jdi

haha what an excellent session. i have to get out for a fish already.. yeah those groper are really something.. i went to the entrance with my mate for a day trip of fishing - i had a baitrunner 6500 spooled with 50lb braid, i had a whole crab on and was going for this big 1+ plus bluey that we'd regularly see in our spot x. safe to say i hooked up with the bastard and he ran so hard that i thought he was going to burn my reel out, and then PING.. line snapped ended in about 5 seconds, good thing too because he felt like he was going to pull me in. couldn't believe it. going back there with 100lb line and wire trace next time. going to land that fish.

mate im second on the fireblood. havent used one properly but that is the one id be getting if i had the money for a 1000$ kingy outfit still saving for one in the summer..

rock fishing isnt my thing. i had a few sessions with some mates and between the lost tackle, difficult casts, weather and condition sensitivity, rock cod (bastards have swallow so many of my hooks) and risks i definitely prefer other styles/areas. by the end of it i was getting the hang of it, i suggest you use a 10ft+ rod so you can get you bait out, i suggest mono and fairly heavy line because snags are really a pain in the ass. with heavier line you'll be able to give it a bit more before it breaks. i was using 20lb. id really suggest using floats, id say with sinkers id lose my tackle about 1/6th of the time. with floats it was alot less. its alot of fun if you have a great spot. good luck

thats a monster. well done on 6kg line. between this giant flatty and that massive jew pulled on light line im feeling insecure about my fishing skills with all the bream that i manage to lose on 8lb

thats a beautiful boat looks like a great days fishing. makes me wish i had a boat!!

i love braid but i dont love the tangles i get. recently switched over to mono for all my beach stuff, or whenever im near sand. really prefer it. that said with a bit of care - either one works just fine.

mate i've used one and its a wonderful reel. whenever i borrow my cousins one that is. its a 6500 and i definitely like it. i am looking into picking one up when i can afford it.

i also have found that ive been able to get squid regularly without any leader. just tie my braid straight onto the jig. im more curious about what knots everyone uses to tie braid to their jigs? i personally use the half blood, i find thought it slips pretty easily..

thats insane catching that on 6lb

today i finished work early so i got myself to tackleworld in drummoyne to drop a rod off for repair, i walked into the shop and i see on sale signs everywhere. someone told me the Berkley dropshots were on sale so i had to have a look - picked up a 6'6 1pc 1-3kg for 50$ and paired it with a 40$ shimano slade (also on sale), spooled it with 4lb mono, picked up prawns and lures lost since last visit and was ready to go. wind was blowing a little and the rain was very very light, thought i'd go over the bridge to balmain and give it a shot at mort bay. went down towards the structure inside the bay away from the ferry wharf. had a bunch of rods in the car but i only took the berkley and starlo/sienna with 8pd braid. rigged up and dropped in two prawns straight down near the plyons. im having a look around and i heard the ZZZZZing sound of my drag. its the new rod going off.. not even 5 minutes in the water and its already bending in half leaning against the railing. i picked it up and adjusted my drag, i felt like i was going to break the thing. i was cursing myself for asking for a size 1000 reel with 4lb.. why oh why.. regardless i started fighting it, it managed to take about half the line off my bloody reel. eventually it stopped running around the bay and just felt like dead weight. reallllly heavy. i started lifting the rod and reeling in, lift and reel, after about 3 of those it just went apeshit. snapped me off at the swivel. no idea what it was. i was so excited i call my mate to come and have a fish. it was 1pm and i arrived at the highest point of tide i think. i stayed till 6pm, i had another huge run but i pulled the hook. i got a ton of jackets, i managed to catch a toadfish.. and i had a big red crab try and munch my prawn, it wouldnt let go. i thought i had an occy or something as i was pulling it up. i got it to the surface and wasnt sure what to do. i fumbled around with my camera phone and managed to annoy the crab in the process and it fell back down. it was rather large and it was red. no like the other crabs i've seen. tried for squid for a bit, no go. didnt see any trevs or bream. very frustrating. wish i'd taken burley and bread - and taken my 20lb gear out of the car and cast out just incase. regardless, i love the new rod and it was a fun day. i still have to take it out a few more times and push it around till i can figure out how much pressure 4lb can take. im enjoying light gear.

really?! thames street wharf? i couldnt get a single bite there last time i went. i couldnt lose a single bait for like 4 hours! how heavy was the line were you got busted off on? maybe i should head back

that PJ is always there... i feel terrible for him, you would've thought he'd learn his lesson by now. hopefully ill be able to get out tonight for a fish at balmoral.. would you believe last week people were pulling out 40cm bream around the wharf? i didnt believe it either until the guy showed me pictures on his phone with him holding the damn fish in his hands.

