jdudfield

Sunday morning on the harbour, started a bit later than usual expecting the southerly to be a bit fresher than it was. The morning was near perfect. We went for some live bait and put a few out, plus some fish and squid strips, while still filling the bait tank. Saw a few rat kings hassling the bait fish then a strip bait goes off for a decent run, big tail movement, more short runs until ping... 10lb leader bitten through. New hook... same again a little while later but the fish went even harder! Ping again. This time I beefed up the leader to 20lb. The lives kept getting hassled and we lost a few to good takes but no hook up. It was almost catch a yakka, put it out and get a strike as we were catching the next yakka! Finally we hook up on bigger gear and it is a decent flathead on a livie! So maybe that was what was biting through the leader on the other rod? The lighter rod goes off again and its hard short runs, good tail action... the leader holds and we see the big flathead, being followed by a few rat kings. Wow! Only just fitted in the net. About 1 metre! A few pictures and back in the water to breed on! We kept 4 'standard size' for dinner, dropped a decent one fluffing around with the net and lost 2 big fish to bite offs... plus plenty of takes and misses. No kings playing but so what when the flatties are in the mood to rumble!

That's what we are all after! How exciting! Thanks for sharing.

The wind looked okay a few days ago so I convinced the daughter she owed her dad a fishing trip! Started in North Harbour for some yakkas ... found plenty of all sizes ... lollipop plus. Threw a small squid head out the back while getting the yakkas and bang! A nice bream over 40cm Kept chasing yakkas and a kingy followed one up mmmm ... put out a livey and started throwing a plastic ... Third cast on the plastic and 'bang' then acrobatics, a tailor! A bit of fun and guess what followed it to the boat ... more kingies ... even even they were just rats! Kept the tailor for dinner. Thought I better give the daughter a full on fishing experience in bad weather so I headed out around North Head on a slow troll. It was very messy out there, no wonder we were alone. A few points around the heads the light line with a small rapala pilchard goes off and the daughter has a great time hanging on as I head out to deeper water. Lots of big runs, lots of winding, get it near the boat and see its a kingfish, it takes another big run, she gets it back close to the boat but the 10lb leader pops ... looked a bit rubbed up so assume the kingy got her down to the weeds and rocks at some point. Anyway back we go for a few more passes for nil so we then slow drifted a yakka ... heaps of fish on the sounder and bang, another kingy. Bigger rod with plenty of firepower so this one was subdued. Even though I promised the daughter only one pass in the messy conditions she was up for a few more ... for a few missed strikes and then another hook up. They liked the lollipop yakkas! By 11am the clouds looked even worse so we headed in, although I think it was improving as we left the boat ramp. Just glad the weather didn't put us off at the start! A great day out.

looks like a red bigeye, usually a deep reef fish ... maybe commercial by catch dropped in the harbour? very unusual

chinaman all under 25cm

Beautiful day on the harbour last Friday with hardly any boats out. Found yakka's quickly, tried a few spots for squid but no luck ... quite different from the week before! Headed out and turned left picking up a couple of rat kings. Kept going to Long Reef, a bit of a current, but started the burley trail and had a few good runs on the light line out the back only to be bitten off, plenty of wrasse and then a black drummer on a squid strip! Decided to head back in and dropped a yakka and a few lines near quarantine for the catch of the day ... a lazy John Dory ... before the jackets zoned in and ate anything and everything! The joy of mid week fishing, even if the winter species are taking over!

It looks like a pilot fish

I had an unweighted bait on a large long shank hook, 10kg leader onto braid. The key was no sinker.The leader was a bit chewed up but plenty of grunt to pull them in. I released them so not sure how tasty although a mate of mine was disappointed about that, he reckons they are okay.

Also out and about this morning in the harbour ... lots of dolphins inside the heads, a few salmon rising off north head but with the wind picking up moved into north harbour for a surprise. We picked up a nice aussie salmon on a soft plastic and 3 barracouta on pillies and cuttle strips - a new catch for me in the harbour!

Jacket heaven .... Snip snip

First decide if you need to redo the binding. If the binding is okay a few coats of marine varnishnisnthe easiest option. Epoxy first is better but costs more and is harder work if you do not have a rod holder and can rotate. You can get all at most tackle shops. Binding $3 a roll, epoxy $15+ and varnish $5 ... I am a bit lazy so just redo the binding and coat with about 5 coats of varnish

Tragic! I hope all the 'burley' went overboard

We were drifting across 14 to 8 metres

We thought we would brave the early morning wind on Thursday and planned to go to Long Reef. Balmoral by 6.30am for yakkas ... plenty of pinkies, trevally and sweep but no yakkas at all ... must have been cleaned out over chrissy. Headed off to Dobroyd and found a school of fish on the sounder which turned out to be yakkas ... we got about a dozen, with a couple of horses, and a small flathead and a box puffer. Saw some surface action and after throwing dozens of casts with SPs and plenty of grabs finally hooked up to a 30cm tailor. Time to poke our nose out the heads. It was pretty messy so we slow trolled towards Manly, waved at 3 rockhoppers having fun on North Head. By Manly we thought may as well give it a go and headed slowly to Long Reef. Again saw some surface action but didn't get any takes on SPs or lures, so we continued north. It was still a bit messy when we got there and there were a few yaks in the water but no other boats. Set up for a drift just north of the ledge with the wind taking us towards the beach. Burley bucket over the side just a foot down, 2 live baits under the boat and squid strips on light gear out the back. The wind started to drop off and the swell flattened a bit. The drift was quiet initially but after about 15 minutes we were getting some interest on the squid strips, ended up being a school of solid sweep, a bit of fun but not dinner. Then the kingies started hitting. Over 8 or 10 drifts we would have landed about 25 kingies, most 55 - 62cm plus a few 40cm. The squid strips out fished the live bait 2 to 1 at least! At one stage we had a triple hook up with 2 on squid strips and 1 taking a live bait - now that was chaotic with fish swimming all over the place, crossed lines and the burley bucket getting in on the act but we managed to land (and release) all three. We did lose a few on the live bait with a bust off and a pulled hook ... maybe they were a decent size! During the drifts we also caught more sweep than we could count plus a 45cm samson fish (first time, and it fried up very nicely as fillets - photo attached) and a 35cm pinkie. We also saw a shark, large sea turtle and penguin doing its stuff. The dive boat turned up and a few other boats came out later but it was pretty quiet out there - early weather must have scared everyone off or you are all back at work!! Overall a great couple of hours giving the gear a solid work out and us plenty of exercise. Luckily the forecast was right and the weather calmed down mid morning.

the new artificial off south head is at 33 50 797 s 151 17 988 e ... (it has already been posted on this site and is on the DPI website) have tried drifting over a couple of times but also moved off too quickly in the wind. sounded up some fish and had 1 strike on a jig ... big and heavy and busted me of??? but got no interest on a live yakka or dead bait ... I reckon it will fish well over summer though