REKLESS

Gidday blue cod,you are fishing the PFT arent you.make a suggestion,troll the pakulas but have a skip bait/livey handy,some of the reports are very heavy,,broad bill picking up 22 stripeys!!,the place to go sounds like the car park and put your fish baits out.What boat are you fishing on?

Gidday all,my goal this year is to get a marlin from my boat this year,I have had a few shots but decided to get serious and put "REKLESS" in at Longreef on Saturdaytrouble is that at 4m I am slightly restricted as far as open waters go.Any way Dan my brother came along and seeing as the time was right we thought we might have a crack at some shallow water snapper while waiting for dawn.The pick went down near white rock and then we proceeded to cube up some sweep.....make that every sweep in existence.Using sweep proof baits ie slimey heads we had no luck so pulling the pin we headed out a little deeper with much the same result.The water had gone relatively cold 20.3c and had a southerley set that was green and icky looking,there was plenty of yakkas feeding on the surface unmolested with no sign of any slimeys at all. Seeing as the water was shitty and the likelihood of finding the bait (slimeys) and what was feeding on them seemed remote we went out to the wrecks and started drifting for flathead,no luck there either ,the only things that did happen was dan pulling in a double header of slimeys,I was not marking a school on the sounder so I guess that they were pretty thin?.I put one out for the result of a slow death by squid/cuttlefish. The southerley was making its presence felt so we headed back in feeling a little grumpy and it was a slow wet trip in until we came across fish hitting the surface at the boat ramp (50 ft out). I was trolling a little pakula at that time and with dan getting out the three kilo gear he cast while we were still moving,instant hookup.I turned around to clear the small pusher out the back when it was scoffed by a rat king that gave me a bit of curry .We had a blast with the fish , mixed school of bonito and small 3kg macks.The kings had split for somewhere else probably just as well,on light gear in that country we would have had the tackle boxes emptied for us!. Still a bit of a slow day but that is the breaks. Riverstone classic ,went to the weigh in on the sunday,this is a bit of a meat fishing scene so it may not agree with all of you guys but it sure as hell was an eye opener.I only hung around to see what was weighed in but there was some of the biggest jews I have ever seen,27kg gutted and gilled,21 kg ,and a heap of 10kg plus models along with heaps of schoolys.A 60 kg black from ulladulla way would have taken the Game fish section out and there was a line up of some very heavy dusky flathead,some were huge.A smattering of dolphin fish as well as a lonely wahoo 10kg + showed that there had been a few out a bit wider.There was a few outstanding bream and some 1kg plus whiting as well.A good show was on but seeing as I had to work I only got to drink one beer! . South West Rocks, ,It is safe to say that it is going off at the moment.I heard that changa managed a solo marlin up there ,unsure when. I have friend that was relating a story about this morning about how they were feeding a slimey out when a sailfish hammered the one under the balloon at the back of the boat.The slimey that was being fed out the back was left on a very short leash,ie the swivel at the rodtip ,yup you guessed it,mr black marlin scoffed it and proceeded to go spaz at the back of the boat.The trouble was it was a small fish 30kg + and on 24kg was all over the place .They tagged them both. I asked him where,he said that bait reef at the gaol,you know ,where you picked up the cobia last year.SHIT says I ,thats only 100m from the breakwall!. Saturday and sunday all saw 100's of fish tagged by the boats off there with mega dolphinfish as well.Im going up on friday night,fish saturday,sunday and then back home. simon

Isnt that a black trevally?,

Hand grenades?

Yes that is the waverider,its in 85m of water ENE of north head situated at S 33 46.540 E 151 25.290 its about 5km EEN of the Whale and forms part of the "black triangle " that fires when they are around.

Bad luck on that bashir,I was going to be headed out to but cancelled when I heard the dodgy report yesterday PM,I might suggest that next time you find dollies like that just try a fresh strip of slimey,works wonders on timid dollies.

