tough day at The Twelve

G’day lads

three SA’ers (Pogo, Scrat Rat and myself) and The New Guy Tim launched at Roseville this morning, and headed east. With Seabreeze up and down like a yo- yo recently we were hoping to at least get to the Twelve Mile and if lucky, to Browns.

On logging on with Coastal Patrol and clearing the Heads we could see this was not to be. A stiff northerly was coming up fast and whitecapping. In a little open tinny like mine prudence is the better part of valour so instead we turned into the wind and headed north- looking for a salmon school or maybe a few kingie arches, on The Whale. Up to Long Reef but nothing doing, so back past Bluefish with a couple of wobblers out. First strike a Sergeant Baker (remember when they used to be rare??) and next up a nice bonito, which we put on ice for shark bait:

On rounding North Head a school of salmon was rolling on the surface, one bloke nearby hooked up. By the time we got into gear they had sounded for good.

The wind was backing off so (at his request) we dropped a seasick crew member off at Balmoral, came back out and headed for the Twelve. the water looked magic out there, 20.8 degrees and a deep blue. But the wind was at 15 knots and with no sea anchor onboard we skated along at 2.2-2.5 knots, making cubing very difficult:

After an hour or so we quit cubing, put up the outriggers and trolled big minnows and squidgies back up the trail. No joy. A wet trip back to the Heads (but without a word of complaint from our ultra upbeat crew) and we picked up Tim at the wharf. On rounding into the home straight to the ramp there were a few chopper tailor splashes and kingie boils in the murky water. Two kingies hooked up and one brought to boat:

Just one of those days that didn’t quite work out, but made much better by the great bunch of blokes on board. We’ll try again next week. Cheers to all, Andrew

Wednesday 28 May: a day at The Mountain

G’day lads

with sizeable yellowfin turning up in good numbers out wide, last weekend was a whirlwind of preparation. Down to Narrabeen Bait & Tackle for traces…. up to Windybanks for an esky full of pilchards…. checking drags and sharpening hooks all Sunday afternoon. SMS’s and e-mails were flying around, and soon we had a top crew of good keen blokes from Sydney Angler. James (Yabba), Peter (Scrat Rat) Darryl and myself rendezvoused at Roseville Ramp this morning and, after logging on with Coastal Patrol, set a course of 110 degrees for Browns Mountain.

As usual we stopped over at the Twelve Mile, for a jigging session. No obvious kingie schools on the screen, but a show of some kind of fish 220 feet down? A few minutes later we were down three jigs and had confirmed – in an expensive way- that the school was composed of ravenous leatherjackets. Payback was achieved when Pete jigged one right through the belly:

Back on the plane and forty minutes later we arrived at The Mountain. As usual there was nothing showing excepting an albatross and a petrel or two but the water looked great and the six or seven boats scattered about – most unusual for midweek- confirmed the word had got out, in a big way. Keeping well clear of the other boats we ran two miles south and just inside of the peak, and got the cube trail started.

Ten minutes later the first pilchard with a hook went over. And two minutes after that we had a double hook up on yellowfin! Is there anything better than the howl of a Tiagra drag in full cry? Well maybe a Beastmaster 50/80, but let’s not get picky. James and Darryl played their fish calmly and well and after 25 minutes or so, both were boated:

While all this was happening Pete kept the cubes going, and there were some massive boils just behind the boat as tuna took berley pieces off the surface. Kind of like a brown trout taking a mayfly off the surface- if brown trout grew to thirty kilos. Once the boat was squared away it was Pete’s turn. A big yellowfin slammed his pilchard and gave him a solid work out:

Once boatside Pete elected to tag and release the fish rather than kill it. Good call Peter! I was next on strike but as the crew knows I’m a bit of a shark nut, and elected to put out a big mako bait under a balloon ‘for a bit of variety.’ With things going quiet after the turn of the tide we elected to run for home. The seas had settled and we were back at the Heads in 70 minutes. A great day, a great crew and how lucky are we here in Sydney, to have such fantastic fishing right on our doorstep? Looking forward to many more tuna sessions this winter, Andrew

Jervis Bay May 2008

G’day lads

ten of us hitched up four trailerboats and headed down for this weekend past to Jervis Bay.

The plan was (for me, anyway) pretty specific. We’d been looking at some Adventure Bound videos on Youtube showing some exciting kingie action from May 2007- specifically, downrigging for 20 kilo+ fish:

We arrived at our (amazing!) accom in Calalla Beach on Friday night and after a good night’s rest launched at the nearby boat ramp on Sat AM.

