bombora

If you live on the northern beaches local govt area you can fish northern beaches locations - same rules as march lock down. but have to keep social disancing so a crowded wharf not smart. beach fishing all good. fishing is classified as exercise.

I am getting a tad tired of the cultural or language excuse. There are grubs from all cultural backgrounds. Your background or native language is not an excuse. Particularly if someone has politely pointed out what you are doing is wrong. We tip toe around this issue for fear of the R word. But, Ocker or recent immigrant, you are the same type of Australian: a willfully lazy jerk. And good on you for cleaning up after someone else.

Boat and land based sabiki bait collecting are different scenarios. Best advice you've been given was in one of the replies. To make it simple, land based: Cut sabiki in half so you have 3 hooks (and you now have two sabikis from each packet). Smaller is usually better in the harbour (down to size 8 hook or even smaller); the simple tiny glow bead, red tie, fish skin ones are often hard to beat. Either use under a small bobby cork with appropriate sinker at end of rig. Let chop and boat wash etc "jiggle" the rig. Vary the depth of the jig under the bobby cork till you start catching. You can also do a slow stop start retrieve with the bobby cork rig if static bobby cork isn't working. Or tie a lightish metal lure at end and cast and retrieve, varying the speed and depth of the retrieve. A bit of burley usually helps. Heavy sinkers and "straight up and down" sabiki jigging is a boat thing.

Best advice for fishing the artificial; don't fish "hard" on the artificial. It attracts bait, which hangs in the general area, not specifically on the artificial reef structure. A couple of years ago during an inshore run of small black marlin, there were fish hooked close to it. Watched a guy soaking a slimey on lightish bottom gear down deep near it bend his rod, and a solid black erupted from the water! Fight didn't last long thought, but it was fun to watch.

oops sorry wrong topic, deleted reply

Unfortunately in a few years time thieves will probably have tracker-blockers!

That's good news about the water levels, now just gotta hope some trout survived the drought. Wonder if the local acclimatisation society has done any stocking recently, imagine not. The rainbows they have previously stocked were Californian steelhead heritage, I understand; really beautiful strong fish.

Hi Josh, what was the water flow like in the upper Turon? Been wondering how this magical river and its trout have fared in this most recent drought. When the millenium drought broke the fishing there was very good. But it is a fickle fishery. Not a heap of trout but what's there was always good size back then - never caught a rainbow smaller than 32cm; biggest 54cm. Only ever caught one brown, but it was a beautiful little fish of 30cm, sight cast to, in a shin deep riffle. More gold than brown, with pure silver sides, presume because of the clear water. Crystal clear freestone river means super finesse is the go. I would use 3 pd braid and 4 pd leader, and tiny (1/32 to 1/20 hair jigs. Tiny translucent bibbed minnows also did OK if they snubbed the jigs. Hope the nuclear bomb/drought proof carp haven't taken over. I'm also from the Northern Beaches and miss the trips up there - such a contrast to the beaches!

Yep LuckyFil, long period swell is the killing swell for less aware rock fishos. Not only, as you write, does long period swell have more power, its true lethal characteristic is long lulls between the biggest sets. Those lulls might extend to half an hour or more. So that mantra of watching the ocean for 15 mins or 20 mins can lead to a potentially fatal confidence that the platform is safe. For those who haven't grown up beside the ocean, don't surf, have less experience etc it might pay to check any of the surf forecast sites. They include info on swell period. A swell with a period of mid to high teens, and higher, though that's rare on the Sydney coast, is something which should create serious caution. Same applies to boat fishos crossing bars. Scary and sobering story Fil.

Garfish is a gun king dead bait. retrieve them medium/ slowly. Before tying on the ganged hooks you'll need, slide the leader through a two cm or so length of lumo tubing with wide enough diametre that you can wedge the gar's bill snugly into the tube (Snap the bill off a couple of centimetres). The tube keeps the gar aligned nicely and is also an added attraction. As far as lures, hard to go past a largish white sluggo.

Flip your bail arm over with your hand, not by turning the reel handle. That little slack loop of line laying on the spool, caused when turning the reel to flip the bail, can cause wind knots.

Skinny post spawning.

Yep a few years ago the coalition NSW government decided to allow pros north of Sydney to net hundreds of tonnes of salmon each year specifically for commercial trap baits. Funnily enough since then salmon appearances appear to have become much more sporadic. Way to damage a fishery far more lucrative to the NSW economy as a rec species.

We fished Tuesday and Wednesday, six hours each day, from west of the Bridge to Long Reef, for a grand total of two frigates, two 10 inch tailor and a cockney bream. fished lures and live slimeys, cast, trolled, reef drop offs, sand flats, wharves, plastics, blades, jigs, dropped leader sizes, fished tide changes.Was utterly dead.

I know the guy who does the size and species estimate after an attack, He's originally from South Africa and has been studying shark attacks for decades.He has an amazing collection of jaws of great whites, bull sharks and tigers of many sizes, and others. His estimates of the size of the shark, and he always emphasizes they are estimates, are based on the size and shape of the wound(s): the arc, or curve of the bite mark(s) is a good guide to the size of the jaws (matched to his collection) and hence the size of the shark. The type of wound is an indicator of the species of shark. The type of wound signifies the style of teeth involved and hence the type of shark. Simplified,a great white leaves a clean cut and a bull shark leaves a nasty ragged cut because of their different shaped teeth. The way they bite and the way some sharks twist and shake their head when they bite is also something of an indicator of species involved in an attack. Location and water temp can also aid the determination of species. He's not a book boffin.