Family road trip down south

During the June school holidays, my wife Ash and I decided to take the kids on a trip down south to Canberra, to see some snow and catch up with family while we were there.

Of course, a road trip obviously meant there would be some sort of fishing along the way.

When organising the trip, we looked at a few areas and decided to spend a few days at Port Macquarie before making our way to Canberra.

We have passed through Port Macquarie before, spending a few hours at the mouth of the Hastings River throwing lures about, but have never had a good look around the area or fished anywhere else.

We booked three nights at Camp Jordan, which is situated slightly upstream from the mouth of Limeburners Creek, not too far from the mouth of the Hastings River.

This location put us among some very fishable water, with a lot of options for throwing a few lures from the bank.

We decided to leave the boat at home on this trip and booked one of the hire boats from Camp Jordan, which has a range of Polycraft vessels, plus a few barbecue boats.

We planned on targeting the areas close to Jordans, so went with a 4.1m Polycraft with a 15hp outboard.

 

We arrived at Camp Jordan on the Saturday afternoon and shortly after, my son Luke and I were casting plastics from the bank behind our cabin.

It didn’t take long to get a bite – Luke had our first flathead for the afternoon on the bank in record time.

The bank behind the park is lined with rocks and drops sharply into about 6m of water.

There are plenty of snags on the bottom and the tide runs quickly along the edge.

It looked very fishy!

Later that afternoon, we nailed a few more lizards from the bank, mostly on prawn imitations rigged in 3/8 jig heads.

The Fish Craft Dr Prawn plastics have become a favourite of mine, catching a lot of fish.

The faithful 92mm Pro Lure Clone Prawn is also a favourite and is always tied onto one of my rods.

 

Luke and I got up early the next morning and caught a few more flatties from the bank before breakfast.

The weather turned out to be a lot better than what was forecast, so we decided to take the hire boat out on the Sunday instead of the Monday.

The 4.1m Polycraft was a great boat to fish from, though with the little 15hp Mercury two-stroke on it, no speed records were broken.

The borders of where we could take the boat were between the two ferry crossings.

This gave us plenty of water to fish in, both upstream and downstream from Jordans.

Yet it took us a while to work out where the fish were – turned out they were in the deeper water along the lower rocky ledges.

I love fishing these types of areas because you never know what you’re going to catch.

 

We hooked a few lizards up to about 55cm on the last of the run-out tide.

We had to downsize our lures to get the bites, going down to 3” paddle tails.

I threw one close to a steep rock wall and was belted by a good fish on the second flick.

It put up a real stink and took a while to get into the boat.

The landing net we had was from the camp, so not the biggest net ever made and, with a big hole in it, getting fish in the boat wasn’t going to be easy.

We eventually got the belter’s head in the little net, which somehow stayed put, and lifted it into the boat ready for a photo.

It measured about 75cm and was quickly released.

 

As we didn’t have anywhere to keep any caught fish, we released everything on the day.

After that fish, it went a bit quiet while the tide turned.

It takes a while for the current to hit the banks of the eastern side near Camp Jordan, as the tide runs out wider before it hits in close.

Once the tide did start to run, the water changed and we found some eddies and much better-looking water.

This change stirred the flatties up and we hooked some good fish on the 92mm Pro Lure Clone Prawn in Green Tiger.

A couple of 60-70cm fish ate the Clone Prawn – all very well-conditioned lizards.

The bites were brutal and once hooked, they put on a real show.

 

I was jigging a deep edge at the same time as trying to get a lure out for Luke.

Distracted, I wasn’t ready when I got a bit whack on the Clone Prawn.

Somehow, I managed to set the hook on a bigger fish.

While it definitely wasn’t textbook angling, we were on to a good fish, though wondered how we were going to fit it in the small net.

It showed its head – it was a quality flathead in the 80cm range.

Its head barely fit in the net and half the fish was hanging through the hole when I lifted it into the boat.

After a high five and a few photos, the big female was sent back to keep populating the Hastings River.

 

We kept ticking a few more flatties in the 40-65cm range off before it slowed down again.

We went further upstream and jigged along a few jetties and pontoons.

While bream were being a pest, the occasional flatty kept things exciting.

At the end of the session, I scored another good one of about 75cm, then we called it a day.

The Hastings is a very nice river – I’d love to take my own boat down at some stage to have a good look around.

We landed 20 flatties in the five-hour session in the boat and hooked another dozen off the bank behind Jordans.

If you’re ever visiting the area, Camp Jordan is a great place to stay.

The staff were all very friendly and helpful.

And it has everything you need – you can even have a fire in the pit next to the river while enjoying a few drinks.

We’ll definitely be returning at some stage.

 

We left Port Macquarie and headed for Queanbeyan, where some of our family live.

We had a fairly full schedule, though we managed to sneak out with my cousin to get Luke a carp.

They obviously aren’t a trophy fish – yet they grow big, they pull hard and it’s very visual.

Wayne and I stood back with a couple of cold beverages and watched Luke do all the work.

We encouraged the fish up with bread berley, then either floated a piece out with a hook hidden in it or squashed the bread around the hook and let it sink slowly to the bottom in the current.

Both techniques worked and Luke ended up catching three nice carp.

The fish were disposed of and Luke was a happy little angler.

He also let me know that he now had a bigger personal best carp than me.