jembro

Great job guys. I have done lots of float fishing in Canada(using a center pin). I used to spend days on the river for rainbow trout and salmon. I just moved to Penrith. I would like to start doing more trout fishing up near the mountains now that I live close to the area. Too expensive to chase kingy's around and to run a boat in salt water when you just had a baby:). Would you guys mind if I PM you for some pointers? I do have my center pin reel and float rod here. I am also considering down sizing my boat to a small tinny for trout fishing. I'm not sure if I'm best trying to catch trout here using a boat or fishing from shore. Any help would be greatly appreciated. jembro

I have the same story. Went out early, got some yakka's. Went to the FAD, nothing. Tried in Sow and Pigs, nothing. Oh well. better luck next time! My fishing partner also vomited down the side of my boat in the 2 meter swells . At least I got the boat out for a good run

Well the saltist is only a few months old. Let's hope it holds up. I did keep the receipt if it falls apart!

The saltist is definately worth it. I have alway been a huge fan of Diawa. The drag is always smooth and they tend to last for ever. I bought the reel as a 10 to 20 year investment. I don't thin it will let me down.

The saltist was amazing. Beautifully smooth. Worth the money. Handles the tuna beautifully.

Was supposed to go out for Kingy's in the harbour this weekend. A fellow raider (oz_brett) called asking to go out deep for dollies with another fellow raider (Brudus). I was up for the idea. We were going to head to the fads but oz_brett deleted some marks from his GPS we realized we didn't know where they were. Way to go oz_brett . Anyway, we did some trolling near the shelf and got into some yellowfin and stripie action. Me and oz_brett both caught our first every yellowfin. Great day! We managed to have 2 quadruple hook-ups! We couldn't even grab all the rods. We also managed to lose a big dollie to. Would have been nice to see as I have never caught a dollie. Also, I purchased a new berkley 6 foot jigging rod for kings with a brand new diawa saltist 4500. It was great to break it in with my first ever Yellowfin!! We landed 3 yellowfin and 5 stripies.

oh man. i just bought a down rigger last year. i love it. i would be so pissed if i somebody stole mine. what a jerk off.

Well Done. I got skunked on the kingy's last saturday.

You are probably correct. I just looked at pictures of a striped marlin on the web. Striped marlin also look to have a blueish tinge. I'm definately not an expert on marlin it for sure could have been a striped marlin. I know it had a bill and a blueish tinge. My wife had a better look and she said it definately had stripes on it.

one thing i noticed was the water temp was over 21 degrees. maybe a warm current came in and that is why the marlin was in close. who knows? i probably should have put a bonito on a hook and trolled it .

Just to explain. I didn't catch a Marlin off South Head. But let me tell my story. I'm sure nobody will beleive me but I don't care. Me and my wife saw it with our own eye's. I started the day off at Balmoral around 5:00 AM to get some Yakka's to try and get into some Kingy action. I filled by bait tank within a few minutes. I then down rigged around north and south head. No Kingy's. While down rigging, I saw some small fish jumping out of the water. I then quickly realized after seeing a couple of fins in the water that sharks were trying to eat these fish. Amazing. I have never seen sharks from my boat before. They were small sharks. They looked to be around a metre long. Sharks are cool to see but not as cool as what was about to happen. I headed off to Colours Reef to try for some Kingy's. There appeared to be a lot of small fish on my sounder. So I thought I would give it a try. My wife dropped down a livey while I tried jigging. This is where the story gets interesting. While my boat is sitting there, a massive blue billed fish jumped out of the water 5 metres in front of the boat. The only thing I can think of is a blue marlin. Somebody tell me if I'm crazy but what else could it be? It had a bill and it was blue. My guess was that it was around 70kg. Me and my wife were flabergasted. My wife pulled up her livey and it was gone. So we quickly dropped another one down in hope of catching this beast. I think what happened was that small fish tore apart my yakka and the Marlin came in to check out the comotion. Of course I didn't catch a marlin of colours reef. But I saw one for the first time ever. AMAZING! The funny thing was for the first time in my life I was the only boat out on top of colours reef so nobody else would have seen it. Anyway, after no luck with the Kingy's, I tried skirting for bonito. We did catch a bunch on my ultra lite. so much fun! We caught 2 50 cm +. I will post the pics later. To summarize... We had no luck with the king'. We caught a bunch of bonito. We saw shark's for the first time from my boat. We saw what we think was a blue marlin jump 5 meters in front of the boat. Great day!

