Jono Hammond

Hi Better off upgrading a little and getting the excellor as i have both and the excellor is the far superior reel, besides i have problems with the regal now as it is a little ceased up. I do use a regal baitrunner and that reel seems to be pretty good so far - no problems anyhow.

No body has mentioned Vibes or Blades !!! I catch the most with prawns with little to no weight, although i did catch one thumper of the beach at hawks nest on a whole squid - 2.5kg fish, Pulled line like a jewfish.

Hi All I am going to shortly get myself a canopy fitted onto my boat but really would like to get a new windscreen first as there is no door in it to access the anchor. Was wondering if any raiders have had to do this or know anyone that can do this. Please PM me any names - the only other alternative is to cut the alloy and perspex and hinge it myself but would much rather get it do prof. Thanks Jono

Try going further to the entrance of the system towards pittwater, i find the fishing much more productive and catch no catfish down that end of the system.

Stacks of flatties around in both the river and pittwater, just watch the winds, as it got pretty messy even up in the river on monday.

Hey all, Spent 2 weeks in Adelaide with the wife's family over the new years period and stayed down at Sellecks beach for one week, absolutely beautiful place, was going to take my boat there but decided that it was too far to tow and lucky to as we hit a roo on the way back, hate to do that with a boat on the back. Anyway took out a inflatable boat one day we were down and fished amongst the scattered weed beds and rocks a couple of hundred metres out from the beach, pulled in plenty of whiting which were mostly undersized and then caught a few tommies one of which i took a fillet off and rigged it up and pulled in this - was pretty happy with that as most of my mates down there hadn't caught flatties off the beach before so i was stoked!! Here's some beach shots as well - Jono

Its all trial and error guys so the only way to work it out is to try more often, the best advice for the hawksbury i can give is don't use the anchor and drift all the time, make sure you keep your gps on tracking that way when you do hit a patch its easy to find it again. Good luck.

Ha finally got it

Hey everyone Finally managed to get out after being way too long since the last time, headed into the hawksbury and decided to try a new spot out that produced the goods, its was only a small patch probably 10 metres round but every drift produced good fish and we took home one of our best bags yet, finally got to almost cover the brag mat. The bream was a classic catch as you would know after about 10:30 the wind was out of control so we headed back and pulled up behind one of the islands to use up the bait and it was on the last cast of the day, gotta be happy with that. Nice to see the hawksbury is performing at the moment, plenty of flatties around so get out there!! Final tally - take home Flathead - 6 Flounder - 3 Bream - 1 + many throw backs Also to top it off we found a productive squid spot as well as they kept following our baits up to the surface. will add pic later - doesn't want to work at the moment

Take along some stick baits - ones that are completely white, the large sqidgy flickbaits in white and 145cm worked in the past for me, that way if your baits not happening you can try something different. Also try some poppers early morning, i have caught kings before in the middle of the day even at the spit bridge on poppa's - and that was landbased throw them round the 2 free moorings

Have caught kingy's on the Halco Roosta poppa's, if your fishing braid make sure you tie on a flurocarbon leader, otherwise say bye bye poppa if yoou get a little excited and lift the fish out of the water, yes there is a rat king swimming around with a new peircing on its face from me!!! Not cool loosing expensive poppa's

Thanks Alanb, too be honest with you i can't really blame them but i'll never pass someone that clearly is stuck ever again. Still had some fun fishing, took along a kilo of tiger prawns and sat there peeling them and creating our own sparce burly trail with the shells and heads.

