sootopia

Got some cunje and crabs at low tide then waited for the sunrise Nothing on the live bait rods and no bonnies on spin pretty slow day Hit option 2 for some groupers or pigs they were definitely around. Multiple bust off's but managed to land a few! Pb grouper 60cm ...always get busted off by anything bigger i reckon.... tons of blackfish swimming around but didnt have the right gear along...managed 3 on my yakka rod with unweighted brown weed

what i find works really good is steal some old stocking from the missus.. then a rock/sinker inside with a pilly or some fresh fish flesh then same deal out on a hand line once it moves wind in slowly and net... the get stuck like anything in the stockings!

Yea mate off the western side of barrenjoey.

G'day Raiders, Back in Sydney for Christmas so decided to visit some of the old haunts .... 2 meter southerly so most ledges were out of the question so paid a visit to a sneaky spot out of the swell off barrenjoey head. Bit of a late start after devouring left over Christmas feast... decided to fish the run out to run in tide. Climbed down to the spot around 3pm, sent out some old squid and a pillie tail then it was time to rustle up some liveys. Water fairly murky after the rain and no yakkas out to play. Slow day, first fish around 5:30pm a legal bream on a pillie strip....desperate times so he becomes a strip bait which works surprisingly well Fish No 2. a small soapie around 55 cm on bream fillet! back he goes to grow...now where's his big brother hiding! Pity about the new size limits i actually prefer the 60+ sized fish a much more manageable size for the table Getting really desperate for some live bait before dark and finally manage a few chopper tailor on sunset Live baits out at dusk. Really quiet for the next 2 hours, only a few small bream. Changed over to some tailor strips on the small rod to try pick up some bream and typically.... end up hooking up a decent fish on the light gear! After about 15 mins of blistering runs manage to land this fella, gut hooked and bleeding like crazy so poor candidate for a release, looks to be the last Jewie for 2014 ! Measured up at 100cm on the dot and just over 8kg, fairly skinny for his size but heaps of fun on 10lb and a great way to end the year! Fished till the high, liveys ended up untouched...go figure! Sorry for the poor photos didnt have a better light... Merry Christmas all!

ive got a top recipie for cale haha..... get a rock, pop it in a pot with the cale, stew for a few hours, throw away the cale and eat the rock how do you cook it?

finding the depth is one of the main tricky parts imo... look over at the guys who are catching them and try to see how deep they are setting their drifts. Is your float weighted properly (needs to be neutrally buoyant for sensitivity of strikes) , are you using leader using too thick (6-8lb should work), hook size too big (size 8-12), bait presentation/type, missing strikes use the search for more info there are heaps of pro black fishermen in this forum who have made lengthy posts on the topic!

Just gotta say that's some great photography.... Well done !

Amazing work boys!

wow thats epic! congrats

good work mate they are awesome fish that go way harder than their size!

great work and nice pics what bait were you guys using?

Top work mate! Got my vote too

Not many chances to get out and wet a line with Prac and the damn dodgy weather we have been having ...... Had the day off today so the plan was for a late morning sess after my mate got off work, We arrived at the spot around 10 just in time for high tide at ~11 Got a nice berley trail going with bread and mashed up pillies then tried to get some liveys Very slow going, water looking pretty dead. Hooking up the odd sweep or so after 45 mins. My mate throws in the towel and hooks up a pilly on a paternoster and casts it out wide, 10 mins later hes on and reeling in snapper no. 1. Desperate times.........with not a livey in sight out goes a medium sized sweep under a float on my big rod. Time to change tactics, i setup a small float for the bait rod with the bait ~15ft underneath casting out further, next few cast brings me in a small trev...BAIT! re bait the big rod ....In the meantime my mate reels in snapper no. 2 I notice some pigs moving into the berley trail so swap over to prawn instead of pilly fillets and bring in some small pigs, and eventually i hook a better one! on the scoreboard 12pm the big rod starts clicking away gently on and off...squid !! we rig up a spike with a pilly and do the old switcheroo with the livey and the spike and land a nice 30+ squid. Time to bring the big guns out ...... squid goes back out on the 24kg rod under a balloon For the next hr or two we alternate between attempting to catch bait and casting out pillies. Finally get a few yakkas and out they go. We get the odd 30cm pig and one bigger pig, I finally get a snapper of my own !! Pretty quiet after that a few undersized snapper and pigs....... Packup time @ 5pm... ended up staying longer than we planned because we had such nice liveys out. Nothing touched the squid or the yakkas Squid comes home as a consolation prize.... Calamari rings mmmmm !

