Hawkesbury River Trip with Dr Phil

The forecast was for 20 knot wind and rain. Who would be crazy enough to go fishing?

Dr Phil invited me to stay overnight at his place on the river. It was raining pretty hard at the boat ramp, there were not many other boats.

Conditions improved later in the morning and here are photos of Dr Phil’s beautiful house and boatshed.

Dr Phil’s neighbour kindly gave us live Hawkesbury River prawns to use as bait.

We soon exchanged a prawn for a 40cm yellowfin bream (acanthopagrus australis). These are very slow growing (see here from which the figure below was extracted) so the fish was duly released.

We caught this flathead using chicken as bait while preparing lunch.

This visitor patrols the houses in the area.

Dr Phil cooked an amazing dinner with baked bream which was caught right at the end of the day, fried potatoes and onion, and rhubarb with greek yogurt.

Predawn panorama.

Despite the weather, it was a most enjoyable trip with fabulous company. Thanks Dr Phil!

P.S. Several years ago, a spiking from a flathead got infected quite badly. I went to have it checked by my doctor who prescribed antibiotic cream. The same thing happened this trip and I used triple antibiotic ointment which cured the swelling overnight.

While we’re on the topic of first aid, Dr Phil recommended salt or tea tree oil for leeches and scabies cream for ticks.