haha that looks like a lot of fun maybe i should hire a tinny next time i go fishing..

whats going on guys. i love to hit up the entrance with my good mate for a nice long 14 hour fishing session whenever we both can get time off work on the weekend, whenever we go we have a crazy time. we have a few secret spots - our favorite spot which always produces for us, albeit not so great sometimes but hey cant complain! anyway just some info -rock near the shore, lots of rocky structure -no swell/breaks/not a dangerous spot, simply a rock on the edge of a beach you can walk to and cross the water to -reef like structure around, some seaweed, lots of rock structure. -water is very clear, seems quite deep (3-6meters in some spots) now theres this fat elusive blue groper. hes a big one. i've hooked him up twice and lured him out. the story is that we were sitting on our rock, its a few meters out of the water and you can drop the bait straight down and see the fish going for the bait and swimming around it. very visual fishing we saw something huge come out and take a swallow my prawn, it was at least a meter long, fat and blue - i went crazy and got completely steamrolled by this fish. i had 8pound braid and this fish is about 1.2meters long. it didnt even spook the fish, it just swam away all chilled. second run it, same thing on 8lb again.. different day though third run, same thing on 12lb but this time on a tiny blade lure, i RIPPED my lure out of the water (i was just playing with the little bait fish and cool looking small ones where i could see them when this huge groper came out of nowhere and went for it) the blade flew right out of the water, i wasnt losing a lure to that fish anyway im going back prepared this time. i have a 8-10kg rod with 20lb mono on it but im afraid im either going to get pulled in by this fish or i still will just get bricked by it. is 20lb mono strong enough? keep in mind it can swim UNDER the rock im fishing off and theres plenty of structure around. also i was told that catching fresh crab with a fork tied to a stick then putting it on a 4/0 hook and dropped it to the bottom would hook me up to a groper immediately? i can borrow a stronger rod from my cousins, they have many, many rods.. i just want to be prepared. that fish is always there, i want to catch it. i think ill put him back though. i dont know what im going to do with a 20kg blue groper if i keep it :\

just keep dropping bread in, move into the lit part where there is some visibility of the water. you should see them moving around under the bread. i like to watch them swim around my line. i was so bored and me and my mate were so lacking in fish that we turned the drag all the way down and tried to fight the fish. they fight pretty hard. we havent caught shit in forever. i was considering getting one of my old 1-3kg rods and reels spooled with the lowest pound line(do they even make 1/2pound line?) i can find and just chase yellowtail all day

nah they're still there. went twice last week. they were coming up to the surface to pick off bread. maybe its just the way you were fishing it? we burleyed up for ages and then they came by the dozens... it was hard to get them to bite though. they are still defs there.

yes, i just picked one up. 10pound leader on 8pound braid, using about 40-60cm of lead.

hey guys. picked up some lures two blades, devilfish vibe or something.. the guy at the tackle shop just picked em out for me and said they were good and he did really well on them. they were the cheaper ones and i told him i was going for some beginner/basic stuff. anyway i have one in white-ish for night fishing and one in bronze/brown-ish for regular fishing. im running a 2-5kg starlo stix with 2500 sienna reel spooled with 8lb braid. i really like my set up, its so fun to use and so light. i have fished it a few times, i took it to the entrance and used bait, caught so much stuff with it.. such a great little rod. i also had a single lure, but i snagged it and lost it on my first 10 or so casts (very annoying!!) i took myself and my gear to balmoral wharf the other day and thames street wharf at balmain, only to catch nothing and get NO hits with my lure, cast about 20 times at thames street wharf, and maybe 50 over the course of a few hours switching between lure and bait at balmoral. to be fair nobody was really catching much at balmoral but i did get some monster hits on prawn a bit later. not sure what it was but i didnt hook up, i think it spat the hook. anyway.. i have some wriggler SP's, jigheads and my two blade lures. i havent used the SP's yet but when i do how should i fish them? as far as i can tell.. - cast out nice and far, let it sink to the bottom - close the reel and stop letting line out once it has hit the bottom - wind in slack - slowly reel in, very slowly - twitch the rod around every 3-5 seconds and with the blade vibe i do basically the same thing. i let it fall to the very bottom then rip it up nice and hard to get the vibration feeling, then let it sink and slowly wind the slack up back, then repeat.