ive fished clarke's point for bull sharks with a mate when we are bored, we get the odd bronzie as well its prob taylors if all your using is pillies/small fillets. we usually use whole mullet or taylor or a really big mullet fillet slab for the noah's

yea its near the middle harbour system haha yes i have every detail recorded......i have caught jews nearby but usually on live bait and its always within a 30min-1hr tide period! prob got something to do with the tide filling up the holes....this is a first for SP's tho

Hello Raiders! Finally back to sydney after a long 6 weeks up in grafton on prac!....foolishly didn't bring any fishing gear up with me so haven't been able to wet a line! Lucked out with my 2nd placement block so im in sydney and near my fishing haunts! We hit one of our local spots....unfortunately i can't say where or i'd be lynched by the boys who showed me the spot.... just went for a quick sp's flick, both of us using our light spin gear hoping for a few flatties/bream. running 6 lb braid to 10lb fluro, 1/6-1/8 oz jigs to 4-5 inch power baits high tide was at 6pm, getting dark around 5. we hit the stretch that is known to hold a few flatties.....flats dropping off to a few deeper holes arrived at 3pm tides running in and we were quickly into a few fish 1st cast after a few twitches a small bump then im on to a junior flatty, mate calls out that hes on as well pulls up a decent flatty... after an hour ended up with 2 keepers and 4 undersized. the lighter contrast colors doing the damage. 4:15 and school zones ended we decide to get rdy to pack up, last few flicks! on the 3rd lift after casting into one of the big holes my rod goes off for a blistering run, reel screaming ZzzzzzzZ, was fishing 1-2kg of drag and with newly spooled line i knew i had a decent amount of play so just let it run, 1/2 way through the spool and its slowing down starting to feel head shakes, fish turns and starts swimming back towards me and im left furiously taking up line, im screaming out JEWWIEEE to my mate and he quickly comes over to watch the action, fish goes off for another solid run, this time its swimming around the point and im left trying to steer it back to where i want it to go..... almost to the end of the spool now....i start putting on more pressure, feathering the spool then disaster.....line goes slack F#@$!!!!! ......... winding in the line still feeling weight ......fish must have spat the hook I get the jig in and the hook has straightened F@#$% dodgy nitro jigs !!!! mean time my mate has renewed his interest and has got his plastic back out again, aiming for the big hole i head back to our gear and am re rigging and i hear him shout IM ON!!! JEWIE bastard.... initial fight goes pretty much the same, jew must have followed the plastic out of the hole and picked it up just before the flats then ripped off to the right, this time it pretty much goes perfectly to plan, swims out to the right where there no snags and lots of room to play the fish and stays out to the right. fish goes for 3-4 big runs, my mate had his drag set abit harder and the fish is playing by the book 15 mins later he beaches a nice 90+ cm jew bastard indeed oh well thats fishing, we must have flicked through a school of jews! tried for another 30min then called it a day as it was getting dark great session for ~2 hrs of fishing and my 1st in 6 weeks! Brilliant bycatch especially on light gear !

With the sea's being flat and the nice sunrise high tides went off the rocks for a fishing session with my young niece... the 2nd time she has ever been fishing as mum is not a fan haha. Baby sitting for some brownie points !!! Fished warriewood rocks as its a nice easy and relatively safe walk to the spot! Beautiful clear day with light wind and glassy seas! We saw lots of surface action with bonitos hitting the surface of the water. Landed a few for bait... caught on unweighted pillies and send out some thin strips on a paternoster. 8am: The tides on the way out and one of the bottom bashing rods goes off....set the hook and pass the rod over to my niece....5-10 mins later a nice 36cm snapper gaffed. re baiting and the other rod goes off this times shes holding it and the 2500 reel is screaming i quickly drop everything and tighten up the drag a little and after a long drawn out battle a tiny 45cm+ kingy is floating totally tired out on the surface. Don't they go hard on the light gear ! after a quick crash course in washing up fish onto a ledge she lands it for a quick photo, a kiss then back to grow bigger! My rod finally goes off... this time a slightly weighted bonito fillet...feels like a snapper but not very big ....... washes up as a 32 cm fish!... this guy was in close i normally get snapper on long casts on the bottom ! 10am: Pretty quiet as the tide is going out and the sun is high overhead...can see fish out wide busting up on the surface out of cast range.... worst day not to have the LBG rod to send out a live bonito for a king but cant baby sit 2 things at once! We get the odd bonito every so often but its getting hot and we are both hungry.....time for some 1$ frozen cokes from hungry jacks! Great day to bring a young one out fishing! with 3 pb's for her today.... bonito, snapper and a kingy. I think we have another convert!

