Brendan Monks

Some cracker Pearlies there @Pickles 😲 Dylan (Deckie) told me you guys were fishing with them that day, we were fishing our last point score day of the game fishing season...Unfortunately zeros but can't complain at all about the season we had this year!

Amazing looking boat Zoran!!! Looks like you've included all the bells and whistles 😍 I notice you have outrigger bases on this boat! 👌🦄

Nice work Wazza! Hopefully we will see another report from you mid week 😉🤙

I'm not too sure the best time of the year, but I'd guess a Saturday arvo/night would work best with most people providing weather/tides align 😁 See what others think, I'm easy! 😄

Great to hear Neil!!! 👌 Scotty is the best around and and Dyl is a good kid, I was with him Thursday & Friday nights 🍻 and he mentioned he was working Saturday but I never guessed it was with you guys! 😄 I know him through the local Game Fishing Club 🤙

Looks like a cracker day out @Pickles How did the deckie (Dylan) perform? 😄

Haven't really thought about another trip again just yet. We wanted to get a few in early this season before it got too cold 😆😄 Shoot us a PM and should be able to work something out 👌

Thank you Donna. I'd be in for sure if something was put together!!! 👌 I never got to experience one of the old Hairtail Socials 😄

Cheers, thank you guys! 🤙

Cheers, thanks guys! I've heard if you do get bitten by one to apply their slime? When I first tried them I couldn't believe how good they tasted...a very sweet fish - Definitely something you need to have a crack at mate.

After last year’s success, I thought I’d give it a crack a Friday night a while back (29/04) chasing some Hairtail fishing solo up the Cowan. It was a late get away and I was only on the water around 8:00pm. I couldn’t believe the amount of boats fishing over the cockle beds in the Hawkesbury and was surprised even more by the number fishing up in JB. 😲 With the rods baited and set it was only 5/10 minutes before I had the unmistakable bite of a Hairtail slowly tugging down, feeding out a bit of line I struck and didn’t come tight…lesson learnt, strike earlier next time! After a bit of hard burleying for an hour or so, I had another 2 fish boatside only to pull hooks. Finally another rod went off and I quickly had it in the boat after a short tussle! First Hairtail for my boat. Yeeeww. The rest of the night was uneventful apart from another decent sized one that snipped me off next to the boat, but I was very happy for the first outing of the season! 🥳👌 With the first fish under the belt, I decided to plan a mid-week trip with my mate, and we penciled in Wednesday. Froth levels were high and become even higher when I saw @J0nn0 report just before we headed off! Getting on the water a bit earlier this time (Although still late for Hairtail standards – I have given up ever fishing dusk with work commitments) we put out 1 crab pot to soak while we fished. Fishing in the bay away from all the other boats we soon had a nice burley trail going, we had the tell tail sign of fish under us, but no baits been taken. It wasn’t long before we had a trickle of small baitfish come into the lights when my mates rods rod went off that he had just casted into the shadow line! After a few happy snaps my rod went off soon after…a smaller model but still happy we were onto them! We had both missed another fish each before he came up tight again to a good size fish adding to his tally of 2. Bait by now had disappeared and we could see a lot of boats had already packed up and headed off. We made the call to try another location and after a bit of mucking around setting anchor again with current and wind moving us everywhere we finally had some burley back in the water. My rod loaded up and screamed off quickly and we both hoped it was a small Jewie, but alas a big Stingray (We were fishing a bit shallower in this spot so must of casted too far 🙄). Not long after unhooking it I felt the pressure of a Hairtail again and struck hard. It seems removing the swivels out of my gang hooks gave it nothing to turn when it hits their bony mouth, and I didn’t miss a hookup all night, unlike the week before! 🤔 A great night overall, somehow getting home at 2:30 after a ‘Quick’ session. We checked the crab pot on the way in and found it loaded with baby catfish, 2 male and 2 female Blue Swimmers. We both couldn’t be bothered cooking the crabs so we let them go. Hope to get back down there again soon…or if we can put together some sort of Social Meet… 🍻🤙 Cheers, Brendo

No problem at all mate! I had a change of plans anyway and only fished Sunday arvo and Monday morning for pretty much just Mac Tunas 🤣

@Little_Flatty I think I actually saw the recipe you posted but ended up going with this one: https://www.womensweeklyfood.com.au/recipes/crisp-skinned-thai-chilli-snapper-6846 (No, mine ended up nothing like it! 🤣 I was hoping it was going to come out a bit more crispy!).