hey guys, at current i have a 7ft rod 4-6kg with 8lb line. picked it up for 65$ as a starter rod. fished with it a couple of times and its served me well although i haven't caught many fish yet! im going to the entrance for some fishing on sunday and i want a new outfit, my budget is about 400$ for TWO rod/reel combos and i have some extra money for some line, tackle and maybe a few lures and sp's my needs: rock/surf rod, needs to be 2pc so it can fit in my car, perferable 10ft. what i want to do with it: -fish off rocks -fish beaches in gutters -go for kingies/jewies land based -live bait for whatever is out there i guess i know that for surf i want a bigger, maybe 12ft rod and for kingies and jewies id want a shorter rod so the fish has less leverage. im willing to forego all that and get a 10ft so i can use it for mostly everything - that way i dont have to worry about spending too much on a couple of different outfits (for now at least. im fairly new to fishing) so, 10ft 2pc 6-10kg rod, looking at some uglystick ones for about 80$ - they look to be pretty promising. as for the reel, im not sure but i think shimano is a bit out of my range here, maybe an okuma avenger av65 reel, 90$ and can take 340meters of 8kg line. im probably going to put some 8kg line on it. sounds pretty appropriate, maybe a bit heavy?? the second rod needs to be: 6ft to 7ft, lightweight, 2-5kg or in that range, 2pc preferably what i want to do with it: bream, reef fishing, anything small. this will be the rod i take with me when im going to balmoral or fishing land based not off rocks, my main rod. the "fun" one" not the "huge fish" one i want to keep it all fairly light so that theres more sport in it, i like when i have to fight the fish and tire it out as opposed to catching small fish on a heavy action rod and not realizing i have anything hooked.. maybe ill do some lure fishing, flathead, bream, tailor, trevally, leatherjackets, snapper?? looking again at the 2-5kg uglystick and possibly pairing it up with a Shimano Symetre 2500 FJ Fishing Reel or Shimano Seido Fishing Reel 2500 or maybe a Penn Affinity/Applause reel, they are cheaper. whats the difference here? its like 160$ though so i dont know if its worth forking that much out for it. like - i haven't handled too many reels so i dont know a poor quality one from a good quality one, i want something that can take 3-4kg line (is that too much? is that considered light tackle??) maybe 6-8lb or whatever. i'd like to use it to catch squid too if possible, it doesnt have to be the optimum squid rod, just one that will be able to do so - and maybe flick some lures about and bait aswell. thanks guys

for the past about 3 weeks.. i haven't caught ANYTHING. the last half decent fish i caught were at the entrance three weeks ago... come back to sydney and fish another 10-15 sessions and get nothing. i can list everything i've caught in the last three weeks off the top of my head. went out to gordans bay in clovelly from about 5pm till 9pm with a mate. intended to have a go off the rocks and try the baths. was met with incredible waves and swell - thought better of it. tried fishing into the baths/snorkelling reef thing and didnt even get bites. eventually caught a tiny rock cod on a 12ft rod which i hadnt' realized i'd caught. tried to butterfly it (it was so dead from the fight that the poor fish wasnt moving much at all when i brought it up. god knows how long it was sitting on the hook without me realizing) and cast it back as shark bait (maybe i'd get lucky) got nothing else for the whole night between two guys and three rods in four hours except a shitload of lost tackle. i guess the fish don't like big waves near the rocks and high tide/windy conditions at night. lesson learned

