KayakPat

Hey guys planning a trip to South Avoca/skillion on Thursday as the conditions at most of my regular haunts are unfishable. I've seen some stuff saying that South Avoca would be fishable but I'm a rock safety freak and just want to get some more input from people that have fished it and may know conditions better. Thanks for your advice in advance. P.S. anyone keen on joining me happy to have company (I mostly target pelagics with spin and livebait)

we had the same experience off the stones yesterday it was madness!!! Got a legal by upgrading to a big popper that the rats couldn't quite take.

Hey Boat owning Fishos, ALSO AVAILABLE MONDAY Conditions look nice next week and warm water is coming in, so Im keen do decky for anyone whos keen for a fish. Happy to travel to any ramp in syd. Got my own gear and obviously will to split costs. Friday I have a friend in syd and I'm sure she'd be keen to join. Will be fishing either way, rocks or boat, next week looks good.

Always drop a big bit of burly with a hook in it if the kings are up in the trail accounts for fish more often than not. Good work either way

Yeah most of my squid are caught in the middle of the day when they show up and kill my livie then it goes back out with a spike in it lol water clarity and structure make squid keen to come out if they can see trouble coming or have somewhere near to hide.

livies taken down slowly near structure usually means squid. they chew them off the hook lol they will pull really light drag.

Hey just a trick I've discovered and been using, Rubber band on the lower part your spool (not on the line) then once your bait is out far enough put a small loop of line under the rubber band (leave bail arm open) and it will hold your bait but allow a fish to pull it free. Bigger/more rubber bands hold more... one red thick rubber band is working for yakkas under floats (LB) Just a nifty easy trick that i thought some of you might find useful. Cheers, Pat

Hi guys just thought I'd share this trick I tried for live baiting with a spin reel. One of the most annoying challenges with this is having no bait running ability other than loosening your drag. This leads to the struggle of accurately and quickly resetting your drag once you have a fish on. Also if you reel gets wet while this loose it allows water into the reel easier. What I've done is popped a thick elastic band onto the lower (non-line) part of my spool. Once your bait is out where you want it you hold a small loop of line in your hand and tuck it under the elastic band (bail arm open). This holds the line pretty well but lets it slide out when its pulled with and pressure. I've been using Yellowtail scad (Yakka), some quite big, under a float. This set up and its been working a treat, a 35cm hood squid can disengage the line (ate my livie, squid spike in the next one out and i ate him...). If you're using bigger livies I figure an extra thick rubber band or 2-3 normal ones gives you better line hold. Just a random trick I came up with and thought someone on here may be able to use. Cheers, Pat

night along the parks by the lights is good lure fishing, I've picked up tailor, bream, flatties and a nub ray as well lol

I've been catching drummer on cabbage while targeting blackfish.

hahaha, 8 foot long bonito vs 8, foot long, bonito... I was like WHAT?!?!

So I started spinning for bonnies and kings and got stuck into the salmon, the bite was hot for 45min with hits, chases and fish coming fast. As the salmon cooled down i hoped to get a livie out, but there were none around. I did however pick up a 32cm bream on my small float rig. Eventually I got a gar and sent it out while I did some blackfishing. First drift and I was on, 38cm drummer. Then the live bait goes to a tailor that kindly got to my feet before chewing through the leader. So back to black fishing, 2nd drift hookup,bust off, 4lb leader letting me down lol. So on goes 10lb and again I land a 36cm drummer.... weather came in and i called it.. So salmon, bream and drummer... not what i went for but hey that's fishing. p.s. any tips on why i seem to catch more drummer than blackfish?

When your onto a big fish if other anglers are not moving of there own fruition ask them to look out as you come across, you may need to do some under/over maneuvering but most people will respond if they know where you want to move. I fish the rocks with "light" gear (20lb) and the constantly go to the shelf, once they get there I ease my pressure and just "hold" the fish that way I'm not pulling my line across the snag under high pressure (less likely to break) and wait it out until it turns back to open water. Mind fish cant swim around rock shelves...

I walk down the gully then over the boulders. I haven't ever been the other way.

Sydneys eastern suburbs, conditions are calm in this pic, I've been hit with some shocker waves here and not bothered fishing it plenty of days. The tide level and swell are what make the pic look good other times, swell 1.4 SE from middle of the run in tide, the rock is covered by water every set.

Haha nah not a full convert the excitement that comes from the chase and hit while spinning lures is for me, livies are for when I am playing around with other rods ect

I've been looking up as much luderick info as I can. I'm heading out to the north head/manly rocks as soon as weather permits. PM me if you want company one morning.