Ive had some bad weather out wide ,the stongest wind was when we got caught in the green storn that destroyed the eastern suburbs a few years back,there was a game comp on and there were two boats that were calling out mayday,we were about 10 km wide of the peak in a 28ft haines and could see it coming,the tension in the air was immense as we could see the front of the storm rolling at us ,with the 2 mhz radio going off with the two boats being swamped and we were in calm weather about to get nailed.We got through by battening everything down ,steering by compass and just keeping the pointy end in to the weather at a fast idle. The worst waves were coming in over the banks off nowra in a 38ft yacht with a following sea,in autumn with a 4m swell and a 4m sea,we got caught out big time on that one and I still beleive that if we had of been in anything else but that yacht we would have sank,Only the third time I have put on a life jacket.Yuk,not recommended.

Just reading about the hooks in your old mans feet brings back a few very horrible memories,With dollies I just do not trust the things and if I cant get the hooks out easily and the thing is going nuts the whole lot goes in the tub ,disconnect the trace and wait till the right moment before getting the things out safely.

Yeah , I reckon that you may be right about the lighter line to the sash cord,I had a rig all set up with HD three way swivels ,circle hooks and the full nine yards using some nice 150 lb mono,I had tied the secound sash on with 50lb mono but I suspect that I may have snagged on to something with the circle hooks ,hence it popping at the surface. On another note,I only got one Mahi Mahi to take home for tea but to my dismay it seems to have been affected by the same bloody enzymes that attack the kingfish up on the Gold coast,I filleted it and found that the flesh around the entire gut area had broken down to a sludge that could be pulped through your hand. .Has anyone else found this problem? simon

