REKLESS

Dynamite works well when fish are like that I have been told. There has been a few salmon around but what you encountered is more likely to be some mullet. With the water temp down and there metabolism very slow they could be enticed to feed on bread but the chances are you would just be pestered by bream and other unwantables. (Geez any one would think I was a bream hater)

The wall is the drop off from the 7.4m bit to deep water to the east of it , it drops off to around the 20m mark. Just zig zag along the wall heading south , look for the bait and the kings on your pinger. if you find the Black scourge (sweep) stay with them cause the kings usually hang out with them. There is shit loads of amberjacks there at the moment off the drop off , we saw a heap down deep along with shoals of rat kings. Slow troll yakkas with a 1/4lb snapper rubber banded to the line about 25m back , have another yakka or a garfish on the surface and you should be able to locate them . I usually mark the spot on my plotter and then motor up current and drift back down over the spot while burleying . If you have fresh squid , use strips with pea size sinkers stripping them back down the burley and get your mate to flick some large white sluggos around , work them deep . Tide change is also the key , sunday morning there is a 1.72m high nice and early - there is a SE wind puffing up , but to be honest , the bumpier it is , the better the fishing will be.

The ovens can be a great place for pelagics when the currents bring in the bait schools . B & B fishing might be better in other spots with better holding country , try on the northern point of whale beach . There is some great spots that have yielded better results then the ovens for me.

Sounds like you had some pelagic leatherjackets or toads in your trail .

John ,what a fish on a $10.00 knife jig. Mate it goes to show that right time right place ,I saw some knife jigs the other day for $30.00 each , you make a mockery of the guys in the tackle shops trying to foist japanese jigs on all of us poor fish lacking SOBS -well done.

I heard the story from a mate who was fishing the competiton , john was saying that they headed back in when conditions went from pretty awfull to dangerous .they were in a 5.4m centre console. They had heard nothing until they went to the weighing station and saw all the cops and ambo's hanging around several hours later. John also said that the competition was called off,unsure as to exactly why but it was probably done out of respect for the dead angler. This was all confirmed by another mate a few hours ago. A friend of his called simo was in the comp and fishing in a 22ft striper ,he was unaware of anything happening until he got back to the ramp and was questioned if he had seen the missing boat. He said that he had ,they were collecting bait from a big school of slimeys that had come to the surface and were fishing alongside him catching bait as well. That was 1 1/2 hrs prior ,he was able to give them the gps marks from where he had seen them. Apparently the boat had sank leaving all four guys in the water . My thoughts are with the dead fishos family -it is a sad day to have that happen doing something that we all love to do. simon

Hi Nudge,I had a mate who was on another boat out there and he was the guy who relayed for you for the SKED at SGFC.He was telling me that when the initial report went in ,they all thought you guys were having a lend,well done. From what I have heard so far ,you guys had the best day out there for the whole central zone,well done. simon

Thats good to hear that you are able to get the sattelites,is the date still wrong?.I guess that your little garmin had lost its marbles somewhere due to lack of use and had some cobwebs that needed cleaning out. How many satelites were you able to pick up?

My software is version 2.03. I think that you should contact Garmin in sydney and explain the problem.These guys are pretty good and they should be able to set you right within a few miutes. The date does sound a bit weird. Also throwing money on a computer cable is a wast of money,I have a map programme that plots off the GPS onto 1:25000 maps but to be honest with you the information is only as good as the map that you have in the first place. How much did you pay for it? simon

Hi Domza, I have a GPS 72 Garmin as well ,and its a beauty-I am not sure as to why your one is playing up but I have a few suggestions that may help. I dredged up the quick start guide to my one and try this . Stick some fresh aa batteries in it and then go outside ,turn it on and using the page button go to the acquiring sattelites page .Have a look at the rings and they should have some numbers in or around the two circles.These are the satellites along with the ID number for each.If there is none on there press the MENU button once and then scroll down to NEW LOCATION.Press ENTER and then try using the AUTOMATIC mode. Press enter and it should then show AUTO LOCATE. This forces the GPS to search for any satelites around.This may take a little time to acquire them as you are reinitialising it but it should work for you. I have also gone into the SETUP on my garmin and enabled the WAAS (greater accuracy),the UTC offset should be at +11:00.Time zone at"OTHER". Location format at hddd"mm"ss.s" Map Datum WGS 84. The interface should be on "GARMIN". I hope that this works for you.I have found these things to be almost bullet proof and this is a variant of the ones used by US forces.I can also vouch for it floating as well,with batteries in it. Let me know if this works Simon

Fantastic fish that you have there mate, If you dont mind me asking ,what size trace were you using and were you stripping out a pillie when it hit? Simon

