South Ballina Beach

[goat boy]

Hi everyone. Been reading the forums here for awhile but have never posted. I always enjoy the reports and get something out of the ones relevant to me; so I thought I'd post one myself and maybe give somebody a hand or a good read.
Went down to South Ballina Beach 9 & 10 May with a mate (stayed in the little caravan park by the 4wd entrance to the beach). I had passed through there several weeks ago and although the SE winds were starting to get quite bad I had gone out for an hour or so in the late afternoon and bagged 2 32cm bream and a 40cm Tailor (on pilchards).
We both had the Friday off work so I suggested we go down and take a look as the weather was better and the recent hour or so session had intrigued me.
Went out on the beach Friday arvo about 3ish with the idea of getting some worms while still light (for Saturday) and then using pilchards and/or tailor flesh (if we could get any) into the night.
While burleying up some worms, my mate decided to throw a pilchard out just to see if anything happened, as he was winding in the slack after casting, bam, a 40cm flattie grabbed it. Not bad for a first cast, we got a bit excited at what lay in store as the gutter we were in front of looked promising.
We quickly got some worms and dashed off to grab our gear and start fishing. The next hour and a half of daylight saw 6 bream (30-32cm)and a stargazer(40cm) caught as well as numerous maulings of pilchards to be had (choppers maybe?). just on dark I got a 47cm tailor and our hopes got up for the evening. Unfortunately, that seemed to signal the death of our gutter as not even a nibble over the next hour. Reluctant to use the tailor for bait (I had bigger plans that involved a bbq for him...) we set off to get a few scotches into us and look forward to tommorow.
Got up early and headed out while still dark, went back to the same spot, nothing on pilchards or worms. as it got a bit lighter we moved on to another gutter and got some more bream (around 28cm I think) before it all went quiet again as the sun came fully up. All up, a pretty quiet morning.
Headed out about 2ish again, looked for another gutter and just bummed around there. Both worms and pilchards were producing bream up to 30cm but nothing else. As it got dark we had a few good strikes but no hook ups, but the bream continued into the evening (and seemed slightly larger). We had had enough by 830, the bream were still around but nothing else was.
All up, not a bad trip, a bit disappointing in the end but thems the breaks. Spoke to numerous other people fishing and the bream seem to be in good numbers and size throughout most gutters (and responding well to a range of baits).
The wind was mostly light and dropping off to calm as the afternoon got darker and there is weed about from the recent bad weather (some gutters are much worse than others) however it is really only of notice on an incoming tide.
Ended up keeping 4 bream each, the flattie and the tailor, as well as about 2 litres of scotch and numerous beers lighter....

[Keechie]

sounds good keep it up. ooh i wouldn't mind being onto a 32cm bream right now

regards,
keechie

[_Dan_]

EDIT My fault wrong weekend, i was down the weekend before...

ITs a nice spot, its getting busier though...

Almost the same report as mine,