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Volitan

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Volitan last won the day on September 21 2023

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    Central Coast, NSW

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JEWFISH

JEWFISH (10/19)

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  1. Mostly grunter, with bream, mado and but really little versions of anything can join in the fray. and yes, I know the presence of pickers is a byproduct of a non-ideal location but it’s my home turf and there’s an obvious benefit to being able to fish from my own back yard. as I’ve posted previously, I often cast out an inline camera and this has told me that there are plenty of good size fish around, but they are way more wary and indecisive then the little ones. I see good size flathead, bream, whiting on every occasion, and many other species as well, even things like gurnard, flounder and estuary perch. Mostly they stay just at the edge of visibility as they seem to need time to build up their confidence, but by then it’s all over. I am keen to try the skirt steak though.
  2. I will give that a try. My first thought was that I prefer baits of marine origin as at least the fish know what it is, but chicken fillet is good bait, and I’m told chicken guts is too though I’ve never used it. triggered a memory. When I was young the go-to bait was beef heart. I don’t remember what species we caught with it though.
  3. No I haven’t, but thanks for the tip. catching them around here is no trouble. Not catching them is the problem,
  4. Can’t use lures - due to hand injuries. Otherwise would love to.
  5. All the baits that seem to work in my area are soft. That’s a problem because we have a vast number of small fish - little pickers that can strip off the bait as soon as it hits bottom. Some tougher bait might at least give the larger fish a chance to find it. Does anyone use and find successful a tough bait? I’ve tried bait elastic and salted baits and they help a little but not nearly enough. when we were kids in NZ we used to buy a type of squid in packets which would stay on all day. The fish loved it too. Wish we had that now.
  6. Let’s go a step further wait till the end of school holidays, choose a day with high tide about 8am, get there early with garfish or fresh squid, start at the car park chucking bait out about 10 meters and letting it drift with the current, walking along the footpath to keep in contact with the rig. Let the bait tumble along in midwater, and let it get down into the deeper hollows where the fish get respite from the current. I’d like to say ‘do that and you should get a kingfish’ but as we all know it doesnt work like that, let’s just say it shouldn’t take many trips.
  7. I’ve done ok off the breakwall at Nelson Bay Marina. Around high tide, unweighted garfish on a double hook pennel rig drifting along with a slight current. At the car park, at the very end of the breakwall, or by the moored boat called the Simba. There are usually kingfish under the Simba but very wary so probably best not to spend too much time with them. early morning or evening best but I’ve done ok at all times of the day. On one memorable day they were going off right at the car park at about 1pm - everyone was hooking up. most of what you catch are rats but there are some very big fish there too. I’ve seen some big ones hooked but never witnessed one landed.
  8. I’ll agree with you in part about using a soft drag approach, and ignore the comment about watching too many fishing movies. Ive caught hundreds of kingfish around channel markers and after loosing a few the strategy I evolved was to hook up, take the pressure off, gently tow the hooked fish (below panic threshold) away from the marker, and then once it was in clear water put the pressure on safe in the knowledge they would seldom return to the marker. I think all fish will quickly calm down once the pressure goes off and kingfish are the most extreme example. Of course these were hooked on a fly rod so a tug-of-war was not really a valid option. hard thing for a beginner to do off the rocks though. id probably reverse the success ratio of hard to soft approaches and leave it at that.
  9. It’s hard to deal with a fish that knows instinctively how to cut you off on the bottom, but a couple of things that might turn the odds in your favour are: more drag. If you watch the guys catching kings off the rocks in NZ the drag is ‘pliers tight’. They don’t give an inch. If your mainline is 50lb then you should be able to set drag at 17lb or a slightly more risky 20 in a snaggy area. Measure your drag with a spring balance or a bucket of sand and you’ll be surprised how tight 20lb is. mix it up, discombobulate the fish by pulling left, pulling right etc. the fish needs to get its head down and tail back towards you for maximum thrust and if you watch videos of a hooked fish you’ll see that’s what it’s trying to do. What you need to do in effect is throw them off balance. If the fish is definitely snagged, give it line. It should swim out after it’s calmed down - it has to eventually. Remember the fish is panicking because it’s terrified by these unfamiliar events but panic doesn’t last long with fish. This does work, only sometimes, but is better then keeping the pressure on and getting sawn off. Mono has MUCH higher abrasion resistance then braid, so if your using braid for the main line switch to mono for the rocks. Anyway, a great effort and I assume no drone in sight.
