Evanwz

never saw a red buoy but did find a few traps out around east reef and out near the FADs Boltons was doing ok with a few snapper as well - the north east corner of boltons tends to do well in my experience also about 100-200m straight off lion island in the sand/weed was a great flathead drift - i'd always heard of this being a productive drift but I've never really tried it - got 3 x 35 to 40cm flatties in maybe 4 drifts so i'm guessing it's a goer fo the future even though the lunar bits and pieces weren't aligned, i.e. it wasn't a black day in the old almanac (well I don't think it was) and the water temp was down a bit (around 21 deg) the day was firing until 2pm or so not sure why but i'm not complaining and all on dead pilchards and squid so there was nothing fresh and tantalizing in the bait presentation department

hi the BB fad today for 6 dollies, 2 keepers @ 60+ cm A few small throwback snapper at Boltons and some nice 40cm flathead off the front of Lion Island A mate got a nice kingie, a big big tailor and some trevs at east reef a great day - better in close with no 2m swell as there was at the fad always great to be cruising blue water

I fished the BB FAD 2 weeks ago for some nice 60cm Dollies - they're only just legal at the moment From Lion Island in reasonable conditions doing 19 to 22knots it's about a 40 min run (I think!) I've seen 5.2m Quintrex Bowriders out there amongst 6 to 8m half cabs Well worth the effort, Dollies are blast to catch just drifting a livie or dead bait unweighted should do the trick People say the bigger ones are down deeper but slowing the drift can be a challenge good luck

you'll get the Dollies at the Broken Bay Fad - 2 of us got 6 yesterday at the FAD drifting with unweighted pillies I've had a few good mahi mahi runs this year, they're now getting to 60cm plus - legal size Easy catching if you get out there early - as in 7am or so and they generally keep on the bit until around 9am or so, sometimes later Livies are best if you can get em early and get to the FAD

Fished the Broken Bay FAD yesterday for some small buy fiesty Dollies, around the 50 to 60cm mark, some a bit fatter and 65cm. Interestingly they wouldn't take our fat juicy fresh yellowtail taken from West Head BUT loved a floated pillie or 2 - just shows that all the freshest bait just sometimes doesn't cut it agains the humble pilchard Dollies came on about 10am (very late in my experience), after everyone had left the FAD assuming there wouldn't be any Dollies, which is almost what we did but then bam, the floated pillie kept them coming in for the next 90 minutes or so. The water was a magic blue and 22.5 to 22.9 deg Evan

had some healthy livies from west head - nice fat yellow tail but nothing touched them all day. Had fresh squid as well, not caught fresh but good quality squid, not stuff from a servo. Very very quiet on Sunday - not sure what's spooked the fish but I've had little luck in the past 2 weeks fishing BB and also Sydney Harbour and Long Reef last week for Kingies. I'm hoping it's the moon phase and late this week/next week things will pick up but I'm guessing the barometer is all over the place as well with so many southerly's rolling in. My theory is westerly winds kill the fishing and so does a southerly - once it's hit the fishing shuts. Not sure if it's my imagination but that's my observation. Further to that the old Almanac - 4 or 5 days around new/full moon seems to work best then there's top of the tide around dusk or dawn. Get all those factors working together and my experience is life's grand - pity that only happens every 3rd blue moon so I give fishing a bash whenever I've got a chance, no matter what the tide/mooon/time and I work mainly towards sub 2m swell and sub 20knot wind - prefer 10-15knot or less and 1-1.5m swell or less dreaming I know!!!