Gidday all, Well I managed to get out for a fish again with Max Jonno on his boat "HARPOON' for the last time.He has sold the boat to a nice fellow fisho called Mick ,who came out for the day to check out the boat in all its glory. We met up at the unearthly hour of 400 at maxs place and I was dutifully informed that as I had apparently the most sleep out of all of us that I was designated driver for the morning.Maxs reason was his sleep machine had decided to wake him up and that Micks reason was he had not been to sleep since thursday as he had been working to hard and had just come back from an al night gig. I will apologise now on this forum for my spectacular driving technique,its just that I had trouble sleeping due to fish anticipation (I had downloaded the latest temp charts) and they were excellant ,and also the story on high tide about a boat getting spooled on 130 in 80 ftms off Norah head heading to you know where. Nuf said we put the boat in and headed to the "cans" for bait.There was a tanker there but owing as to the behavior of all the other boats we copied there diligence to keeping a safe distance from the thing. . While there we also noticed the entire fleet from Botany bay GFC exiting at high speed,hmm must have a tourny on I guess We picked up a few yakkas and the occasional slimey and really needed a proper boat with a BURLEY bucket to bring them on properly (Micks new boat doesnt have one).Saying that a BB GFC boat sidled up next to us and I said that we were picking up slimeys ,he obligingly pulled out a tuna and put it in his burley pot. We were all going a bit GA GA at that , ,ever seen someone stuffing a 50kg + yellowfin into a burley bucket?.All I could think of was where ,when and what a waste!!.Still it worked and we picked up a few more marlin lollys and headed for the FAD off the peak. We got there pretty quickly and soon joined in the queue of the seven other boats all having a crack at the dolphin fish,we drifted a few times and after witnessing only two other fish being boated and us with one on board we hightailed out of there looking for traps that did not have any competition on our way to the mountain.It is along way out there but just on the 100ftm line the temp guage started going over 22.5 and had that iridescent purple colour. Mick is a good fisho and had never been out trolling for marlin so as I set up the spread I explained a few things about what to do and when I put the pakula Loumo sprocket out I said that this was the gun,the rest was an assortment from raiding maxs vast tackle box.(I had loaned all my gear to a good mate,silly me).We trolled about 2km when we came across a whale ?that was sleeping or just lying with the point of his schnoz out of the water ,we did a circuit and I guess we pissed him off as he promptly dissapeared ,never seen one in january before!. Next thing that happened was the starboard rigger went off with a bang, sure enough the loumo had convinced a mid sized black marlin est 80-90 kg to have a go,luck was with us and it had eaten the Tiagra with 50 on it.We had everything going for us,Max on the rod,me on the wheel and mick with his head down and bum up frantically clearing the four other rods and the cord line. The fish had a few strong runs and was then just carving up the sea,I used the engine to try and keep the line tight almost spilling max over and just as the fish started to settle down he pops up again and before we could react he managed to jump on the line,24kg doesnt really take all that much punishment and it just popped. Bugger says max,thats the secound one of those that the bloody fish has,with no real backup we put a loumo magoo out but it just isnt the same,and we set off for number two. We got to browns and found the area being worked by five other boats all ttolling,spotting some birds we located a school of stripeys and after a bit of niggling managed to bridle one up and put out a slimey on the other fifty in close and just tagged along with the school just strolling along,we did this for thirty odd minutes and it was evident that not much was happening so we scooted back to browns and I managed to spin up one stripey who uncharacteristically just threw in the towel and swam straight to the boat. I had the bottom gear all sorted out and over went the sash weight,two minutes later we hit the bottom and I was reefed almost immediately,bugger says I ,the line took a bit of snapping and we ended up[ tying it off at a bollard,it kinda just stayed there and I have the proud distinction of saying that we were officially anchored at browns in 500m of water.Popping it using the engine I rerigged and dropped that over as well,shit says I as it the same thing happened again,only this time I lost 500m of braid. ,Max has the scar on his arm to prove where the line parted at the reel!,It looked like it stang to,the cut was about 14' long!. We headed back in then and trolled to 12 mile reef to find the current screaming along and with a stiff NE wind it made conditions difficult to anchor,perserverance paid and mick managed a chinaman and I ended up with a male pinky,floating extra heavy sinkers is not fun so we went back to the peak FAD for a bit of fun. And fun we had,the wind had blown all the rif raf away,the temp was at 23.1c,and the current was pumping,we pulled another five dolphin fish from there before pulling the pin,they were all on fresh slimey strips,without fail the best bait for these guys,only surpassed by live 3' slimeys in my books. Came back in surfing/jumping off the lively seas that had built up and got in at 400,a hell of a good day was had,pity about the gear loss but thats all part of the thing about fishing.I am upgrading my 50 to 80 now,I dont fish competition and with a heavier line class fished lighter hopefully will counteract any problems we have had .Thanks again max and I hope to get an invite from mick if he wants to get out wide again. simon

