Volitan
GOLD MEMBER-
Posts
684 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
7
Volitan last won the day on September 21 2023
Volitan had the most liked content!
Profile Information
-
Location
Central Coast, NSW
Recent Profile Visitors
2,702 profile views
Volitan's Achievements
-
Eastern Striped Trumpeter, or just plain Trumpeter. If you’re fishing in shallow water in an estaury around Sydney it’s probably the most abundant fish around. They are good at avoiding hooks though.
-
Karratha any other town in North West Australia Although pretty remote and not very attractive places to live, I must admit.
-
Hey Albert. I live on the Central a coast and don’t know of any charter company that regularly offers trips after longtail. I don’t think they occur here regularly enough to base a charter around. I have been out with one operator who does ‘kingfish’ and ‘mahimahi’ trips. He was very good and I recommend him highly. Will PM name. He does go a long way out though - usually about 8 on the boat. so you can judge - I think I did about 4 trips over 3 or 4 years, all about this time. What I caught were as follows: trip 1. One small mahi and 5 or so trag and one small jewfish. trip 2. Nothing that I can remember. trip 3. Two mahi about 900mm, and maybe some other fish I don’t remember. trip 4. Five kingfish up to 1060mm. trip 5. Zero (Though most others caught some small mahi). so it’s hit and miss. cheers
-
Volitan started following Kangaroo Point - land based , Are Longtail tuna in Port Stephens yet and Tough baits
-
Hi. Does anyone know if there have been any reports of longtail tuna inside a port Stephens yet? Also, I would be grateful for any information on their biology when in Port Stephens. Where do they mostly occur, what are they feeding on, synchronisation with tides and time of day etc etc ? I have the impression that they mostly hug the southern shore from Salamander to about Little Bay - but I could be wrong about that. Any thoughts? cheers V.
-
Mostly grunter, with bream, mado and but really little versions of anything can join in the fray. and yes, I know the presence of pickers is a byproduct of a non-ideal location but it’s my home turf and there’s an obvious benefit to being able to fish from my own back yard. as I’ve posted previously, I often cast out an inline camera and this has told me that there are plenty of good size fish around, but they are way more wary and indecisive then the little ones. I see good size flathead, bream, whiting on every occasion, and many other species as well, even things like gurnard, flounder and estuary perch. Mostly they stay just at the edge of visibility as they seem to need time to build up their confidence, but by then it’s all over. I am keen to try the skirt steak though.
-
I will give that a try. My first thought was that I prefer baits of marine origin as at least the fish know what it is, but chicken fillet is good bait, and I’m told chicken guts is too though I’ve never used it. triggered a memory. When I was young the go-to bait was beef heart. I don’t remember what species we caught with it though.
-
No I haven’t, but thanks for the tip. catching them around here is no trouble. Not catching them is the problem,
-
Can’t use lures - due to hand injuries. Otherwise would love to.
-
All the baits that seem to work in my area are soft. That’s a problem because we have a vast number of small fish - little pickers that can strip off the bait as soon as it hits bottom. Some tougher bait might at least give the larger fish a chance to find it. Does anyone use and find successful a tough bait? I’ve tried bait elastic and salted baits and they help a little but not nearly enough. when we were kids in NZ we used to buy a type of squid in packets which would stay on all day. The fish loved it too. Wish we had that now.
-
Let’s go a step further wait till the end of school holidays, choose a day with high tide about 8am, get there early with garfish or fresh squid, start at the car park chucking bait out about 10 meters and letting it drift with the current, walking along the footpath to keep in contact with the rig. Let the bait tumble along in midwater, and let it get down into the deeper hollows where the fish get respite from the current. I’d like to say ‘do that and you should get a kingfish’ but as we all know it doesnt work like that, let’s just say it shouldn’t take many trips.
-
I’ve done ok off the breakwall at Nelson Bay Marina. Around high tide, unweighted garfish on a double hook pennel rig drifting along with a slight current. At the car park, at the very end of the breakwall, or by the moored boat called the Simba. There are usually kingfish under the Simba but very wary so probably best not to spend too much time with them. early morning or evening best but I’ve done ok at all times of the day. On one memorable day they were going off right at the car park at about 1pm - everyone was hooking up. most of what you catch are rats but there are some very big fish there too. I’ve seen some big ones hooked but never witnessed one landed.
-
I’ll agree with you in part about using a soft drag approach, and ignore the comment about watching too many fishing movies. Ive caught hundreds of kingfish around channel markers and after loosing a few the strategy I evolved was to hook up, take the pressure off, gently tow the hooked fish (below panic threshold) away from the marker, and then once it was in clear water put the pressure on safe in the knowledge they would seldom return to the marker. I think all fish will quickly calm down once the pressure goes off and kingfish are the most extreme example. Of course these were hooked on a fly rod so a tug-of-war was not really a valid option. hard thing for a beginner to do off the rocks though. id probably reverse the success ratio of hard to soft approaches and leave it at that.
-
It’s hard to deal with a fish that knows instinctively how to cut you off on the bottom, but a couple of things that might turn the odds in your favour are: more drag. If you watch the guys catching kings off the rocks in NZ the drag is ‘pliers tight’. They don’t give an inch. If your mainline is 50lb then you should be able to set drag at 17lb or a slightly more risky 20 in a snaggy area. Measure your drag with a spring balance or a bucket of sand and you’ll be surprised how tight 20lb is. mix it up, discombobulate the fish by pulling left, pulling right etc. the fish needs to get its head down and tail back towards you for maximum thrust and if you watch videos of a hooked fish you’ll see that’s what it’s trying to do. What you need to do in effect is throw them off balance. If the fish is definitely snagged, give it line. It should swim out after it’s calmed down - it has to eventually. Remember the fish is panicking because it’s terrified by these unfamiliar events but panic doesn’t last long with fish. This does work, only sometimes, but is better then keeping the pressure on and getting sawn off. Mono has MUCH higher abrasion resistance then braid, so if your using braid for the main line switch to mono for the rocks. Anyway, a great effort and I assume no drone in sight.
-
I gave it a go. Like you said, deep and snaggy and a ripping current - and I’d add very slippery rocks when they’re wet. Didnt get a bite - but bait and tide were not well chosen as more just a recce.
-
Hi. Has anyone fished at Kanagroo Point - landbased. Under the freeway bridge. Looks like very deep hole close in, with lots of structure from road bridge etc. surely a good spot for a jewfish?