Seas were flat- maybe, too flat- so we rocketed over to Perpendicular for some bait gathering. Having not fished JB for around 20 years I was kinda rusty on where to go, but it didn’t take too long to get some whopper calamari in the tank:

‘Round to Crocodile Head and trolled those up to the Drumsticks- without a touch. Somewhat dismayed, we pulled the pin on that effort and headed up to the Banks.

Once there we downrigged live squid around the main humps to no result. Every so often jellybean yellowfin would bust up on sauris, but usually 30 minutes would pass with no action at all. Huge schools of sweep were finning out on the surface like there wasn’t a predator for miles. Checking on the VHF we heard that the swoffers in the team had scored on salmon:

That night at the local pizza restaurant we exchanged notes. The bloke at the bottle shop reckoned all the local anglers were on zeroes. I wasn’t too worried at our lack of success because 1. I was totally blown away by JB’s incredible range of options and 2. was pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to get there from my place- close enough, to daytrip. The thought of chucking a chunk of cunje or a quartered red rock crab into some of those washes was giving me the cold shivers!

Day two, the weather had bumped up a bit. Fishing mate James decided to come up to the Drumsticks in his beaut new 5.8m Stinger so off we went, in tandem:

Once there we caught some mega yakkas and headed back out along the cliffs. No kingies on the squid or yakkas, but at least the other lads inside got a bag of table species. I was kind of surprised because the place looks so good, but have learnt over the years that anywhere can shut down, at times. We’ll be back, probably next month, and if the kingies won’t come out to play we’ll have the right gear to try some alternatives. Cheers, Andrew www.downriggershop.com.au

Port Stephens bass fishing 15.3.2008

G’day lads

the weekend started early, on Thursday. For about a year now I’ve been raving to Darryl about my sneaky never-fail bass spot, up Karuah way. I’ve never seen anyone else in all my visits there and it’s chockablock full of hungry bass, who’ll slam a surface popper in full daylight. Darryl was pretty fired up after all the stories so we loaded the mini canoes into the station wagon, and left Sydney at 3.

You know what’s coming, don’t you? On arrival the place looked picture perfect. Golden afternoon sunlight was reflecting off the lily pads- the lily pads which I *just knew*, were concealing dozens of ravenous bass. As we launched the boats I limbered up the ol’ casting arm, knowing it was in for a big workout:

Zilch. Nada. Nothing, not even a missed strike. Having given the place such a big buildup, I felt like a total goose! All I can guess is that (like Fountain Creek and Brooklyn dams) all the rain this summer has sent the bass over the spillway, and/or downstream. At least we got some good exercise, paddling around.

Port Stephens 6.3.2008

G’day lads

with good weather offshore predicted yesterday, Col, Darryl and I left Sydney early, and headed up the F3. Multiple marlin reports from last Sunday’s Interclub (including two grand slams) had us pretty fired up, and the back of the station wagon was chockablock, with big fish gear:

After a quick stop at Macca’s Bob’s Farm (to get my cholesterol into the red zone!) we launched at Little Bay boat ramp.

It nevers fails to amaze me how much Australia’s prosperity has grown over the last ten years and your average Aussie boat ramp provides pretty good proof, of that. Launching next to my battered old tinny was an Edencraft 233, with twin 200s, a mini tower and a custom paint job, being towed by a twin cab truck. Col and I were drooling at the sportfishing possibilities of such an awesome offshore weapon!

After logging on with VMR Port Stephens we headed straight for the FAD. Always a good break en route to the Carpark, and often a very good big fish spot in its own right. As usual it was surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands, of small mahi. After putting a few in the esky we deployed four lures, and started trolling eastwards.

One downside was that the current had slowed, if not stopped altogether, as shown by the absence of a plume behind the FAD buoy.

The sea conditions and water temps just kept improving on final approach to the Carpark:

Only 4 or 5 boats were there, which was a bit of a surprise. The icing on the cake was seeing a free jumper just behind Billfisher and Broadbill, who were fishing in tandem. The bait was very scattered and deep but finally we jigged some, about 400 feet down. A huge slimey on Col’s jig was cut in two as by a scalpel, so the pelagic leatherjackets are still around. We deployed one surface livebait off the outrigger, one off the downrigger (at 56 metres) and commenced circling with the rest of the fleet.

After a couple of hours (including through the top of the tide), nothing. And we didn’t see anyone else hook up either. At one point Darryl spotted a free jumping marlin way off to the south, but generally it was very quiet. Having passed through a couple of bands of working birds on the way out (and noting a couple of big game boats fishing in 40 fathoms) we figured that, because the current has stopped, the Carpark bait (and marlin) are leaving for better pastures. Back inshore we went, stopping at the FAD for some fun on light gear.

