It is a familiar trap for anglers: the calm, blue-sky morning looks perfect and fishes poorly, while the day you almost stay home turns into the session of the month. Newcastle charter skipper Lowey lived both ends of that on a recent back-to-back winter trip on Lake Macquarie.
The first morning was cold and dead flat, the day after a full moon, and the fishing matched it. An early squid on a jig was followed by a long, slow grind, just a few flathead and a pest tailor or two on prawn-profile plastics and vibes, with the choppers shredding leaders and forcing constant re-ties. He called it for the day and planned a fresh approach for the morning.
That morning brought a forecast gone wrong: a north-westerly meant to top out around 20 knots instead screamed to 35 or 40, making it hard to feel a bite at all. Pushed into the one sheltered pocket he could reach, a spot he would normally drive straight past, Lowey hooked a jewfish first cast on a five-inch soft-plastic shrimp, and the floodgates opened.
In just three or four casts at one location he boated three cracking flathead, including dark, heavy fish nudging 70 centimetres, then added a second jewfish and more squid. "Don't let a bit of wind stop you. Get out there and still have a crack," he said. The winning spot, he stressed, was pure circumstance: "Sometimes you have good plans and they don't work out, and you go somewhere else because that's your only option, and it works out really, really good."
He was quick to puncture the highlight-reel illusion, too. The relentless second morning, he warned, is not the norm, pointing back to day one: "Absolute grind." And the fish, he explained, never stay put on a lake like this. "Everything moves around, follows the bait, so you've got to stay on top of it."
Lowey released the big breeding flathead and kept only a couple of eaters. His verdict on two days of opposite weather: a bit of everything, and a reminder that the ugliest forecast can still produce the best fishing for anyone prepared to adapt and keep casting.