Gidday all,I finally got to time to have crack at the jews,on the tuesday the 18th I put in at Apple Tree bay and then hiked out to West head for some bait.Dropped the pick just off the pill box and proceeded to burley up the worlds supply of sweep and Madoes,I dont mind using sweep for bait but the problem was they were on the hook at a ratio of 40 to 1 with the Yakkas.I persevered and after catching the obligatory 80 odd sweep and two lonesome yakkas I gave up in disgust and went out to go for squid. I do not fish the Hawkesbury all that often but I always get squid at the Moorings at mackeral beach,any tide and any wind as there was 15 knots of EES wind it was a bit bumpy but I ended up picking up 5 beautys .All I do is pick up an empty mooring bouy ,the squid seem to like hanging around the edge of the weed going on to the sand.There is a nice lookind Halver ? there and they are usually hanging out between there and the sand.Can I get any more precise then that ?,they were taking a pink squid jig in the 2.5cm size, they were not interested in the green or the blue. I tried the drift over the weed beds for nil result including the protected bit of kelp behind the bombie off barrenjoey but all I succeded in doing was having a near miss with a large rock . Popped out the front and was faced the usual washing machine out there ,blowing 15knots with the occasional gust over that ,1.5m seas on a 1.5-2m swell my estimate,there was two boats anchored off the front battling on but they were having a hard time,ie re-stringing the rods while sitting down. Trolled my BRAND NEW rapalas all around for no hits (See longreef report) and after visiting the wreck out there headed back to fish flint and steel as the tide was just about one hour off the bottom . I had a good look around and I marked a school of things I beleived were jewfish in about 40 ft of water at S 33 34.204 E 151 17.109.I had a hell of a time getting the anchor right as there was a run out tide with a 15 knot Easterley that was playing havoc with the way I was laying.I am going out to buy a sea anchor next time I go past BIAS.To top things off the pick would not hold as It was picking up on an old trawling net that is "ghosting" over the reef. Anyway the pick down and things were looking up,the boat next to me was a Bar crusher called "ZULU",the name rings an old bell but the guy on board reckoned that that they have been pulling out school jews all week long and that was the spot he had been fishing. The tide started to slow when I started getting hassled by squire,before you know it all the 5 squid were eaten and I was down to two yakkas which got sharked after 5 minutes.The sweep was unmolested so he was butterflied and then sharked. They were predominatley ? hammers with a whaler making an appearance. Gave up after the last sweep and thought as i was heading back to have a go at juno next time. Thursday, Put in at parsley bay ramp and visited the garbage barge at Americas bay,this is where the bait from westhead is now living,I had twenty yakkas after 10 minutes ,there were a lot of garfish feeding on the fringe as well. Hit juno point at the end of the runout and instantly got a run off the first butterflied yakka.After 5 minutes I was bitten off by a smallish whaler.......... .The livebaits were untouched ,as soon as fresh fish hit the water it was on.I put up for a while and found as some one else put a post up that the yakkas were coming back covered in sea lice,they were very thick. Moved on to other pastures and had a crack at the rail bridge and finally located a school of jewfish at the third pilon from the sydney end.The fish were all undersize but were very thick,eating plastics, bits of yakkas but were very partial to peeled local prawns,I ended up pulling in around twelve plus two bream and a whiting but let them go as I was after JEWIES. Ah well at least I got to smell like a jewfisherman . I pulled out two swimmers in the witches hats in mullet creek so at least I had something to chew on at home. A good day, quite educational and I have Saturady to look forwards to, marlin here we come. Simon

Gidday all, Put in the ramp at Longreef at 0700 launching by myself,not recommended for the light hearted as there was a considerable surge on and I ended up having to get the boat out past the break,throw the anchor out and then swim back in to move the car and trailer from the ramp,was it all worth it I was thinking as I hoped back on board with a wet arse!!. It was fairly calm in the "Bay" but as soon as you got out past the gutters to the east there was a solid 2-3m due north swell that was pumping over white rock bombie,doing the now you see me ,now you dont thing.to top it off there was a 15 knot sou'easter that was capping up forming a 1m chop ,all this combined with 1.5 knot current made up what as known as a shitty washing machine.Anchoring and cubing was a silly idea so I clipped on a CD -11 red head and a CD-14 mackeral blue and set tup trolling in the same area as last week (same GPS coords),I got about 50m away and off goes the red head ,being in 80ft of water I was not overly concerned and just kept the boat going ahead hoping for a double.I was being greedy I guess handling two kings at the same time is lots of fun,should have known better as the fish found the bottom and I was done like a dinner in about 15 secounds flat. SHIT says I as,that was 15kg fire line with an honest 5kgs of pressure ,let alone that I was down a near new rapala and BB swivel!!.Knowing that 15kg fireline breaks around the 24kg mark I then cranked the drag up on the CD-14 to 12kgs and on the brand new CD-9 (green mackeral) figuring that if I hook up agian that I will head out for deeper water at a rate of knots. All this happening in rough water was making me very green but I perservered and sure enough I hooked up on the next run,this one on the CD -14 with the "improved drag".The fish honestly pulled off about two inches of line and then came screaming out of the water like a mandarin seed,instant skip baits was the thought looking at them,the kingfish was a whisker under 60cm so I let him and the following 3 fish all go. . I gave in after then heading in to calmer water to drift for flathead ,sucumbing to the mal de mer was not a part of the party plan so that lasted all of two dry heaves before heading back to the ramp to right the day off. A little bit dissapointing that trip was ,still it was a bit of fun and rates about thirty times better than being at work as some of you poor bastards are. . By the way, i was on sydney harbour on tuesday as max jonno piked out due to work commitments.There is consistant schools of large 14'slimeys and cowanyoung at S 33' 49.435 E 151'16.664. These bait schools are pretty easy to find,just get to that spot and then commence a run to the bouy anchored off north head.A sand pick is all that is needed but just keep in mind that any large ship uses that area to turn around in,the last one was a little close and I was eyeing off the knife with the ship giving me the old 5 blasts telling me to leave ...like NOW. There was a lot of rat kings around the N head bouy with one boat (mud guts) ,saying they had hooked up on 16 ,there was a few amberjacks mixed in as well to keep things interesting.There was the worlds supply of boats clustered aroud the bouy so I decided to take the slimeys for a swim out the front of north head. I was buried twice with the hooks pulling on the third fish,came back in to reload the bait tank but as the NE wind was starting to pump.I just had a bit of fun with the rats with some squid that I picked up at a secret spot.then back to rosebay at 1.00. that was a better day then LR on thursday. Going out trolling for marlin on Max jonnos boat on Saturday to Browns and beyond ,will let you all know. simon