The bonito were in plague proportions which may explain it! Still, I have a score to settle with a big cobia...if anyone finds one with hook, leader, and line... 🤣

Thanks Big Neil! 🤙 Cheers mate. Thought I'd try a Thai Chilli Snapper recipe (Just found online) over coconut rice. Tasted amazing! 🤤 Thanks for the heads up Hoods. Plans have changed slightly now and I'll be only fishing Sunday and Monday...Hopefully a few reports come through and I'll see if it's worth the trip up...Otherwise Broughton again! 🤙 Yep, the water was crazy dirty at the heads, but plenty of fish busting up through it.

Cheers Yowie. That may explain it thanks! I thought maybe a Snapper run me through kelp slightly may have also done it, but I rather your theory 😄

With the numerous reports of Snapper and Cobia steadily coming in through the week me and a mate got keen to give Broughton Island a crack seeing we’ve had a cracker game fishing season so far (Report still to come! 🤪). It’s been way too long since I had fished up there, but my mate has fished it a bit, and had a good idea after a sesh with @Scratchie a while ago.🤙 I made the early drive up with my boat picking him up at the end of the freeway at 3am, and we finally got on the water just after 4am. We didn’t bother stopping for baits as we wanted to fish a certain location on first light! There wasn’t much current at that spot, and we quickly moved on after hitting the area hard with plastics for nothing. We tried another zone, and my rod in the holder soon came up tight to a nice little pannie that gave a good account for itself in the shallow water! Ricky was quickly into another until the bite stopped completely and we moved to another location. I picked out a nice spot with the whitewash channeling between a few rocks and positioned the boat a distance out to drift in. Ricky quickly came tight, and just as quickly got reefed by a good fish popping the leader! 🤣 It seemed the Snapper weren’t taking to the plastics as much as we thought and now with it pushing 10/11 o’clock we decided to go for a sound around to find some bait before marking a lot on a reef edge. Working the plastics fast across the surface I soon came tight to some small Bonito that went straight back out as strip bait. Yeewww. That seemed to do the trick, and Ricky was onto a nicer fish that came in at 55cm. Unfortunately we couldn’t tempt any more sizeable Snapper but had a bit of fun catching more Bonnies and the plague of small rat Kings that seemed to pop up everywhere. I decided to keep 1 Bonito to BBQ up as I’ve heard they aren’t too bad on the chew…I thought they were only great bait! With time getting on from us, and having only planned to fish half a day there was 1 spot I wanted to try in the deeper water before heading back in. After a short ride out we quickly had some fresh baits out to tempt a snapper…or something else that is brown and breaks a lot of hearts. 😑 After a visit by Maritime checking our gear etc. (Which I don’t mind at all!) we had the baits back out before mine was screaming off in free spool. I quickly clicked the bail arm over and came up tight. At first I thought I had snagged the reef and drifted over the line as it went under the boat! I managed to get it over the bow before I felt some MASSIVE head shakes. “I’m definitely on” I yelled to Ricky as it came straight up from 40m to the surface – The next thing the line popped in the middle (Not even on a guide or the reel roller) without even taking any drag (And I had used the exact rod all day going hard on Bonnies and Kings). I’ll never forget the size of this Cobia on the surface, made worse watching the line cruise across the top with not a single thing we could do! 😭 In all, another cracker day on the water with a few nice feeds of the target species throughout the week. Now for a trip to Crowdy Head with every man and his dog this weekend to see what we can tempt. Fingers crossed a 20/30kg Cobe has my name on it. 🤙🍻 Cheers, Brendo

Just under an hour mate, went very easy as we haven't had the hooks stay in one for a while now 😄 Yes, very true! We actually were using a light gauge hook on this lure, seemed to do the job! 😀 Have had a few days for absolute zilch also, but managing to at least raise a fish most trips now. Thanks Sam! 🤙 Hoping to get a few more trips in this season, weather permitting.