The wind picked up pretty hard from the nor’ east (according to Seabreeze, ~25 knots) and with a run out tide, the Heads were the washing machine most Port anglers are familiar with. A somewhat disappointing day fishing-wise but more than made up for with the great company of Col and Darryl. You couldn’t wish for two better fishing mates. Cheers, Andrew

Port Stephens kingfish Thursday 28.2.2008

G’day lads

Darryl and I got away at 4:30AM and headed up the F3, launching at Halifax about 7:30, after breakfast en route. Some interesting trailer boats were there including ‘Strikezone’ and the Furuno-sponsored Haines. The plan was to get out wide and fish for striped marlin, with the reservations being that a) Col (djmac) couldn’t make it, so we were a bit short handed, and b) that a filthy southerly was due, around midday.

We scored some massive yakkas just south of the Tomaree LBG platform, and decided on some kingie fishing before heading out. Downrigging around the islands produced some nice kingies, both over and under legal:

Having run out of Mustad hoodlum hooks, I had switched to Owner circle hooks. Big mistake! We dropped some big strikes due to kings not hooking up properly on the circle. Back to a J hook, and the fish stayed pinned.

While downrigging, we heard over the VHF that the southerly had arrived on the Central Coast and was 90 minutes from Port. We decided to pass on the Car Park today.

A klick or two east birds were steadily building up so we decided to check it out. Four or five oil slicks appeared and the bird numbers grew to a thousand or more. It was obvious tuna or maybe marlin were hitting bait down deep, although nothing showed on the surface or on the sounder. Daz flicked a slice into the action on his ultralight rig and came up tight.

Half an hour later a *huge* striped tuna was circling the boat. I was ready with the gaff when PING, the exhausted fish slid away into the deep. Kind of a shame, it would have been great to weigh it. With the weather getting dirtier by the minute we headed over to Shark Island, for an SP session. Around noon we headed back in, logged off with VMR Port Stephens and WHAMMO, the southerly hit. The rain and wind were incredibly strong, it was impossible to retrieve the boat or even enter the marina passage. We heard VMR on the radio saying the wind was blowing 36 knots, but some gusts were far stronger than that. After things settled somewhat, we retrieved the boat and listened to a few war stories from trailerboat skippers who’d been out wide. One told me he couldn’t wait to ‘kiss the ground’! Really hoping everyone got back in safely, cheers, Andrew

Sydney Heads Saturday 2nd February 2008

G’day lads

crew this morning was my old mate Rod and Scrat Rat from Sydney Angler. We got away from Roseville about 6:45AM and had breakfast at Balmoral while simultaneously filling the live bait tank. The yakkas were in their countless thousands this morning and very hungry indeed.

Scrat has been having a bit of trouble getting kings on his downriggers. With the heavy overcast and water a bit over 23 deg C I confidently predicted we would bag out this morning. But as always happens Neptune decided to make me pay for my arrogance. We set two baits on the DRs and headed towards the inshore banks. Mark was already on station flyfishing and Swoffa arrived and started casting out in the deeper water. After two passes over the banks no bait balls had been seen on the screen and we had not had a strike. Yet patches of kings were clearly visible. We persevered, getting up over the shoal and burleying then turning to bring the baits back through the burley trail. This prompted a strike but the kingie got off. Another couple of passes through the zone and Scrat hooked up on a small but tough kingie.

We were on the scoreboard, but things were still quiet, so we decided to scoot over to Bluefish in the hope that there’d be a kingie or two under the suds.

No joy. We downrigged all the way back to North Head without turning a reel or seeing much on the sounder. Once inside the point (with the tide running out hard) we started to mark kings and soon after, Scrat was onto his second fish. This time a just legal one, which we decided to release anyway. Interestingly that king had a fresh treble hooked in the muscle under his pectoral fin, which we removed before release.

We took an early mark, stopping en route for a Maxibon and coffee at Cappucinos Afloat. A tough morning’s fishing compared to recent trips but the great company made it all worthwhile. Cheers to all, A

Sydney Harbour Sunday 3.2.2008

G’day lads

Dave, Anthony and I launched at Roseville about 6:45, and headed around to Balmoral after live yellowtail. As the burley wafted down hundreds if not thousands rose around the boat like a carpet and bit frantically. Some real stud yakkas amongst them. The tank filled quickly and we were off.

With the inshore cliffs quiet yesterday we decided to try fishing inside the Harbour, for a change. Heading up towards Rose Bay we noticed *a lot* of boats around the Sow and Pigs but kept travelling. Just east of the island at the mouth of Rose Bay there were two or three boats fishing and we pulled up there.

