I went out off Port Kembla last Friday morning, 24 October 2003, with Stephen Chatterton in the hope of finding some salmon. Before we put the boat in the water we visited Hill 60 to see if there was any bird activity. We were greeted by a member of the Coast Guard ( we parked in their car park) who invited us to have a look from the Coast Guard tower where we found a small flock of birds just north of Rabbit Island.
We did not waste any time in getting the boat in the water and headed straight to Rabbit Island where we found a small school of salmon breaking the water surface. I immediately hooked up followed by Stephen about 5 minutes later. The fish soon became wary of our existence and you had to land the fly right in the middle of the school and strip as fast as you can to get a hook up. After an hour or so several boats began to annoy us by trolling through the school. This put the fish down many times and made fly fishing a little difficult for us for a while. After mid morning more schools of salmon appeared followed by many hundred more gulls and we found success fishing in the wash off the small island (east of Rabbit). The sea became choppy from an increasing wind from the east, tending north east and the southerly swell off the island made it difficult conditions to fish in. There were several times when we hooked up to salmon close to the island and we had to motor out while hooked up as the boat became sucked in by the current close to the island. It pays to have a reliable motor in these situations.
By lunch time we were completely exhausted and we both caught 12 salmon each plus one slimy tuna each. Most of the salmon were between 57cm and 60 cm. I was using a white clouser made from buck tail and Stephen was using a similar fly tied on synthetics material. Over the morning a total of 4 boats trolled around the area and we did not see one person catch a fish, however one boat reported catching two or three salmon.
Leo Harding