11 replies to this topic

[slinkymalinky]

Had a day out on the water yesterday with Peter, a friend of mine who lives on the Central Coast and on weekends often moves to Paradise.... a beautiful holiday house on the Hawkesbury.

After picking him up at about 6.45 we shot down to West Head and picked up a tank full of Yakkas (another post to come on that one), then looked around unsuccessfully for squid for about 45 minutes. Oh well... lets go fishing. A 70cm king came up to the back of the boat not long after we pulled up but we couldn't interest him or any of his mates in taking a bait or sluggo.

The weather was so beautiful and the sea so flat we decided to take my little Quinnie well outside and try a spot for which I had a GPS mark. I love GPS. After half an hour traveling we got to the mark and right on the spot the sounder lit up with masses of fish hanging over a wreck. We were decidedly undergunned for some of the fish down there as we proceeded to get busted up twice in quick succession. We managed a 55cm flattie in the instant one of the livies touched the bottom beside the wreck before winding it back up... more importantly Peter, who despite living near and having a holiday house on the water has done little fishing, nailed his first ever king. Just check out the colour of that water.

Eventually the fish went off (except for the inevitable gear stealing Jackets ) so we ran back up to Barrenjoey. There were schools of bait everywhere but lots of trolling with small pushers and livies drew a blank and there was no real sigh of anything feeding on the schools.

Now to Pittwater. We downrigged among the moorings for about 20 minutes when we came by chance on a reef/wreck/car body or something on the sounder (now marked as a waypoint). There were 2 guys in another little boat anchored nearby burlying for yakkas but on our first run over the mark our livie went off and up comes a 50cm tailor.... followed by an 80+cm king .

The little secret reef was lit up like a Christmas tree with fish... a big ball of bait surrounded by big arches. We fished around and around there for an hour and found plenty of kings. The only trouble was that they liked taking livies set deep and then running straight into the reef. We were busted up 5 or 6 times by really good fish but boy, was it fun. While we were doing that, the guys in the other boat had good sized kings zipping continually through their burley trail but couldn't get them to take a bait or lure. Who said there are no Kings in Pittwater!!

Eventually the time got the better of us and with no more bait in the tank we headed home. A fantastic day on the water!


 Peter2.jpg   54.87K  20 downloads

One less Kingy virgin!


 Peter3.jpg   35.85K  14 downloads

blue, blue, blue


Cheers, Slinky

Attached Files

•  yakkas.jpg   29.57K  14 downloads

[Josh88]

Well done Slinky,
sounds like a great day! Bit frustrating when the kings start behaving in their own ways, but still fun to try and get the better of them
Josh

[King slayer]

Nice one Slinky,

Couple a kings in the boat and a whole lot of hook ups makes for lot's of fun! I was wondering about those pittwater kings. I've only tried once, on a charter in pittwater. We did ok, but not as good as many days been had in the harbour. What a beautiful spot it is though.
Dis you burley up and try for snapper on that outside reef?

[slinkymalinky]

Nice one Slinky,

Couple a kings in the boat and a whole lot of hook ups makes for lot's of fun! I was wondering about those pittwater kings. I've only tried once, on a charter in pittwater. We did ok, but not as good as many days been had in the harbour. What a beautiful spot it is though.
Dis you burley up and try for snapper on that outside reef?

G'day KS,
We were going to have a go for some Snapper but when the Jackets started destroying our live bait rigs we decided not to bother. We did a couple of drifts over it with a paternoster rig and Peter picked up another nice flathead and the biggest Sargent Baker I've ever seen but on the first pass we lost the top hook and on the third we lost the second hook and the sinker so we left it to the Leatherjackets. I'll be back there though the next time the weather's nice.

I should have taken a shot of the sounder... 45m of water and the wreck come up to about 32-35. Oasis in the desert and fish heaven.

cheers, Slinky

[fishlexic]

Hey guys well done.... pretty good going getting to that mark in half an hour from pittwatter if its the mark i think it is from the pic's, must have been pretty flat!! And as you found out pittwater is all about the wrecks if you can stop the little missiles before they bust you up!!! well done on breaking in the kingy virgin!!!!

Edited by fishlexic, 30 March 2008 - 10:38 AM.

[jewgaffer]

Great day out Slinkymalinky. Nice result. I'll bet your client will double the orders next time.
Tell me Tony what time did the kingfish come.

Cheers

jewgaffer

[slinkymalinky]

Great day out Slinkymalinky. Nice result. I'll bet your client will double the orders next time.
Tell me Tony what time did the kingfish come.

Cheers

jewgaffer

Hi Byron,
The King in the pic on the outside reef came over the side at about 9.30 but the fish were there as soon as we arrived at about 9 until we left at around 12 ( the Leatherjackets moved in at about 11.00 or at least thats when we started losing terminals). We found the wreck inside Pittwater at around 2pm and the fish were 'on' from the moment we found it until we had to leave at around 4pm... the hits on downrigged baits came about every 15-20 minutes.... it was bait up, drop the bomb, wander the bait past, around and through the fish... until BANG....ZZZZ....PING. Then reel in the shredded 60lb leader and do it all over again. We tried running the baits higher to give us a better chance and we upsized leader but the fish wouldn't cooperate. Great fun though.

Hey fishlexic... the conditions were idyllic... 20-25 knots in a little 4.8m Quinnie the whole way there and only slightly less on the way back. (the 30minutes or so doesn't include the couple of trolling stops around the bait schools)

Cheers, Slinky

[BrettP]

Hey Tony,

Looks like a nice day out, and sounds like you had fun. Back from hols now and look forward to catching up soon.

Cheers
Brett

[Cephalopod]

Great report Slinky..

[Tackle Junkie]

Great Report Mate!!!!!!.

Geez that water looks inviting doesn't it.

Well Done.

Josh

[Salami]

well done, great to hear the kings are back in the pittwater. hopefully the late season we have been praying for.

i was at barrenjoey saturday morning & there were schools of rats everywhere. released about 5 from 45cm -55cm. good to hear there are bigger ones inside.


plenty of big garfish about the headland as well.

[big_steve]

well done on the kings mate good report...