One boat (who I later discovered was Netic) had a Sydney Angler sticker on the side, and seemed to be doing very well indeed, downrigging squid. We put two yakkas down at 5 and 7 metres and commenced circling. Boats seemed to be coming from everywhere and 40 minutes after we arrived there were 16 boats, in this tiny area!

Having said that everyone was pretty well behaved, and I didn’t see any crossed lines or cross words. The kingie action seemed to be limited to 2 or 3 boats, with Netic’s boat getting about 70% of the strikes.

After a few passes I was worried that not having squid was costing us strikes but soon after, the drags were howling. A few nice kingies came aboard, one kept, for the barbie.

With more and more boats arriving we elected to try outside the Heads. Just like yesterday there was almost no bait and very few (if any) kings showing, on the sounder. Plus there was a horrible front east of Sydney with very dark clouds and strong winds, all on top of a ~2 metre swell. After a fish or two (which we worked hard for) we decided to give ourselves an early mark and headed back to the ramp.

We luckily ran into Cappucinos Afloat just west of the Spit and loaded up on coffees and ice creams. Back home just after 11. Cheers, Andrew

Vaucluse Baths kingfish 10.2.2008

G’day lads

spent yesterday arvo and last night at a Sydney Gamefishing Club function. As most would know, the clubhouse is on the end of the wharf at Watson’s Bay, just inside South Head.

The place was abuzz about an amazing phenomenon that’s been happening there this week. About 200 metres west of the club there are the Vaucluse Baths. This is an enclosed saltwater swimming pool, similar to the one at Clifton Gardens or Balmoral. Instead of netting, Vaucluse has vertical metal poles to keep the sharks out. The pool is also divided into two halves, with a walkway between. The outer half has partially collapsed and access is blocked off by orange mesh netting. It’s a popular fishing spot.

Anyway, on Tuesday morning, a friend of mine saw 50 or 60 anglers fishing over at the pool. Some locals went over to check out what was happening. Around 300 kingies had entered the outer pool through holes in the barrier poles, and people were fishing for them. One bloke took a photo of the kingies on his camera phone. These kingies were well over legal size. No-one knows whether the kingies chased bait into the pool, or were chased into the pool (there’s been some sharks around.) The blokes from the well-known charter boat [I]Allie Hunter[/I] had another school (or maybe the same one) at the back of their boat at the wharf midweek, and told me most of the kingies were 100-110 cm. Big fish!

The kingies went out of the pool as the tide dropped, but have been back a few times on the morning high tide this week. Smaller numbers were there yesterday morning (Saturday.) I don’t know how long this is going to last but if you’re fishing the Harbour in a boat Watson’s Bay is definitely worth checking out. If you don’t have a boat, might be worth fishing off the pool walkway. If you do any good or have anything to add please post to this thread. Cheers to all, Andrew

Sydney inshore Wednesday 6th Feb 2008

G’day lads

Darryl and I launched at Roseville about 7:00AM and shot round to Balmoral for live bait. It was great to have the big feller back on deck! For those who don’t know he’s been restricted to quarters recently, with a couple of dicky knees.

The yakkas were biting insanely as they have been over the last week, and it didn’t take long to fill the tank. Interestingly, while we were handlining, a pod of frigates were hunting just north of the wharf. Daz had a couple of casts but -in that frigate way-they were able to move 20 metres while the lure was still in the air.

The plan was to get out to the Waverider and avoid the rat mahi, by deep downrigging some livies around the buoy. After some nice 10-kilo dollies were in the esky, we would locate some schools of slimies being worked over by gannets and shearwaters and tag a couple of striped marlin. He he. As always, the plan didn’t quite work out!

At the Waverider there was a big Quinnie on station with three blokes hooking up mini mahi, time after time. We gave them a wide berth and dropped some yakkas down on the DRs. However no big dollies could be found. As you can see from the pics even tiny mahi were hooking up on our baits and lures:

After some fun there, we determined to head back into Long Reef and try for a king or two. Same problem- rats only! Not that there’s anything wrong with small kings and mahi, but we were hankering for something to give the big gear a workout.

Back into North Head. A good colour change had developed, where the run out tide met the clear ocean water. Down went another live yakka and a good king hooked up, unfortunately shredding the fluorocarbon on a reef before drag pressure could be applied. With time running out, and desperation kicking in, we headed over to Shark Island (which had been quite productive on Sunday.) A pass or two showed nothing on the sounder, and with the water the colour of hot chocolate we decided to pull the pin. Checking e-mails back at home I found one from Sam H, who was out flyfishing the Harbour early this morning. Sam had taken a small king on a fly he’d made himself and was justifiably pleased, with that good result.

Cheers to all, Andrew