Gidday frank, The way that we have done it in the past is by trying to locate the fish by trolling first until you have either picked one up on the troll or have seen some kind of action ,ie birds on the water or watching bait schools getting harrassed or just bait showing up on the sounder.There is not much sense in burleying where the fish are not likely to be .Also try and work two hours either side of the tide change-either side . depending on the drifts speed we might put out a sea anchor as well,then chopping up a pilchard into four - five pieces just throw one out ,wait until it dissapears then put another down,if the mutton birds are around eating all your cubes you can tell them to piss offf by putting some tuna oil out in a bottle with a small hole punched in it or as we have done in the past ,use a length of poly pipe to get it in down in the water column a little. Two or so liveys out ,one say 12 ft down under a balloon out 30m ,and another with a heavy breakaway sinker under any thermocline that ,if you muck around with the sensitivty on the sounder should appear as a dull scratchy horizontal line. Feeding baits out the back.-I use either whole or 1/2 pillies ,start with a trace that is around the 100lb mark,a 9175 SHARP mustad in 7/0.I usually only have a 2m trace and dispence with the snap swivel for just a straight BB swivel.A bit of fuse wire wound once around the eye of the hook will allow you to secure the head of the pillie on the hook with its mouth closed .I usually feed the hook through the mouth and then have the point protruding through the pectoral fins .This should allow you to get a few drifts before it desintegrates on you. If you are using trap pillies ,use them as the burley and get two blocks of "A" class WA pillies as bait. If you are using heavy gear ,I usually drop the rod in the rod holder and PUT ENOUGH DRAG ON TO PREVENT AN OVER RUN.Then I just strip into the water trying to kepp a "bow in the line".After 100m or so ,put it into strike and wait a few minutes then wind it back. I usually have an icecream bucket with chopped pillies ready to go,if you get a run,keep the cubes going as the chances are that there will be a school up under the boat competeing for the cubes.This can be hard if you are struggling with rodbuckets /etc etc. The fish can get really leader shy and we have resorted to cutting the double off on 15kg and using 4/0 snapper hooks for a hook up.A lot of people prefer 150lb traces ,the question of trade off I guess comes into play,I would much rather be hooked up with a chance then non at all. Check your line,your drags and your knots. simon

Around now is the time when you get the little makos coming up the trail and quite often will help themselves to 1/2 of what ever is wiggling in the water. They are good fun and do jump,the few things you may want to keep in mind is that when you burley offshore ,you can never be sure of what may come up the slick.Even when in 50m of water off longreef fishing for snapper I have had a few interesting encounters with sharks.If you want to target them (the little makos),you would be hard pushed to beat getting to a reef just offshore that is exposed to currents,get a 1l bottle of tuna oil,punch a small hole in it and tie it off to the boat.Then just work the burley pot a little. We usually fish for snapper /bottom fish and whatever you catch gets burleyed/used as bait.If you havent used cable before ,I might suggest that some light traces say 200-250lb ,NYLON coated with a 10/0 or 12/0 hook maybe 10ft long will handle the little critters well enough. The light cable is there so that if all else goes to crap it should snap before something silly happens. Dont bring them onboard either,sharks have cartilage-not bones and can bite there own tail,a looped tail rope or two tied to a bollard will hold them . Good luck Simon

Stick with the Penn if you can afford it. They are over engineered and are a bit "clunky",but the fact still remains that with fewer moving bits,you will have fewer problems. Also,the bearings in these things are easily replacable,you can go to any bearing shop and they will match it up for you with sheilded SS for $4 each.

Gidday all, I got out with my brother Dan on the Saturday and we had a bit of luck along with the rest of sydney with the kings.We were just off south head and were catching the things on just about everything I could throw at them.The average size was pretty small but we did manage four keepers that were around the 65-70 mark and I had it sussed on to getting a bigger fish. I did hook one fish and while fighting it on 30lb gear and was loosing quite a bit of line to what was obviously a much better one I felt a few bumps ,then a little slack and then it just took off on me,the line angled up and I was thinking it was either a Marlin or a filthy great bitey coming up to have a look at what all the fuss was about..........wrong, 8 foot of flippin great big New zealand fur seal,it had my king in its mouth and was proceeding to knock it out so it could eat him.The fur seal wa pretty friendly and came right up to the boat when we could see someones 24cm nilsmaster invincible (light blue) with all three trebles embeded into the top of his head. I can imagine that it would sting a little and he was not impressed with his new headdress either!,I was tempted to ring someone ........but who,?,I could imagine the responce would have been to humanely remove the three trebles gently and avoid 300kg+ of pissed off water dog!,still I got to see something new,I should imagine that he will remove them soon and with a little luck the hook that was in my king will pass through him ,I hope it makes his eyes water a little!!. Simon