Zoran, Yep code talk... 🤐😂 and I will also need to do up another report...

Yes for sure!, Rick was on our boat again just over the weekend...I'm guessing you've already heard!!?? 🤪 Still trying to process it all! 😂

Cheers, thanks Wazza! 🤙 Been fishing wide every opportunity I can, but not too many results at the moment to show for it 🤪 Definitely keen to catch up again for a fish!!! I'll shoot you a msg when I'm not heading offshore but next 2 weekends are comps.

Thanks Zoran! Not too many drinks...focused on fishing! 😄 Oh, I will be going out for sure 😁 Broken Bay comp this weekend although the weather tomorrow is not looking too nice... 😑 I can feel you being without a boat (Mine is back on the water now after fixing her for 6 months with 1 dropped Marlin, few dollies and bonito recently). If you want to jump on sometime for a reef/river fish shoot me a PM. I think it's time to tag @GoingFishing now as well 🤣

Cheers Rebel & Isaac 🤙 Fishing tomorrow and Sunday again mate 🤞

Marlin at the end of last and the start of this season have somehow eluded us, although hooking plenty they have either jumped off, popped the leader, or anything else imaginable to man - We have somehow not been able to stick a tag in one! 😑 After having to pull out of the Interclub Tournament in Port Stephens due to the skipper testing positive to covid the day we were meant to drive up, and not too many days been fishable recently we made to call to fish the Sunday as it was looking a bit nicer, and also gave us the opportunity to hear if any fish had been caught on the Saturday. We finally launched at Terrigal ramp just after 7:00am after someone slept in… The conditions were very bumpy and took almost 2 hours to finally reach the southern canyon off Norah Head. We quickly had the spread of 5 lures and 2 teasers in the water before starting to mark patchy bait and a few mutton birds working the surface. Only shortly into trolling and a hour or so before the tide change, the water erupted around long rigger and the 50w Tiagra crackled into life. We were only halfway through clearing the spread when a big Blue Marlin started jumping towards the boat, still peeling line with only his head coming out thrashing wildly on the surface. Sadly he was soon off after a few jumps and all we got back was around 100mm of leader (Must have landed on it!?). Being a bit downhearted after losing a lure that had 3 hookups in 2 trips soon changed when the unmistakable dorsal fin of a Striped Marlin popped up behind shotgun. After disappearing and coming back onto the lure all lit up we were expecting a hit, he then turned away and didn’t see him again! This was looking like the trips of recent until the conditions improved dramatically and we had another marlin in the spread after 20/30 minutes. Again, same lure and same position and they weren’t even hitting it (Must have had rubber hooks. lol). We tried cranking and free spooling the lure back for no avail. We soon made the call to move south before deciding to head north again where we had the initial strike. This paid off and the rigger finally went tight on another fish but didn’t pop the band. Sure enough we had another Striped Marlin bill whacking away, this time on short rigger.🥳 Luckily this time the hooks stuck and after a lot of aerial acrobatics I was soon harnessed up and settled into the fight! The fight went a lot longer than expected, as well as going super easy on the rod being a light gauge hook. After a bit of circle work we finally had it within range and my mate got in a perfect tag shot before getting a few happy snaps and releasing. Job done! It’s been just over a year since the last one we landed and I cannot explain the froth levels on the boat as it glided away!!! We ended up going 4-2-1 for the day, with a short length of 2.22m and estimated weight of 70-80kg. Another boat that we called up early in the day also hooked a big Blue Marlin right in front of us which weighed in at 210kg. Time to do it all again this weekend! 🍻🤙 Cheers, Brendo

I think I saw something there earlier about connecting solid core braid to hollow core braid to a mono top shot. Yeah, just stick to one type of braid if that's what you now have! Hollow core knots works on the 'Chinese finger trap' method (The same as wind-on leaders etc.) the dental floss just stops it from slipping.