Well fellow Raiders what can i say, have you ever had a day that's just started out bad from the start when you should just go back to bed from the start!! The much anticipated night fish in the hawksburry was looking perfect, high tide at 7:30, just enough time to fish an hour either side, the weather on a change as well, definately the day to crack the Jewie cherry. God the the ramp about 5:30 after an absolute rush in the end as me and my mate i was going with both got stuck at work, left the ramp everything running beautifully as usual - i had started the boat the night before as i always do just to be sure that everything is working. Left Moony Moony point and headed upstream to sound out our area for the night which we found a nice drop off with some awesome looking ledges on, marked it on the GPS and headed over to Milson Island where we have picked up a few Jew over the last couple of weeks (or at least my mate has!!!). Upon arrival we pulled up the boat and started fishing, after the 6th catfish we threw in the towell as as it was now approaching 6:45 we decided to move to our spot that we were planning on fishing for the night. Started the boat and pulled anchor and began moving when i noticed that the tilt and trim wasn't working and when i tried to move it everything electrical cut out! Strange!! so i pulled up about 50m from milson Island and turned off the boat to have a look what was wrong, nothing seemed wrong, so i went to start up again and nothing... the boat wouldn't start. At this stage we were about 6km from the ramp at the end of milson Island where we threw an anchor out and started looking for a problem, we def. could not get it started so we decided to wait for the tide to change and then drift back to the ramp. We continued fishing and proceeded to catch about 40 catfish, a stingray which fooled us for a Jew, a small Jew (40cm) and a Toad!!! - didn't know that there were toads in the hawksburry. finally around 11:30 the tide began to really run and the breeze stopped so it was time to start the drift. It took 2 hours to drift from the end of milson Island to Moony Moony, when we got in line with the ramp the current took us and started to push us away until finally to top blokes saw us (this is after we were ignored by about 50 boats!!) and towed us to the ramp. Finally we got the boat on the trailer and then had to get the motor up which of course took a slotted screw driver which we didn't have so we made one from and old spanner and a hacksaw, in the process managed to brake one of my favourite rods!!! As i sit here now i think i have discovered the problem and that is that the battery has given up the ghost, it must of reached the end of its life and now is due for replacement, i'm just thankful that i had to oars in my boat otherwise i would still be on the water. My advice - don't go fishing on black friday Jono

Definately a Mack, picked one up last year this time between the heads on a small kids rod, went really well.

Fished Pearl Beach over Christmas the last 2 years, the beach can be a bit slow, as Ray mentioned it is pretty deep, caught a big hammerhead there and a few small tailer, plenty of sharks off the rocks and lots of 'old boots', if you have a boat you can launch off patonga, or if your after live bait, patonga wharf is normally pretty good.

Spit Bridge on the manly side is good for kings during december, stick baits and poppers work best - outfish bait everytime!!

Dave your doing better than me, currently renovating a house and so far i've had the boat wet once in about 4 months!!! I'm going insane

Thanks billfisher i think you made up my mind

Thanks for the advice, will look into the ocuma reels but maybe the charter special will be the go. i heard that they had stopped making them is this true??

Hi all Have been looking for an overhead reel for ages now as i am after one with both lever wind and lever drag. So far the only one i know of that can do this is the shimano charter special. This will be used for kings, downrigging and bottom bashing offshore - not casting at all. Any ideas? Jono

I am lucky (or unlucky) enough to live 5 minutes from go fish and witnessed there move over the last week as i drove past a few times, and i must say they got it all out quicker than i was expecting. It was funny seeing pete taking the sign down on tuesday (i think) Congrats on the move and hope to visit the store soon, i only avoid going in cos every time i do i spend $$$. Now the store is even closer to me!!!

Went out squidding friday night and it was dead at the spit and balmoral so probably would give them a miss, lost a couple of good jigs as well

Good on ya for buying your first boat, i remember the feeling. Try drifting around with a couple of rods out the back rigged with hawksbury prawns, pick out your drifts and try them 3 or so times, if no bites then move on to another, once you find the flathead then anchor and burly as they tend to be in groups, thats what works for me. As for lures, try burkley Sp's 3" and 4" in the more popular colours, but i would recommend mastering catching them with bait first. Good Luck

Just finished a dinner of blue fin tuna which was given to me a mate at work, he caught a 40kg fish on the weekend and has been offering fish around. Tasted awesome as well.

Wow - the water out there looks flat as!!!