Preston Beach Report

With my Texan mate out trying to catch Dhuies my trusty dog DJ became my fishing offsider. He talks less crap anyway.

I rocked up at a Preston Beach spot about 4pm planning for an overnighter. Unlike my last mission a couple of weeks ago it was a Herring or Skippy every cast with baits getting snapped up as soon as they hit the water. The Herring were pretty good size too.

The small fish activity got my hopes up for something larger in the evening but with the ‘pickers’ so ferocious larger baits were getting demolished within seconds.  This continued well after sunset. Even when I chucked out a large slab of mullet I felt it immediately get massacred by the hungry mass. I quickly brought it back in for inspection and found just a hint of Mullet skin left on the hooks and a Herring impaled through its back.  So, any thoughts of scoring Tailor, Salmon or anything else on mulies were soon dashed. I did get my hopes up at one point when something thumped on the end of the line only to see a massive NW boltcutter hit the beach. DJ seemed to nearly hate that thing more than I did!

A change of tactics saw a couple of live Herring chucked back out on the heavy gear and 4 more chucked in the frypan. I don’t mind a feed of fresh Herring followed by a couple of steaks washed down with the appropriate fluid!

There was very little action in the evening and with a guts full of dead creature meat I dozed off on the sand... only to be woken by a screaming ratchet. Unfortunately the short intermittent runs and dead weight told me it was a massive Ray. Time for a few more beers.

The morning saw the Herring as hungry as ever so out went another couple of live baits.

After a couple of hours of changing the live Herring (and having a huge breakfast), I was starting to think I should have stayed home and had a crack at a dawn service. Not even a Ray! Then finally one of my lines screamed off. After a couple of decent runs I beached a Hammerhead Shark. Not huge like some of the beasts posted on FW but a good size for a feed. DJ really didn’t like Mr HH and I literally had to break those two up.

Image Upload: 

Posts: 256

Date Joined: 25/12/10

nice hammerhead, great spot

Fri, 2013-04-26 12:14

nice hammerhead, great spot preston never know what you can catch and easily accessible

Snags's picture

Posts: 558

Date Joined: 07/05/09

Nice Hammer!I heard they are

Fri, 2013-04-26 14:19

Nice Hammer!

I heard they are excellent eating.  Very jealous

Fish guts's picture

Posts: 318

Date Joined: 20/07/12

and very well told.

Fri, 2013-04-26 14:26

and very well told.

____________________________________________________________________________

All men are equal before fish.... 

Posts: 16

Date Joined: 01/01/70

 nice job, what gear did you

Sun, 2014-03-09 19:55

 nice job, what gear did you get it on?

opsrey's picture

Posts: 1200

Date Joined: 05/10/07

Good report.

Sun, 2014-03-09 23:51

Nice sized Hammer. Dog pic is a gooden.

We find Preston a bit hit and miss too. We had a berly slick so jucy and big we half expected big Whites or the like, but for 16hrs of fishing not evern a Hezza.

 

bradzino's picture

Posts: 153

Date Joined: 27/06/12

well told...

Mon, 2014-03-10 17:47

ah well a couple of beers, the Hammer Head and the old dog...doesnt get much better really, good stuff.

Formerathlete's picture

Posts: 114

Date Joined: 02/04/12

Funny how this post popped up

Tue, 2014-03-11 10:11

Funny how this post popped up nearly a year later. HH caught on a live herring (bottom rig). Reel was Alvey 651c5 with 15kg mono and rod was FSU9177. Beer was Corona.