LUDERICK: OLD VS NEW

first fished for luderick about 45 years ago as a schoolboy beside Athol Wharf which serviced Taronga Zoo on Sydney Harbour. I visited there recently and the wharf looked much the same but the rock wall we used to fish was all but covered in foliage and the lovely deep water where we used to drift our floats on the rising tide was filled with thick kelp type weed and looked pretty unfishable. As I was standing there thinking of those great times gone past, out of the corner of my eye I saw a huge creature come up to the surface for a breath of air and then submerge again before I could quite realise what I’d seen. It was a huge sea lion with a mottled fur coat and it surfaced again twice before it casually cruised out of view. Now that was something I’d never seen in all my trips there as a young boy with a couple of mates. He looked like he was confidently cruising a beat like a big brown trout and I’ll bet he had cleaned up or scared off any