Salami I haven't been to the BB FAD as yet but I was out yesterday around East Reef and the water was a cool 21.3deg and from hearing a report from Ross Hunter in the morning on 2ky I don't think the FADs near Nelson Bay have been doing too much as yet so I'm not sure there'd be much happnening at the BB FAD. In 2008 I got some fantastic Dollies around the BB FAD around Feb/March when the water warmed up substantially - here's hoping!!! Evan

I've got a Raymarine A65 combo and it's an outstanding unit. The GPS is easy to read and to use, the sounder works perfectly in 2m to 160m - well that's about as deep as I've gone. Clear, accurate, easy to use i love it and would highly recommend it - i cannot fault it and most of all it's easy to use AND i now use IT to catch fish - I've had many analogue sounders in the past that for me was hit or miss. With A65, if there's fish on the soinder then i fish and i catch fish.. amazingly simple!!! Evan

G'day I had a similar problem with a Landrover Discovery series 3 - not the air suspension model and a 7m, 3 tonne boat so there was lifting onto the towball as an option 2 things you can do as i had to; 1. get a new 'goose neck' with more lift but looks like you don't have the standard box shaped fitting so I don't know if you have much option there 2. get a high lift towball - gives you another maybe 2 inches of height - the base of the towball which screws into the gooseneck is taller I did both and my rig is 100% awesome with no ill effects check out your insurance as it may pose a risk in case of claim but sometimes you have no choice and you take a chance and assess the risk good luck just take your car down to a good trailer or automotive spares place and see what they have - they'll likely have a number of options Evan

As you probably all know by now, the FADs and any fish trap you can find are holding many dollies of various sizes. Most are sub 60cm, a few are well and truly over 60cm Sunday saw fantastic conditions, 6am exit from Brooklyn (Parsely Bay boat ramp) and a dash for some livies at West Head - after bagging about 15 livies, headed straight to the fish traps (not as busy as the FAD) and got there about 8am (the livies weren't easy to catch!) Straight into dollie action with 5 boated in a very short time - before 9am, 2 at 60cm and a double hookup which was quite outstanding with a subsequent bust off but it was an amazing sight nonetheless. Catching Dolphin fish in such conditions is really an experience to be had - just pure fun in awesome seas. We Sydney siders are certainly lucky to have such pristine water so close to home. By 9:30am, the dollies had all but disappeared except for a few hookups and livies were really THE only bait of choice - I'm not sure where the dollies go I can only guess deeper but trying the livies at various depths didn't improve the hit ratio. The sea was a spectacular blue and the conditions were outstanding - headed out to the 25km mark - 120m + of water in and around Broken Bay Wide and out further for a bottom bash with some healthy hits on the livies and a few coming up cleanly bitten in half drifting the bottom but nothing boated so I'm not sure what was down at those depths. Headed back in for a few more drifts and ended up with the original 5 dollies now filleted, cleaned and ready for eating. Rather than posting pictures of fish, we've all seen them, here's some photos of the conditions and that amazing water... and the Broken Bay fad so we all know it 100% does exist and it's in the right place!! Lets hope this fun hangs around for at least a few more weeks... Get out there Evan

G'day I didn't have the BB FAD in my GPS, just the old fish traps around Barrenjoey Wide which weren't there anymore. I did stumble upon a fish trap at the 20'ish km mark out from Lion Island - we hooked into a few there but the key hit was under the piece of 4x4 flotsam... wood would you believe it? forget those fancy fads... Certainly livies were key - we had about 15 and caught 11 of the 12 on livies and used all 15. I reckon if we ha 20 livies we would have caught 20 dollies We did try pilchard, it got hit but nowhere near as fast as the livies and the catch ratio was 99% on livies Anyway back out this weekend hopefully - if the forecast stays good as it is now