hey there guys. i just started fishing. i have a 7ft 4-6kg jarvis walker rod/reel combo i got for 65$ and i think its got 8lb line on it (came spooled) i live in sydney near the city and im within walking distance of pyrmont point park, which i've tried fishing at and caught -nothing- im not even certain if there are fish in that damn place. i dont want to eat them i just wanna catch something... anyway.. a quick summary of my experiences so far, i went to the national park with my mates for his birthday and we went fishing, we didnt catch much but i was pretty hooked. i used to go fishing with my dad when i was younger and i was excited to get back into it. we went to pyrmont and spent the entire day there, 6hours at least fishing off the wharf and between four people caught 2 small snapper. we recently went to the entrance and caught SOO much stuff. we have a little spot on a big rock that we walk to at low tide and fish off, theres reefs around it (i think) and we pulled up at least 20-25 fish 4 hours on that saturday, we were so into it that hide tide came up and we almost got stuck 20m away from shore on a big rock unable to get back we waddled across though without getting wet (wont make that mistake again) the next day we went back(very eager to catch more fish) but it wasnt as good (bit windy) BUT!! we saw a MASSIVE blue groper i think, or a bluefish, i dno what it was. it looked at LEAST a meter long in the water, it came RIGHT UP to the rocks we were fishing at/one. it was UNREAL. we went nuts going holy shit! holy shit! look at that thing! and tried to catch it by dropping our prawns next to it in the water. it eventually took my line and when i hooked it it swam away casually and tore my line away. really funny. he pissed off after that anyway i've been to balmoral a few times on my own and caught -a rock (i thought it was a fish i was so excited, i managed to pull it out of the water on my hook..) -a tiny flounder -a crab (i think it grabbed my line and let go as soon as i got him onto the wharf.. dumb crab) -a couple of small snapper i threw back i've been to pyrmont trying to fish in the harbour a few times at night/dusk and not even gotten bites. i tried to berley with bread but nothing came. except when the bread floated out a bit further and i think big bream where coming and taking it off the surface (hard to tell with just an LED headlamp if they were big or not) but i couldnt get them to take my frozen prawns. i couldnt catch live bait either.. i tried but there was nothing to catch. also if your keen to help me, which i would really really! appreciate, i posted this in the tackle forum, i need some direction with that stuff too. THIS TOPIC HAS BEEN MERGED. my questions are -how come i cant get anything to bite half the time -where can i go to fish land based that is at least a little bit consistent so i can just learn some fishing and get experience. i was thinking i'd try shell cove and la perouse on bare island as my next spots early in the morning till dusk and see how i go -if you have any tips in general or can point me in the right direction i would appreciate that alot heres a picture of what i caught, i think its a wrasse. i have no idea. you can see the rock we're on at the entrance. such a cool spot. i wish i could go back there every weekend..

hey guys, i just got back into fishing. i recently went with my mate to the national park and we didnt really catch much. we ended up on his suggestion going to the entrance and had an awesome time and caught heaps of stuff (i live in sydney, near the city.. its a bit of a trek to go to the entrance ) we did so well that we went back the next day at 5 in the morning. excellent fun. i fished with my father back when i was younger (18 now) and we had two rods, a 7ft one and a telescopic 6ft 6inch one (or 1.95m i dont remember if it was 6'6) anyway, i ended up snapping the 6ft 6inch one on the second trip to the entrance as i was snagged and pulled on the rod instead of the line. lesson learned. it was an old jarvis walker rod. medium to light action, i kept the reel. the 7ft had a broken reel so i swapped the reels and now i have one working/old looking back-up rod. i also purchased (for 65$, so its nothing special) a jarvis walker 7ft 4-6kg rod that came with a reel. i dont know if that is any good or not but i've been considering buying a new one. i think i want to wait a bit and get my feet a little more wet as i haven't caught many fish yet at all and clearly have no experience or idea in what im doing before i fork out 300$ i will be completely land based/rock fishing/wharf fishing firstly, i want to know what the quality of my rod is and what i can do with it, all i know is its 7ft 4-6kg and the reel is rated at 8lb i think, thats what was written on the side, and it came with line on it. so im guessing its 8lb line secondly, my tackle box has -a knife -rusty pliers -sinkers, big/little swivels, some wierd swivels with a clip on them -3 rough sizes of hooks, i have a bunch of size 4 ones, a bunch of tiny ones probably size 2, and a bunch of ones that look to be 1/0 (i think) -LED headlamp (i love this thing) i have a small packet of start soft plastic baits and 1 jig head left (i lost the other one because it didnt have a hole to tie the fishing line through, so i did some rough/terrible job of rigging it together with no sinker and just a jig head and it came off after i cast out and retrieved it a few times) my questions are -for my purposes, wharf/land based/shore/rock fishing, will my 7ft rod be enough, what exactly is it designed to do and what should i be doing with something like this -if i buy a 10ft rod/reel for rock/shore fishing, what are some suggestions for a combo, my cousins(they have a big boat and are really good at fishing/been at it for YEARS) lent me their 10ft rod but i really. really. dont know how to use it. it was using some orange braided line (its REALLY hard to cut, even with a knife. it feels like rope) and a baitrunner 6500 on a 10ft rod i think, the fish i caught with it would go like this -> cast, reel in, cant feel anything, reel in a little more, cant feel anything, wonder if i still have bait, reel it in and realize theres a fish on the hook (seriously happened like 4 times at the entrance when fishing off this rock thing near the shore with my mate, i think i caught a decent sized wrasse or something and threw it back and a big leatherjacket) i dont really like using it cos when i was catching bream with the 7ft i could feel what was going on, which was pretty awesome. they'd hit and i'd stay patient, then i'd get a big hit and i knew it was hooked on. -my last question, how do i use hardbodied lures and soft plastics, what should i get, just some basic ones that i can rig up and chuck in and SOMETHING will take. im not targetting anything specific. thanks for reading