rozza_b

Hi all, Bit of a late report from some of the great fishing i got up to last week Sat 19th April After a bit of a later start then planned due to my lack of organisation with ice decided to go and do something that i had only tried once with a mate, so headed out to the deep water to fish plastics for reds, after arriving at the spot to find the wind to be stronger then expected set the first rod out while rigging up my second one, got the second rod all sorted only to find my first drop to be tangled in the prop, so proceeded to spend 10 mins balanced on the motor clearing the tangle, got that all sorted and got my jig back to find a nice clean hook, great jackets was beginning to wonder if it was all worth while.....but the next few hours sure proved that it was going to be. Next drift over the reef and bang onto a nice red, after a short battle had landed that and into the esky it went, next couple of drifts went by without much going on other then donating to the jackets, until i manged to get into another good red, all the while my mate is fishing with bait and getting nothing. About 8:30 was thinking of calling it quits as i had had enough of giving away plastics when i got a solid hookup, got a couple of winds on and bang it let go, opened the bail arm and let it back down to get hammered again this time the hook was set, got 2 winds and off it went screaming half my spool out before i could get another wind in, this was much the same for the next 10-15 mins would turn the fish get a few winds and off it would go again, finally got the fish up to find i had landed a solid amber jack, was so stoked, so final tally for the day 2 reds both around 2.6kg and the amber jack weighing in at 6.68kg Sun 20th April After a slow start due to deciding it was a good idea to go drinking on sat night headed out to the deep again, got nice and wet on the way out and had a tough morning, managed only 1 red and donated an unknown amount of plastics to jackets before i decided to pull the pin on the day Wed 23rd April Anzac Day Headed out nice and early on my mates boat, spent half hour getting some fresh bait before blasting out to the deep again, first few hours where slow fishing both baits and plastics, got sharked and jacketed god knows how many times until my mate got us off the mark with a nice red, a few drifts later and im onto a solid fish battled it out to finally land a stomper of a red high fives all round, did another couple of drifts for zilch so decided to head in close and berley up. Once in close it didnt take long landing another 4 reds between us and a nice gummy shark. Finally weighed my red in that evening weighing in at 4.81kg couldnt be happier by far the best red i have landed couldnt be happier with it. So what a great few days of fishing, photos to follow as i couldnt fit them in here

Hey mate, yeah got a few reds and bonnies nothing special, got hammered by jackets......was out in my mates open tinny that day think it's blue, mines a 4.8m centre console Quintrex with green sides over white bottom. If you see me about come over and say hi ?

never seen one in action but theres a boat around town that has one on it, i imagine they might work well but i have to say they look pretty ridiculous, would def be interested to see what difference they make

Nice work and also welcome to town one of the trailers you would have seen would have been me and my mate, few nice fish caught over the weekend

Yeah I didn't have any either I just ordered some with mine when I brought the unit and mounted them myself, it wasn't hard just cut the holes out and bolted them on, do you have flat gunnel either side of your well of just a flat wall ?

Hey mate, If you looking for a bait board that goes over the outboard with rod holders, i cant recommend the one i have more, due to my outboard position when up i had to get one that was removable, i just slide it into rod holders that are fitter to either side of my motor well each time i head out, just remove it when i get back to the ramp before i trailer the boat, it works an absolute treat, is easy to clean and comes out of the way easily, shoot me a pm if you want any more info or the manufacturer

what knot are you using ? In regards to the leader question it shouldn't matter what size leader or main line your using i commonly run heavy leaders on lighter main lines when fishing for kings etc and lighter leaders when fishing in close In all honesty this sounds like a fault with the knot, just my 2 cents i could be wrong

Great work on the fish mate In regards to the rods, how high have you got your drag set ? sounds very unusual to snap 2 rods in 1 trip...and to break one in the middle well that could well be a bit of operator error or might not be, generally i rarely lift my rod over horizontal that way the whole rod is doing the work, anyways unlucky on the rods

1.9m of swell with a westerly to me that just says glassy conditions especially with a period that long

bad idea mate, if your boat ever comes off the towbar i hope to god those cheap chuck in the bin shackles actually hold on otherwise you could be in for a world of hurt, i dont understand how rated ones wont fit....you can get them in so many different sizes and most of the time they are smaller then the non rated versions....