  10. I gave it a go. Like you said, deep and snaggy and a ripping current - and I’d add very slippery rocks when they’re wet. Didnt get a bite - but bait and tide were not well chosen as more just a recce.
  11. Hi. Has anyone fished at Kanagroo Point - landbased. Under the freeway bridge. Looks like very deep hole close in, with lots of structure from road bridge etc. surely a good spot for a jewfish?
  12. Actually, that’s a Phantom 3 standard - same as mine. Easiest way to tell is the single aerial coming out of the front of the controller - the other phantom 3’s and all the 4’s had the much better double aerial. I’ve since found out that my Phantom 3 standard does offer control over the lights - in the Dji Go app, not thru a switch. Therefore I can use one of the light activated release mechanisms. I hadn’t realised the mechanical (pressure or tension activated) releases were so popular until you pointed it out. I think I’d still like to start with an electromechanical (light or wifi) one though. your last post got censored, can you maybe PM me and let me know what release you use - I want to avoid the many on the market which are bad by reputation. My phantom is a beast. I’m really amazed. I put a rod in a beach spike, attached 300 grams of weight to the drone, then took off but forgot to release the bail. It pulled the beach spike over, pulled the rod out and started dragging it along the beach - didn’t seem to loose any velocity or altitude at all. hopefully I’ll get to use it for real later this week. I’ll probably do a drive along the beaches on the northern end of the Central Coast looking for bonito or something. cheers
  13. Hey NewToFishing. I just bought a Phantom 3 standard for bait drops. Old but immaculate. It was a toss up between a phantom 3 and Mavic Pro but I went the phantom as it’s long legs will keep it out of the sand - important for me because I usually fish alone so don’t always have time to land the drone carefully. Anyway, now I need a bait drop mechanism. I know there are devices that work off their own wifi but they seem to be limited to about 150 meters claimed, which iwould be less in practice. Not far enough. and there are some which work off lights on the drone but I don’t think I have any controllable lights on the P3S. or you can just use a simple hook which drops the bait as soon as the drone stops going forward which is what I’ve used in the past so maybe will suffice? so what do you use and if you recommend it then where did you get it? Cheers
  14. Just noticed your comment about reels. These two you mention are spinning or threadline reels. I don’t think spinning reels are much good for drone fishing, especially if your fishing solo. The problem I find with them is that you can only use them in one of two ways to get the bait out - bail arm off and drag set or bail arm on and drag off. Neither is very good. Bail arm off and drag set allows the line to pour off the stationary spool unhindered, which is great for the drone but the line is unmanaged and loops of line will come off when you don’t want them too, especially with wind. In fact you’ll find you usually get a few loose loops while setting up the drone and rod. These can snarl around the reel and bring the drone to a stop. Likewise if you can’t get to the rod quickly after the drop then the loose line will be easily caught by wind, waves and dog walkers and continues to pour off unrestrained. The advantage is that you have the drag set throughout, ready to fish, and don’t need to adjust it. Bail arm on and drag off means the spools is loosened to spin freely, via the drag nut. This keeps the line under better control and you don’t get annoying loops of line peeling off when you don’t want them, but it leaves you fiddling with the drag when ready to fish. If you are going for big fish you should set the drag mechanically before you leave, according to the line manufacturers recommendations (usually it’s about 1/3 of breaking strain) and not touch it subsequently. Most fishermen loose most of their biggest fish the same way - fish jumps on, line starts screaming out like he/she has never seen before, fisherman panics and tightens drag, ping. Set it, and don’t touch it - there is absolutely no good reason to. Worse is when the fisherman panics and loosens the drag - always by too much - then realises he/she has to tighten it again, but now has no reference point how much to tighten - ping. A better reel for drone fishing would be an overhead reel. These usually have much larger capacity then a spinning reel, are more robust, can be bought cheaply off the second hand market (my two beauties were $15 and $20 respectively at garage sales) and have better drags. More importantly they have a lever which disengages the spool so it runs freely without you touching the drag. Going from freespooling while sending out the drone to full fishing mode is only a flip of the lever. You can slow down the freespooling reel a bit to prevent overruns with either the ratchet or a knob on the side. The downside is that when you’re not drone fishing these reels are much harder to cast then spinning reels, so not as versatile. i should also point out that there is a type of spinning reel which will also give you this functionality - the ‘baitrunner’. Personally, I think they are fragile overpriced things and there aren’t many produced now. cheers
  15. Didn’t know about that. Might give them a go myself. thanks
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