat would be dragged out to sea, "Old Man and the Sea" style.



But I managed to hold fast and after a terrific battle between man and fish, I pulled him in. Holy Mackerel, what a beaut!!



So after playing with my bait in such a fashion, we decided to go and pick up Ally from our flat across the bay (Ally had decided she wasn't wasting a perfectly good sleeping in opportunity to come fishing at 5 am in the morning).
An epic journey it was past Mosmon and the Opera House and under the Harbour Bridge. Ally was waiting for us on the beach outside our flat and she then joined us for a bit more fishing and a relaxing trip back to Rose Bay to pick up our car. You can see our flat in the background, under the bridge.



What a lot of fun it was. Who cares that we didn't catch any fish. We did catch a little squid (too cute to keep) and Doug narrowly missed on a big crab. Now we are dreaming of hiring a bigger boat and doing a bigger expedition. Maybe some time in 2007.

 
Sydney skyline - not a bad back drop to a fishing expedition. Yes indeed, its a tough life out here in Australia!




Some video highlights from the day

View our epic journey on the boat