Gidday all,First fish for the year and it was a beauty,put in at longreef with my Brother Dan at 430 and screamed out on to the mill pond offshore.Feeling pretty confident that there would be no breaking waves on the Bombie off white rock we set the anchor in the shallow stuff and cast out with floater pillies and immediately were set up on by the black scourge. .Now I advocate against certain things but a man reaches a point where enough is enough.All of this talk about the "Death star" sized trawler that will wipe out the baitfish population has got me thinking about one that will SELECTIVELY pick out the football oval sized shoal of these pesky varmints. . We had the current going past at about 2knots but decided to try out a spot "out where the water is much deeper.......".Dropped the pick at a small pinnacle after picking up lots of bait on the sounder,next thing you know the cousins and brothers of the sweep at white rock came galloping through the water like 2kg dolphin fish after a hookless popper. .We persisted there but after pulling one lonely 35cm king out ,we went off for greener pastures . I knew that the kingfish where there somewhere and we trolled around the bombies off the front until Dan spyed the white bait in close getting hammered by "things",the area was alive with white bait so he tied on his "100% guaranteed white bait imitator".First cast was a follow ,next cast he said you could feel the nudges as the "fish" hit the lure then the "fish" hit the surface. BLOODY FAIRY PENGUINS. Not wanting to get picked up by the fairy police we trolled out again heading north along the front then north west along the leading edge of white rock,they were swimming around the Rapalas to hit the christmas trees .After hooking up we got stuck in to them,they were all under sized with the average being 50 cm,they were taking pencil poppers,but the absouleute favourite is a P-50 rebel blooper.Everytime this thing went out it was either just missed or "slurped" off the surface.Dan had the best "take" of the day when he was getting wound up to cast again when a pesky king smacked the popper with 12" of line hanging off the tip .The school wizened up after 30 minutes of madness and departed .Still nothing on board so we headed out to the shipwrecks off narrabean looking for something edible and finding divers on most wrecks decided to drift with the southerley wind .Started picking up good flathead to 2.5kg around the wrecks with the drift taking us in a NE direction with a southerley set on the current,after picking up 12 flathead I was winding in one fish and could just make out the brown colour and then saw the midnight colour of a little mako shark "visit" the flathead ........bump bump and then wound in the blunt end of a good flathead that would have made 68cm and was now around 25cm. I was frothing at the mouth with having about 6ft of mako cruising around the boat and getting the apropriate gear out we were hand feeding the little guy with pillies and by the time I had got the gear in the water he had taken off for "Bluer " water.Dan made the observation that it may well have been fortuitous that the fish had pissed off as he was relating the storys of makos jumping into boats .seeing as the boat was only 7ft bigger then the fish he is probably right.Still one of the more memorable incidents we have had,we picked up another four good flathead and then trolled back in looking for the kings again. We found them again,using the christmas trees to locate the school,there was so much bait out there that although we would have spotted them on the sounder it is a bitch to isolate them.The spot is to the North NorthWest of white rock and seems to be "the spot" for them all to congregate,here be some gold for you all 33" 43.962 S 151" 19.661 E. its Just a general reef area that is up current of white rock.We hooked up one king on heavy gear and after making sure he was comfortable just left him swiming under a tether "calling"and threw the pick out.We then had another session on the rats again,this time it was poppers,bloopers,and then on to soft plastics,they like the sluggos!!.The fish were twitchy and we observed that you will pick up a few on one lure,then you have to switch to something else to regain there interest.Just like dolphin fish. We headed back to the ramp and after cleaning the fish went in for a dip in with all the fish heads looking for all the local doormats,did not see one sting ray!!. The water was looking really good,it peaked at 21.8c about 3 miles out,it had the purple colour but there was no plankton visible(the purple sparklers).There is a crap load of bait out there and we did manage to pick up one slimey from a school down at 160ft ,I suspect that if you were to get there at the tide change and swim one around I think there would be a good chance for a bill fish. I am going out there again next tuesday with that in mind. simon