Cheers im stoked! and thanks to the sponsors and all those who voted! A bit of sunshine after breaking my new phone today!

Went out for my usual Wed morning fishing session with 2 of my mates before work.... Conditions were supposed to be good 4am high tide 1.6m with a <1m easterly swell, wind negligible and a chance of early showers...perfect! headed to palmy ferry wharf for a few liveys...water was like choc milk still brown as from all the big rains we have had last week....yakkas took a while to fire up only managed 6 before we had to head off for the rocks. started off with a bang..... brought 2 left rock boots! must have grabbed one of mine and one of my bro's , wind was abit bigger than forecasted last night prob 14+ knots blowing face on with a light shower. wind + swell + rain meant it was face on and very splashy...... Rigged before 1st light and all 3 of us had our first liveys out in the water....drift was ok but swell direction and wind made it move across the ledge pretty quick.. water clarity was pretty bad and still alot of flotsam around! over next 2 hours all our liveys got smashed by taylors we landed 4 around the 45-60cm mark we each sent one out live under a balloon but no takers.....2/3 died within the hour so my taylor was the only livey we had out ( untouched the whole time till we pack up) Mean while my mate has rerigged with gang pillies unweighted under a float casts it out .... literally as soon as it hits the water he's on ..... bigger fish! he's feeling head shakes and screams for the gaff! washes up a nice 5kg jew onto the ledge below us and its quickly gaffed before the next wave photo time and i reach into my pocket to get out my phone :ranting2: :ranting2: i keep my phone in a ziplock bag so its usually nice and dry but must have holed the bag somehow and there's a tiny amount of water inside the bag ....literally a few drops but phone has decided to short out... damn my new Samsung note II !! its drying out in a bag of rice....fingers crossed it starts up when i try it out tomorrow ! oh well......... otherwise a decent day fishing no photos unfortunately

yea pretty much as downtofish said..... your trying to hit the aorta/ vessels connecting gills to the aorta. Cut straight down behind the gills down to the spine .....u can kinda see it in the pic i posted.... if you do it right you should see blood squirting out from the cut. Brain spiking is "humane" and meant to stop the fish from feeling the stress of dying or something like that.....but the fish die quickly enough from bleeding/ice imo Fish for the table get bled immediately then into ice...improves the taste heaps!

haha the trick is to bleed and ice straight away....if you dont send them out straight away as bait ! 30-60 secs each side on a very hot pan (deps how thick u cut it) you should not over cook it though..... leave to stand for a bit on a plate and let it cook in the residual heat.....should be slightly pink still! i find most pelagics turn out tough and crap if u over cook them....unless you are making fish curry....

We have a 5+ half cabin fibre glass and a forester as well should have no probs... I think we will keep to the launching at low and retrieval with a mid to high tide.... If u launch remember to keep front wheels on the tarmac/concrete, part as you cn get bogged on the retrieval Cheers

thanks for the advice guys! ill try it next time im out! with berleying how to you get the berley deeper? use a cage? @ whatacatch we were inside drifting from shallows ~2m to around 6m then starting the drift again

Launched off Palm beach boat ramp at Iluka Rd for the 1st time with out drama! Headed off towards the ferry wharf for yakkas and squids and was out past the heads by 730am. Sea was almost glassy with 3 or 4 other boats around us. went out to 30m and began dropping liveys and strip baits towards the bottom. no interest in our yakkas and the squid came back demolished by leatherjackets.... Tried this without success for 3 hrs then decided to try off south palm (one of my fav land-based spots!) sitting about 40m offshore and drifting in 12m+ of water came across a school of slimies and tons of yakkas. got our burley trail going and managed to rustle up 2 rat kings around the 55 cm mark...good fun on light spin rods. Pretty quiet after that. Headed home around 12 and decided to get some squid for dinner as a consolation prize.... managed 4 big ones for dinner and a few for bait next trip! Back at the boat ramp my mate made the mistake of backing all 4 wheels off the ramp and once we got the boat hooked up to the trailer all 4 tires began to spin uselessly in the sand .... unhooked boat....unbogged car (thankfully was easy without the boat) the tried again...this time with front wheels on the concrete and everything went fine ! 2 other guys who were launching their boat next to us removed the safety chain and their boat flew off the trailer as they backed down the ramp.....we wont be doing that anytime soon!! Any pointers for what we could do to get some kings/snapper off the boat? Overall a nice day out on the boat and learnt lots of new things! Cheers,

Its a smaller OH reel I sometimes use.. It's a star drag... Shimano speed master.. 6:1 retrieve ratio and spooled with around 400m of 30lb mono