Haha I thought about putting in a "zzzzzZzzz, ping!!" Towards the end for a joke but thought better of it yeah I was so bummed when he had me on the rocks, thought there was no way the 20lb braid would hold up as I'd already lost a fish there... There was lots of fist pumping when we landed it haha joy shared by people that didn't even speak the same language, priceless!

Yep the king was soo much stronger, but because of the way they fight I couldn't muscle the king. I had full pressure on the salmon, which is fun, but the king required more tact and strategy. If I tried to pressure the king he'd just take more line closer to the rocks. My favourite fight to date was my 62cm bonito, the runs are straight at the horizon so you don't worry about being busted off at the bottom, and they're strong enough at that size to take a lot of line quickly.

Whoops forgot to add the pic of the food

So started yesterday at 5am, getting to the rocks at dark but not being too keen on the point of the tide and the swell I sat around for a bit watching the swell on the rock. With nothing coming over the main ledge for 15min and another bloke there I got out and started spinning. Again a slow start with my first fish a small amberjack (1st for me) coming at 8am. Apparently he was from a school of salmon, pretty much everyone landed a salmon from that school, I even dropped one on my single hooks , then it went quiet again. My reel started to feel sticky so I switched to my blackfish setup and mucked around with it for a while. Got the float out with a good amount of cabbage on it and then as the wash came through my float didn't resurface. After tightening the line it felt pretty snagged. I felt the smallest of bumps through the snag and I realise I'm snagged with a fish on >.< curse you barnacle encrusted rocks!! so I try using the flow of the swell to pull my line free and make a little headway but when ever the line comes free the fish pulls it deeper.... So i change positions, moving around to the spinning shelf that gets me almost sea side of the fish. Again timing my pressure with the swell I manage to get the fish free. Once I got him up into the wash the water movement and my pressure kept him up easy, it looked like a very odd blackfish to me... turns out it was a drummer going 36cm, stoked!! Tried for some more black fish but got bored so looked at my spin reel, turns out the line was looped at the rod tip =/... so fixed that problem... one of the guys there was livebaiting and was having some success so I made up a quick yakka rig and started trying to pull out my own for a 1st shot at live baiting. Didn't take too long to get a yellow tail and send it out. Take happened after a few min and of cause (I'm a spinner) I struck way too early and pulled it free. winding in my yakka i see its being chased by kings so i start "working" it with some pauses, then boom down goes the float and the guy next to me gets all excited and his excitement leads me into an early strike :'( no yakka back this time... so back to trying to get another yakka. Burly doing the work with a huge school of yellows coming up for bread. I drop my bait rig in and I'm on to a yellow... yellow tail king that is.. zzzzzzz...zzzzzzz ...zzzzzzz... ping goes the bait rig >.< So i re-rig and get another yakka out, with my rod in the rod holder, I continued to try for more bait fish so i didn't have to muck around if the next one was taken. 20min later my reel goes off (ultra light drag so the fish can take the bait). I wait a good 15 sec and set the hook, done and im onto my first livebait fish so I'm wrestling it up and getting closer to the rock and it dives, ping... busted up at my main line so there is a king swimming around dragging a lovely looking float rig... So again I get a yakka out and wait. Same thing, float downs reel runs, I wait and set! Aww yeah this feels heavier!! after 30sec of tussling it zooms to the surface and.... its a salmon :'(.... But a big one so hey who cares! I get it in and try to get my hook out, but its taken quite deep, salmon dont have "teeth" but when a 3kg salmon clamps down on your thumb with those little chompers you know about it!!! Needless to say after dropping him off my thumb the hook came loose . Still not entirely happy, I sent out another yakka, and start packing up. This little guy just kept going and cruised out to about 150m before I stopped him form going as far as he wanted and spooling me... He sat there for 15-20 with not much going on so i bought him back in. He was still super fresh so I sent him back out and only gave him 40m or so of line. 10 min later my rod is bending and bouncing and my reel is running, I grab it and look at the guy next to me "I guess its already set ay?" He nods and I pull up tight. ZZZZzzz my reel goes straight to the rock over hang on the left. I can feel these big tail beats as my line gets closer to the rock, then i feel the weed and rocks on my line >.< lightening my pressure on the fish and reaching out from the rock I feel the tail beats and occasional line slip on the kelp/rocks... not a pleasant feeling. Every time I tried to pressure the it would strip line off me. So i kept a light bend in my rod and slowly walked back across the ledge then forwards winding up the slack I continued this for a few minuets and then he turned back out into the clear!!! aww yeah up goes the pressure!! and ZZZZzzz, so down goes the pressure and I continue to walk it in inch by inch... finally hes up at the surface and we confirm its a nice king. Now I realise I didn't bring my net.... or a gaf...so the art of swell landing is tested waiting for a swell to lift it on to the lower rock shelf, phase one done then waiting for a suitable swell to push back up a gutter so I can land him in it... Phase 2 not so smooth... one of the other blokes that was there was trying to reach with lip grips but couldn't make it, after 2 min of messing around he found a gap between the swell and jumped down and gill grab him for me. BOOM first legal king, fist time live-baiting, all on 20lb braid with 30lb leader! he came up at 76cm at the fork and 5kg. I then made dinner and the star of the show kingfish sushimi. p.s. How does kingfish freeze? I have quite a large amount hahaha p.p.s Still keen for some northerners to show me some spots (happy to trade info haha)