That sure is a nice looking Jew joe!!,it's always the way though isnt it ,that when you get out at absoulute sparrows fart in the morning, the good stuff happens in gentlemens hours. With making cutlets I use a sharp knife to expose the back bone and then lining up on a segment of the bone tap a cleaver through it with a bit of hardwood.Then continue with the knife through the flesh.The cleaver is not meant to cut through flesh (as a mate of mine found out). Well done!

Gidday all,well I managed to get out on "REKLESS" last saturday with my brother Dan . We were originally going out on Max jonnos Haines out wide for big things, but due to shitty weather fore cast (Shitty as in WRONG ),we decided to brave the 30 knot northerleys on the harbour. Got out at 800 launching at little manly and straight away encountered some solid tailor feeding sporadically over the entire area 1-1.5 kg ,they were very spread out and after hooking up several times we pulled the pin as all we were just wasting fuel.Chased up a few squid but the ones we encountered all decided to go for Dans green jig upon when they hit they invariably promptly got off again,I am NOT blaming him but I reckon that after loosing four straight that something was wrong.......and not with the jig. They simply swam around my old battered veteran (green ) jig and shot out a tentacle at his one,not fair!.Must have been the beer smell or just bad breath. Getting the shits we went out in search for a ship wreck and after scoping out some good schools of bait we dropped the pick and were immediately harrassed by a plague of cowanyoung and good sized slimeys. We picked up a crap load of these things as they are unparallelled when smoked and rubbed with kibbled black pepper.hmmmmmmmmmmmm slimeys. Also picked up some smallish red bream ,trevally and a very nice flounder,tried drifting for flathead but pulled the pin as the shear amount of big boat traffic would have shut down even the most persistant and hungry fish. Will have to try at a time when it is more quieter I reckon. I am now off to the Vic alps for some R &R for a week before hitting sydney just in time for the marlin season. Met up with one boat at the ramp that had gone out to browns,he said the boat trolling in front hooked up (trolling) and spent over an hour on a marlin,that was the only fish they saw all day.......long way to go for that I reckon. The top temp they picked up was 21.6 out at browns,it was 21.4 in the harbour. cheers simon

Sounds like you had a pretty good day out,I a very soft spot for slimeys along with just a bout every pelagic fish out I reckon.along with pikeys. I read that you are using 15kg on the 6500's shimanos,I might stick my head out a little and suggest that on eggbeaters the max line class should really only be at 10kg.If you want to get a good life out of your expensive reel I would seriously have a double look at spooling up with 15kg.I have seen what happens in the aftermath when you hook onto things on the wrong gear .You send in the reel to the fixit guy at the shop and he opens it up to a mass of brass/aluminum filings and a serious bill,investing in something like a tld 25 will sort you out for the majority of things that you run across. simon