Beach Fishing – Lower Yorke Penisular (South Australia)
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The other fishers already on the beach confirmed that the salmon just weren’t there. I soaked pilchard baits and tossed lures for 90 minutes for a single hook up of a 2kg salmon that managed to earn its freedom by spitting the hooks on its final jump just meters from shore.
It was 10pm and time to pack up and go to plan B. Nearby Stenhouse Bay and Marion Bay jetties are great for catching the big squid that are a close second to fresh salmon fillets for Jew bait. I checked Stenhouse Bay jetty to find crystal clear water and managed to land enough big squid in a short period of time.
My usual Jew beach is just too far and dangerous a walk to attempt at night so off to Daly Head beach where I have previously caught 50lb plus Jew under very similar conditions. Arrived at the car park 3 hours before the high tide and found only one other car. Descended the stairs and spoke with the guys that had been fishing the first gutter since before dark and had yet to have a hit. Rather then cramp their gutter I was off down the beach in search of the next good location.
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Daly Head beach with a gutter at the base of the stairs clearly visible in the foreground. I fished the
channel over a kilometre down the beach that is just visible as a dark line leading into the beach. |
It can be difficult to find good gutters at night but I constantly watch the water while walking and stop when I find a likely spot to spend a few minutes to study the waves. The thing to look for are waves that consistently have a gap in the break and where the water runs up the beach further than the surrounding area. After walking, stopping and studying the wave patterns for almost an hour I found a spot with a good close in gutter and a visible channel running out past the last line of breakers.
I baited with half a fresh squid head, lobbed it into the close in gutter and placed the rod into the holder. Within a few minutes the rod showed the tell tale signs of weed so I wound in the huge weed whale. I cleared the weed and lobbed the bait back into the gutter only to catch another kelp creature within a few minutes, and continued to repeat the process for the same result. With the tide still coming in the gutter was full of floating weed that makes fishing next to impossible...>next
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