Little_Flatty

Hi all, Was out with the family today visiting cafes and op shops. On the way back, my wife suggests 'why don't we head down to a park so you can have a fish?'. This was met with much enthusiasm by both my daughter and myself, so we took a detour to Echo pt in Roseville for a flick. Never been there before, didn't expect much, but ended up finding a school of little chopper tailor which entertained me for a few moments. A few more casts towards the marina, a few more hits. Then I came up tight on something that got the drag going a little. This one came home for dinner, unlike the Parramatta river versions I normally chase. The one thing that was interesting this time session was that I caught all of my fish on texas-rigged bass minnows on Gamakatsu EWG worm hooks., with a cone sinker running down to the plastic I would have expected a worse hookup rate than with a normal jig head, but I was able to pin the fish easily on any decent hit. I think I'll keep experimenting with these as the ability to vary sinker weights without carrying heaps of different jigheads is a bonus for me. The snag-proofing the technique offers is another benefit. Fishing fix done, it was all over in under half an hour. Glad I had always have gear in the car! Mike

Nice feed! Fishing the beach for whiting would have to be hands down my favourite kind of fishing.

Hi Chris, It's an old article about an old memory, but Jamie Robley did write an article on catching bream at night near the Toukley bridge at night: http://fishingmonthly.com.au/Articles/Display/1608-Baiting-up-for-bream Obviously you can't use undersize tailor anymore but the message is fresh fish flesh gets the fish. Hope this helps. Mike

My lure collection is probably pretty old fashioned these days (Last time I was in a tackle shop I was struggling to work out what a 'double clutch' was...) but for me, Berkley 3 inch bass minnows in watermelon and Berkley 3 inch gulp minnows in pumpkinseed work for me. A 1/16th nitro jighead will round off the collection. As far as hardbodies go, I have a very old Ecogear SX40 which nailed this specimen all those years ago (think it was more than ten years ago) on the majors bay rd side of the bay: Unbelievably, I've still got that exact lure (and it still works...probably need a hook change though). It is $$$$ though so there will be some tears if you lose one. There is an art to not losing hardbodies...it's all about feeling through the rod/line what is happening at the lure end and stopping when you sense trouble. I've also had success with Atomic paddle tails (I think they are called grass minnows). These fish were caught by these in this post: There are far more skilful fisherpeople than me who fish the area. For instance, jdanger (it seems like he fished in the area a lot, now out of the country). Check out his posts: There are a few others who I have met who fish the area as well. Just search for hen and chicken bay (Bayview can be confused with Pittwater) and see what you come up with. When you are out there, observe others and get talking to them as well, especially if they are nailing fish. My parting tip is that while it is nice to have a large lure collection, to start with, just focus on one or two of these lures (or anything else anyone mentions in your searches). Learn to use them (Youtube is useful for this) and use it there until you start finding fish. You have far more chance of catching fish casting and retrieving than spending half a session re-rigging.

Hi Matt, I don't bother fishing there at all on a low tide...not enough water. The puffers are mostly only in the shallows at your feet. Losing plastics to them every 3-5 casts is pretty bad luck. How far are you casting out? Alternatively if the puffers are bugging you too much, try a small hardbody instead. I sometimes find them better for covering water. Apart from that, what kind of gear are you using? I tend to use 4-6lb leader - keeping it pretty light. As to the retrieves, I normally use a double hop (two little flicks) and then retrieve the slack. Nothing drastic, just a little flick of the wrist here and there. Apart from fishing an hour either side of the high tide (and not bothering any other time), my biggest tip by far is to move around. If all you can find is puffers in a given spot, then move 20m along and give it another go. You will find that in 10-20m, the underwater environment varies quite a bit there; there's lots of alternating shallow and deeper spots. Hope this helps. It is a good spot, you can have some faith in the location. If you keep persisting you will crack it. Mike

Hi Matt, The general area is quite a good spot for bream and flathead. I always fish about an hour either side of a high tide with 3 inch bass minnows, 2 inch grubs or similar, on a 1/16th jighead. Bait also works a treat there as well but you have found, you will encounter a lot of small stuff. I would suggest starting at Bayview park and then moving along the shoreline towards the rowing wharf and then the canal, fanning casts along the way. You don't need to cast massively far; 10-15 metres will do it. If you cast too far, you will find copious amounts of weed. Hope this helps. Mike

A month ago I posted looking for advice from fellow raiders about losing fish around structure. This morning I'm glad to report that after following all the advice, and a bit of experimentation, I have successfully landed one of the mystery fish! Not all that exciting though; it was a...bream. The latest bustoffs started at Meadowbank wharf . On a number of instances, before I was able to get the rod out of the holder, a fish had taken the bait and snagged me on some underwater structure a bit further out in the water. Other times, my leader would have been sliced through like butter. Long story short, I gradually upped my tackle but still kept losing fish. This morning I arrived at 5:30am to fish the high tide with my Raider trusty travel shore spin (normally my beach tailor rod), with 15lb braid and 20lb flurocarbon leader. Had a take on a salted pilchard cube within ten mins and as usual, I could feel structure rubbing on the line and felt snagged. However, with the 20lb fluro, I was more able jiggle and skull drag the fish out, and continue the fight. Then the mystery fish materialised on the surface - a bream! Not even a big one; I measured it and it was only just legal! Quick pic and it was returned to the water to keep the fishing line industry in business. After that, the leader was a writeoff and needed a change. Quite a bit of damage for a small fish. Didn't get any more fish of note for the rest of the session, which allowed me to focus on chasing baitfish as I was running out of bait. Unfortunately I donutted on that front, in spite of berleying and putting bait on the jigs (think the current was messing with me - any tips to deal with this?). Thankfully I still have some herring salting in my fridge from a previous session. Still have a bit to learn on that front; have previously seen people at this wharf do ok on the baitfish.