G'day Headed out Saturday morning, early start as the forecast was good - 8-13knot wind, 1m swell/sea - not quite calm that outside but great conditions nonetheless (today - sunday, was an absolute cracker!!) Anyway filled up with livies (yellowtail) at West Head before heading out wide. We had a plan for a change - out to the fish traps/fad for Dollies, then Boltons or another less known spot for Snapper or Flathead Headed out to the fish traps around Barrenjoey Wide - a slower than desired run out in the chop but conditions were improving and after not finding any fish traps we headed further out to where we thought the FAD was. Went past a piece of driftwood - a piece of 4x4 maybe only 3 foot long - flotsam i thought.. and where something floats, dollies collect. This piece of wood had some 30 dollies hanging around it - amazing sight. Quickly rigged a livey and down it went on relatively light gear - not 10m down and it was smashed, by a small'ish dolly - around the 60cm mark - such a fast fight It was on for young and old for the next 30 mins - we boated 9, all on livies and all smashed the livies in minutes - they were hungry with guts full of fish and other weird looking edible fishy bits... The water was toilet blue and 22.8 to 23.4 deg C - just awesome We lost the floating wood and the dollies disappeared so we went for the fad - found a fish trap on the way and gave it a go - pretty quiet and now it was about 9:30am. We got 3 good Dollies then that was about it...headed back for a drift for flatties and got 2 big leather jacket - threw them back and 1 small flathead - also went back So returned with 12 good dolphin fish that tasted awesome on the BBQ, raw as Sashimi and pan fried as fillets.. yum yum Get out there while the temps are up Evan

g'day Yarra for a start you're in the right spots - Juno, Flint & Steel, out wide in the weed as opposed to on top of the rocky reef is the place to be. Top of the tide is best - 2 hours either side is great. You need 6/0 hooks on a running rig with a 6 oz snapper lead so the rig sits on the bottom and the sinker is on a runner sitting off the main line then you need BIG squid, whole or livies - tailor, yakkas, slimeys etc - anything less than from your fingertips to the heel of your hand is too small - thus you need the 2 6/0 hooks ideally about 10 to 15cm apart great fresh squid you'll get from the antique shop in brooklyn just up from the pub but it's expensive, if you can your own all the better. Try around West Head or in the weed behind Barrenjoey head I've found Flint and steel very reliable for jewfish, anytime of the day, tide is more important than time BUT morning is best I believe. good luck

With the luxury of a week off, headed out on Wednesday off Broken Bay and what a great day it was... Started at 8:30 (late I know but it is holiday time and the fishing season isn't in its peak yet so starting at 5am or earlier just wasn't attractive) First catch of the day was a well inflated basket ball - yes that's right a basket ball about 2k's out from Lion Island (a Wilson and in good condition), then it's Leather Jackets by the bucket full in about 35m of water straight out from Broken Bay, one jacket was followed up by a nice 6 foot'ish Mako shark, hung around the back of the boat for about a minute or 2 but wouldn't take the Jacket that I left in the water to entice it - can't blame it really. We tried some multiple pillies and other stuff in an attempt to secure the Mako but no success - was an amazing sight as it just circled around the leathery, sometimes taking a hit at it but never actually biting it so it was still a keeper after being put up for sacrifice. Meanwhile in putting one of the Leather Jackets into the keeper net I got a nice nip (attack I called it!) from one of the jackets - they've got nice razor sharp teeth that slice up human skin quite well, a bit pirana (there's a H in that word somewhere) like and my crew reckon it was the smell of human blood that brought the Mako on... After bagging too many Leatheries and seeing a nice small whale breaching and spouting about 100m from the boat, we headed to Terrigal Wide in search of some elusive Kingies or something more substantial than Leatheries.. one other boat out there and nothing at all for anyone. Drifted off Terrigal Wide for a few nice 40cm to 50cm Flathead. Headed south to Broken Bay wide for not much there either then the wonderful 15-20knot NE kicked in so it was back to the 35m deep grounds for more leatheries and lots of cleaning. All up an awesome day with near perfect weather, some amazing sights and some interesting catches. Leatheries and Flathead were excellent filleted and boned and tasted fantastic that night slightly floured and pan fried (just for something different) Thanks to Rob and the Viking for an awesome day out. A day on blue water is always better than a day in the office Evan

What an awesome Jewfish bait.. Either live on the end of some 6/0 hooks, on a running sinker rig with a 6 oz sinker sitting at the bottom of Flint and Steel Reef or Bar Point in the Hawkesbury duing the top of the tide and you can almost be assured of a monster Jew... OR you can kill it and butterfly it - mmm mmm monster Jew, bring it on