Landed a 76cm at the fork on 20lb main and 30lb leader from the rocks today, without net or gaf. I figure you'll be fine, be calm with kings and they will be calm with you. Pull their face off and they'll reef you in the first run. My report to come.

So hit the rocks early Wednesday morning, started spinning for 0 so I decided to try for some luderick. I'd just bought the Luderick gear the day before and have never tried it so i was pleasantly surprised when my first cast into the wash resulted in a fish. I have no idea what I'm doing and couldn't see my float ever and my line was getting pulled all over the place by the wash, I went to bring my line in and the was a fish on it... so did a few more drifts without any luck then the boys call out that there is a bust up... so switch rods and gogogo!! we had triple and quadruple hook ups on 30-50 cm tailor and salmon. A giant king 1m+ was harassing one or the salmon we hooked and was tempted by my jig for a moment but not today... after 4/5 fish each (on metals mostly, and I used singles on my metals and landed all of my hooked fish vs 2/3 landed on trebles) the action died down and i went back to blackfishing. i put my float out and went to clean my sunnies when I look back my rod is bouncing around. So i go get my second fish on float Apparently tho my keeper bag securing technique needs some work as it came loose of the rock and 1 tailor and 2 blackfish escaped... luckily the bag got washed into a rock pool and i still had 2 tailor and a salmon there. went home annoyed i had no luderick to show for my beginners luck but keen to get into it in winter P.S. thinking of trying some new spots, maybe north head/manly area? anyone want to have a fishing bud up that way?

G’day fellow raiders, So fishing wasn’t that good yesterday, but stay for 10 hours and something’s going to happen right?! So got to the rocks before first light and it was quiet, it took a while for my first hook up with a bonito which came at about 7. There was lots of fishy signs birds/jumping bait, but nothing in casting range… One other bloke got a bonito then it went quiet for an hour or so. We burlied up and got kings excited with bread... and I cranked my xxx rapala through the m and hooked up on a king but dropped it at the rock (first time dropping fish on single hooked lures). One bloke was fishing with a big diving lure rigged chasing a squid skirt, which I quite like the idea of. Unfortunately he was not as good as his rig and kept 2 rats, smallest probably only 45cm.... It went pretty quiet and most people left and at about 1pm a school of bait came charging past the rock, then came the big boys, 5-6 70-110cm kings. I had out a slapstick lure and ripped it back so I could get it back out in front of them, by the time I did the smaller models were coming through, picking up scraps. My slapstick did exactly that, slapped the surface and brought them up. One smaller king grabbed it in the middle and I let it run with it as it only had a single worm hook in it. The king did as any good fish should and shuffled it in his mouth to eat it head first and I struck, it was a small fish so the fight was short even on 20lb line. I got a quick pic and through him back, but by the time I got to flicking again they had moved off… bugger… I took a break and chopped up 2 whole sambos, I had caught last session, for burly. After that, and cleaning my bonnie, I decided I’d have a few more casts then head off. After about 15min of nothing I got a small bump on my lure and struck into something, then felt nothing so continued to retrieve hoping for a second strike that never came. Instead slowly my rod loaded, then me and the fish realised we were connected and, ZZZzzzzzzz….. WTF is this?!? The first run went fast for about 6sec, then it turned back and I had to wind like a maniac to keep any tension… Then it changed its mind again and ZZZZzzzzz another horizon bound run… now me and one of the boys that just arrived start to speculate. He called king, I figured maybe a tuna. Finally we see a flash of silver, then ZZZZzzzz…. After that each run was shorter and I gained more line between and it turned out to be the biggest bonito I’ve seen! Stoked!! It went 3kg and 63cm, it bent my split ring into all sorts of weird shapes… but obviously it held out J A long day of slow fishing with a good fish in the end, at about 4pm hahaha Tight lines, Pat

Cheers, Yeah I recon fisheries needs to be more present at the rock spots. It seem that that is where most undersized fish are kept from. they'd get paid on a good day too haha 3 of 5 people at the rock didn't have licences when i mentioned fisheries checking them... zzzz