Georges Bay, Grants Lagoon and Scamander River 14 September
We arrived at St Helens caravan park on Wednesday at 11am and was on Georges bay at noon. The wind was blowing 20 knot north westerlies with stronger gusts coming through so we launched the boat at Akaroa. We fished wherever we could get out of the wind, casting 1/8 jigheads with a wide range of soft plastics.
We caught 4 trevally (Stu 2, Jamie 2), 15 big black-back salmon between 3 pound and 5.5 pound and a lot of other bits and pieces. One of the highlights of the day was seeing a black-back smashing the surface chasing a popper that Patrick was casting.
Day 2 we put the boat in at the main boat ramp in St Helens at daylight. We headed over to the same location from the day before because the wind was just as horrible. We did much the same thing until lunch time picking up 2 trevally (1 Stu, 1 Jamie) and a few black-back. After lunch we anchored up and got a good burley trail going. After that we caught a heap of garfish, surprisingly another 12 trevally (Stu 7, Patrick 3, Jamie 2), 5 leather jackets and a heap of other bits and pieces.
Day 3 we had a bit of a sleep in and didn't get on the water till 10am. We put the boat in at Akaroa again, the wind was much the same but was a lot warmer. Didn't do any good on the trevally but had another great day on the garfish.
Day 4 was a hot and calm day so we headed to Grants Lagoon for a run. Fished there for a hour and a half and only caught a few small salmon and flathead. So we decided to pack up and head to Scamander River. We got to Upper Scamander boat ramp at around 11:30am and left at 2pm. We fished with small soft plastics and Stu caught a 360mm Bream on the second cast which he was stoked with for his first bream on softies. Then he caught another 330mm and Patrick caught one much the same for his first on a soft plastic.
All in all it was a excellent trip, between us we caught 17 trevally, 113 garfish, around 25 big black- back salmon, 3 bream and heaps of other small fish.
Presidents Jamie, Stu and Patrick.