Went to Fraser Island in September 2018 with the family. I was completely unprepared and did not have much in the way of heavy gear or wire trace. Still, it was the most amazing fishing I had ever experienced. We stayed at Kingfisher bay and I did most of my fishing off the wharf there. First session, I arrived to see a turtle paddling around: First few casts, I got bitten off (the little Spaniards were around that morning). I would give the plastic a flick here and there, and then the next flick, there'd be nothing on the line! Then I came up tight on a nice bream, which took a pretty big plastic. I struggled to land much else off the wharf because I was so high up over the water and I would break the leader or pull the trace trying to get fish up. Lost a few good flatties that way. I did run out of big Zman grubs on that trip...that was enough action to leave me grinning like an idiot . That said, I am now the proud owner of a 5m carbon ISO landing net which I will bring with me if I ever head up north again (incidentally the shop owner said he gets a lot of orders from north QLD). On the second morning, I noticed a few whiting nosing about in the shallows of the wharf on the rising tide. I just had to have a go Released of course, but not long after that I learned that the QLD legal size for whiting was 23cm, not 27cm as they are in NSW. Interesting...not that I would have kept it anyway - no cooking facilities. Had to leave shortly after as a couple of dingoes had started roaming the flats and we didn't want to take any chances with a 3 year old around. But it was cool that we got to see a few on the trip as well. Then of course, it took till my final day on Fraser to tick off my lifetime bucket list item: getting a Tailor of the east beach. Wish I could have done more, but the east beach was a fair drive from Kingfisher and I was reluctant to do it alone; I had no 4WD experience. I was surprised by how easy it was to catch one; found a creek for my daughter and wife to play in, walked over to the gutter and then landed a fish! This one got promptly dispatched and then was taken back to the mainland for lunch the next day. As a bonus we all got to watch a massive stingray swimming about in the waves. We were all quite enchanted by its majesty, so much so that I didn't take any photos. I'm still dreaming about going back one day - my wife hasn't said no yet and I have trained my daughter to go on about it at childcare . It was just magical. Maybe when the kids are a bit bigger.

I was there in September last year. We stayed at a waterfront apartment on a canal in Noosa. Off the little wharf there it was pretty much a legal or almost-legal bream (not much bigger than legal though...<= 30cm) a chuck, using unweighted pilchard cubes. The canal is not wide at that point - you could cast across it. Across the canal from that there is a park which you could feasibly fish the same way from the other side (PM to come). This was breakfast from one of my early morning sessions (caught many more than that, just I only had three people to feed ): For some reason I really struggled to land anything on lures. It was one of those situations where you knew the fish were there, but they were only responding to bait. That's not to say that they wouldn't work there, but they didn't for me. With the plastics I got some bream, flatties and trevs at the first bridge out of Noosa Parade. Make sure you take a break from fishing every now and again to have a look around. It's a heavenly place!

Hi kingie, Site sponsors Dinga have a shimano tackle wallet here: https://www.dinga.com.au/shimano-soft-plastic-tackle-wallet.html That one is a bit fancier than what I had. Mine is a Berkley one but there are plenty of others as well. Mike

