Sydney Harbour FAD

[sam bros]

Hi Raiders,

Headed out to the close Fad a couple days ago before work with my brother. Got to boat ramp at 4 am. And headed get some lives near balmoral. Took a while to get the yakka going but eventually got 5 yakka. 

This was the first time targeting mahi mahi sp we were both full of excitement and anticipation. Also we both had never caught a fish off a livie, so we were hoping to tick off a few things off the bucket list. 

At the crack of dawn we headed out past the heads on route to the FAD. Once we were were a couple hundred meters away from the FAD, we threw to skirts out and trolled the rest of the way. Almost instantly got a hook up and we were on to our first ever dollies, as my brother was winding in the other line to clear it out of the way, that line hooked up to a dollie as well so we had a double hookup of dollies. Bring both to the boat and not them but they were both undersized at about 50cm.

After that we did some drifts past the FAD with cubed Pillies  and live yakka. Almost instantly the live yakka gets a hit , and the line starts peeling off, I strike and set the hooks. Not long after a just legal dollie comes up which was kept for a feed. 

From then onwards the dollies were swarming everywhere and anything we threw out was getting hit. But they were all well undersized. 

Ran out of livies pretty quickly but the bite continued with pilchards. 

Back inside the harbour at about 9am. Ended up with 2 legal fish and had a great time. 

Also could I get a fish ID on the second pic, it was caught on pilchard piece when catching yakka. Was about 30cm in length and we caught a couple of them

 

Thanks

Edited April 15, 2018 by sam bros

[Windswept]

Thanks for the report. I've only just learnt what a FAD is! Sounds like fun.

That fish looks like a Spotted Bigeye (I randomly came across this fish just the other day)

 

[sam bros]

13 hours ago, Windswept said:

Thanks for the report. I've only just learnt what a FAD is! Sounds like fun.

That fish looks like a Spotted Bigeye (I randomly came across this fish just the other day)

 

Thanks mate

[New Signing]

Pretty sure ive heard of those referred to as bulls eye. Also pretty confident getting spiked by one will make you wish you'd stayed home

[Graham]

Those Bigeye are good eating.  Fillet and skin them.  Need a few for a feed.  

[Stu-SP]

Congratulations on your first Dollies!! It must be the season for it, I caught my first one this year too. Great eating and sport fish to target, well done!!

[sam bros]

On 16/04/2018 at 1:21 PM, New Signing said:

Pretty sure ive heard of those referred to as bulls eye. Also pretty confident getting spiked by one will make you wish you'd stayed home

Lucky i didn't get spiked, if i dont know what a fish is i generally dont touch it. 

 

[sam bros]

On 16/04/2018 at 1:22 PM, Graham said:

Those Bigeye are good eating.  Fillet and skin them.  Need a few for a feed.  

Got a few of them, but threw them all back.

Might take one home next time if they get a bit bigger

[sam bros]

On 16/04/2018 at 8:28 PM, Stu-SP said:

Congratulations on your first Dollies!! It must be the season for it, I caught my first one this year too. Great eating and sport fish to target, well done!!

Thanks mate, yeah they are great fun to catch.

They jump out of the water a lot which make it fun to watch