I'm moving to NZ!!!!!

Dude! I wish I had all that spare time. I'd be chasing kings around the harbour during the week if I could. I'm hoping to have some luck with the down rigger on saturday.

Love the pic dude. That looks like a beautiful Chinook Salmon but not 100% sure. Also known as a King salmon by the yanks. We used to catch the same species of these in the Great lakes when I lived in Canada. They are one of the only species of fish that I know of that can live in salt and fresh water. I can't ever remember catching one that size! Well done dude. That pic makes me miss home.

Good to know. Do you think it is worth a trip up there at this time of year or is it a waste of time?

Well. I think I may finally give it a try this Saturday morning. The weather isn't looking good for chasing kingies around but with all the rain it may be a good time try some trout fishing at tomsons. Has anybody been there lately and had any success? I have never been so I think I may show up with some power bait and some wet flies. I also have some tazzy devils and that sort of thing. Any more advice on good bait to use?

dude. i was caught out there in those winds yesterday. crazy! my bilge pump definately works!

fished ther harbour on saturday. got one rat king down rigging. it was a tough day. i noticed that most boats were not getting too much action.

Awesome. well done. Did you guys get out Saturday by chance? If so, how did you do. Saturday was quiet for me.

Did some down rigging in the harbour this morning around the heads with my wife to be. We landed a few kings (all rats). She got her first one ever and she was ecstatic! Lost another one right beside the boat. Had 2 more big bust offs also. No big fish to brag about but a great day of fun and some good pics. Watching the smile on her face when she was fighting the kings was priceless!

don't feel bad. me and my fried went to balmoral early. got a bunch of yakkas. saw a couple kings around there. trolled north head. picked one up downrigging. anchored in another couple spots. nothing. however i did see a few people picking them up around north head. there was about 20 boats hurdled together in one spot getting a few. i didn't want to have any part of that pandamonium so i went to sow and pigs. nothing there either. oh well. maybe next weekend.

Also. Thomsons damn near lightgow. Is there flow there? ie) can you use flies and a float? or is the water still.

Thanks Swordfisherman and Matt. The advice is much appreciated. I will try Thomson dam and lake lyell over a weekend soon. Do you guys think an 85 hp suzuki will scare the fish. Even if i'm quiet on the engine? I don't have a trolling motor.

I also must add I'm interested in learing Oberon also. Which ever tends to be better. Although Lake Lyell is a closer drive.

Hello. I have recently moved from Canada. I have done lots and lots of rainbow trout fishing from shore float fishing (using a center pin - very common method in canada). Mostly for Steelhead (a lake running rainbow trout) and chinook salmon. I have much river experience catching them using flies and roe (we are allowed to use row in canada). I would like to learn some trout fishing up around Lake Lyell. I live in the Sydney CBD. I do have a boat with a down rigger. I usually use it around the harbour for kingies but if I put a smaller gear on it, it can be used for trout. I would like to learn to troll for trout. I would also like to learn when the best time to fly fish the rivers are and where to go. I went up there once (before I had the boat) and didn't catch anything. I had no clue where to go though. Any advice would be appreciated. I would like to know the following: 1) What time of year the rivers are the best 2) What time of year is it best to fish the lakes 3) Where are some good public places to fish Also, if somebody is willing to join me and show me around that would be awesome. We can use my boat with the down rigger. It is a 5 meter 85 hp. Hopefully its not too big for that little lake. Or we can simply hit some good spots on the river from the shore. Look forward to hearing from somebody for advice. Also, can anybody reccomend a good guide up in that area? Thanks.