Hi Raiders, Over the holidays I have found myself at home a lot looking after my current and future (newly arrived) fishing buddies which has seen me tinkering at home a lot. It hasn't been half bad though, as I have discovered a few fishing hacks which I thought I might share. None of this is particularly original, just tweaks on ideas that have long existed. 1. Salted bait Like I said, not particularly original, eh? It was a revelation for me though. I salted up a number of different baits based on instructions in other posts on this forum. As those who have used salted bait will attest, it really doesn't smell much (my family didn't notice it in the fridge) and you can prep it well in advance, meaning you are always ready for an impromptu trip (happens a lot with my family). Kept in small boxes, the stuff lasts forever - the three boxes of bait below have been around since before Christmas and have been on a few hot summer trips with me and are still catching fish - including tonight! They rested in my fridge in between sessions: Pillies and slimy mackerel slabs were two of my favourites this holidays and attracted a few good bream and a few good bustoffs (see my previous post) when fished almost unweighted around wharves on the harbour. For some reason the mackerel strips seemed to attract bites when no one else was getting any and had people enquiring as to the 'magic' bait I was using. I also tried salting peeled Hawkesbury prawns out of curiosity and as you will see from the above pictures, they still look ok after a few weeks. I got a couple of keeper whiting on these at Bayview on a recent family trip. Having baits cut up, preserved and ready to go has helped me make the most of my fishing time and made it a much more tidy operation. 2. Tackle Wallets I've always been on the lookout to minimise the amount of gear I carry, especially as I have started doing more bait fishing. In addition to this, I have always had two pet peeves about the way I fish; firstly, I hate carrying spools of flurocarbon in my fishing bag because it almost always ends up in a tangled mess in my bag and secondly, I hate it when I end up throwing away perfectly good traces and leaders when I decide to change tactics. Enter the humble plastics tackle wallet and a few pieces of cardboard. Instead of several leader spools, I cut 3m lengths of 3lb, 10lb, 12lb and 20lb leaders and put them into 'pages' of my leader wallet. I also included a few pieces that had a few of my existing traces/rigs, including bait jigs: Then I added my tiny tacklebox (which is all I need for bait fishing in my usual haunts) and my trusty braid scissors, tethered to the wallet so I never lose them: I found this to be more than enough terminal tackle for my fishing needs, although I will admit that it was a bit unnerving to go out the first time without spools of leader...like, surely it must be possible that I'd use up a whole 50m spool in one session...right? I think in reality, I would be leaving such a session a really happy angler, but so far I have only dreamed of such sessions. 3. G-Clamp Rod Holders Not really a fishing hack, just a product I discovered recently. These ones are from Jarvis Walker (I think there are other brands as well) and are brilliant for shore fishing in urban areas, particularly for fishing with circle hooks as they hold the rod solidly for a good hook set upon a bite. I found them a bit hard to get a rod off in event of a hookup with the 'fish on' jitters, but it sure beats striking at the fish prematurely and losing it, or losing the whole rod if left carelessly on the wharf or shore. Anyhow, that's all I have time for now. Hope these were interesting to some people. I enjoyed discovering them Mike

Thanks for all the tips everyone. I will try them all. Looks like I do need to up the leader, go harder and the softly-softly light tackle tactic probably needs to stay on the flats. It just so happens that I have recently learned to tie FG knots and have a tool for it, which will help with using heavier leader. I also happen to now own an ISO berley scoop so I can get that berley further out. As to ditching the circle hooks, I think that might have helped me on the weekend, as that hookup was in close quarters. Much appreciated all!

Hi raiders, After many years of fishing SPs I have recently started doing a bit more bait fishing again. This has seen me fishing off wharves a bit more often and whilst I have managed to always find fish, I actually haven't been able to land any of them! For me, this is extremely unusual because when I fish SPs, I am normally on flats and as a result, any time I hook a fish, there is a 90% chance I will land it. The story has been the same over the past few trips. I'd have something take my bait (I tend to be fishing unweighted pilchard cubes on small circle hooks), I'd feel a few head shakes and then the fish will pull the line under the wharf and then the leader will go ping. The first time I had 3lb flurocarbon still on my rod from SP fishing on the flats - so that was my own fault - but the subsequent times I have been using 12lb flurocarbon with the same result. Examination of the leader afterwards found it to be very frayed, and it was brand new at the start of the session. In every single case there hasn't been a huge amount of force - the drag wasn't exactly going off. The fight starts off feeling like something small and then I feel like there is a little bit of weight to it. I thought the first couple of fish might have been keeper size flatties (as I felt pulsing headshakes upon hookup). I was wondering if anyone had any advice on what to do next. Things I have thought of were: - Upping the leader to 20lb or heavier - Fishing with a longer rod (e.g. 10ft light surf rod) which will help me keep the fish further away from the wharf from the outset (presently I'm fishing with a 7ft SP rod) - Being a bit more forceful in the latter stages of the fight if I'm worried the fish is near structure. Any ideas? I'm starting to go a little spare as I'm not used to losing fish like this (although I will say it's a problem I would have only dreamed of having when I was younger). Mike

Hahaa Neil I will try very hard to heed your sage advice . I've found as my life has got busier and more stressful I've needed time on the water more than ever. So yes, more fishing and more reports is on the cards!

Hi all, Been 11 years since my last report (how time flies!). All the usual life excuses - work, family, study and more - have all but killed any proper time on the water! Anyhow, with the wife out for an afternoon, I thought I would drop in to visit my folks and ended up going for a fish with my dad. Any trip with my dad comes with free babysitting by my mum (and this is much encouraged, but unfortunately I rarely have the time)! Having jumped off the train from a family trip in the city, I didn't have any gear, so I borrowed one of my dad's outfits, rigged up with a plastic from his collection and then we made our way to Hen and Chicken bay. Had very low expectations with the cold weather and all, but much to my surprise, managed to get a couple of fish. The first fish was a nice little flatty: The next fish seemed to be somewhat more lively and I struggled to get it in. When it finally came in, I realised why - it was a foul hooked whiting pinned in its tail wrist! Neither fish was anything to write home about, but I was pretty happy with that trip! It's been so long since I've caught anything bigger than an undersized bream, I didn't really know how to handle the fish anymore! Thankfully I got both back in the water after a few fumbling attempts. After that it was time to get some dinner. It was good to be back. Mike