had the same issue with my HDi elite when i updated it, found that the fishing type was set to shallow water changed over to general fishing and the issue went away

The bibbed and non bibbed xxx-rap long cast lures are great for casting and chasing pelagics have managed to land a lot of decent fish on these, stick baits and poppers also work well. To be honest good luck landing a decent king on 15lb off the rocks i would think you would have to be pretty lucky but thats just my opinion, might be different in the harbor but if i was spinning off the rocks for kings down here i would def be upping line rating, but hey thats just my opinion, good luck Rory

Mate, To be honest go to your local tackle store (not a shop) and tell the guys what you want to do and your budget they will be able to help you out or at least point you in the right direction. You honestly might not be able to get 1 rod that covers all the bases you have mentioned i would think something in the 4-6kg range with a 3000 reel size would probably be suitable for what you have mentioned, for fishing from rock ledges i would look at something with a bit more length helps manage fish near the edge

learn to tie the FG knot and forget about being worried about the knot breaking or getting damaged by the runners, i run my FG knots through my rod and onto my reel all the time on my spinning gear and my light outfits, never had a knot fail yet, just check it every now and then and if it does look like its coming apart replace it, once you get the knack of it they really arent that hard to tie Rory

I eat bonito sashimi whenever i can, love it and never had any issues ?never heard of them being dangerous to eat...

Pilchards and strip baits of whatever I could get my hands on

Has to be my favourite way to fish for reds as well, light gear plus the chance of all sorts of different by-catch makes it great fun

Hi all, Quick report from my successful session yesterday, hit the water at kiama ramp around 5:30 to try for a few reds, had a quick troll with some skirts while heading to the spot but nothing much going on there. Arrived at my spot in 15-20m of water and got set under anchor to get a burley trail going. The first hour was a bit tough with the wind swirling round causing the boat to sit at the wrong angle to the current for what i wanted, decided to persist with it though, plenty of bait hanging around the boat in the burley and some solid fish showing up on the sounder. Managed 1 slimey and a small red until the forecast wind finally came up and the boat finally sat round the right way, continued on fishing and then the action finally kicked of with 2 rods going off at once, backed the drag off on one of my rods and let it play out while i dealt with the other rod, landed both fish 1 red 35cm and the other about 45cm, pretty stoked at this point, continued on pumping the burley and fishing floating baits only, managed 8 reds in total in about 4hrs, couldn't be happier, had 1 final bait left out while i cleaned up and de-rigged my other rods and noticed a touch picked it up and bang set the hooks on what felt like a decent fish bit of a fight later and a decent bonito is landed, great way to finish the trip was back at the ramp cleaning up by 10 and was home eating fresh sushi by 11:30, couldn't be happier with the first trip of the year hears hoping the year can only get better

Thabk for the off and hahaha yeah very typical of our area everyone is obsessed with fishing JB, I know why but personally I find plenty of good fish without having to travel that far and ha yep know about the king's at currarong plenty of my mates have been making that trip, I'll get down there at some point, maybe.....

Hey Jim, Thanks for the offer i will definitely take you up on that one day, still need to crack my first jew so need all the help i can get haha i do havea bunch of mates that fish the river so will pass on any little tips i hear along the way Rory

Far out that sucks cant believe people do it to save like 10 seconds.... Just to throw something a bit extra in here, the only reason i can ever think of taking the safety chain off is if you have one of those boat release catches (which im thinking of fitting to my boat so i dont have to hang over the front of the thing everytime i launch/retrieve on my own ) has anyone every heard of one of the failing ??

Hey mate, As mentioned above a radio isnt a requirement in the estuaries but there certainly isnt any harm in getting one, especially if you get into trouble near the mouth of the river and need help. As for your boat thats a perfect size for fishing the rivers and creeks around ballina so many great estuaries to fish up there, go chat to your local tackle store im sure they can point you in the right direction, i know the small wall on the south side of the river before the main breakwalls start near the entrance hold some good jews from time to time.

So im going to throw my 10 years of fitting trade experience here in regards to bearings, to be honest i think its a bit of a myth. I have never heard of people naming specific brand names to do with bearings unless its for incredibly expensive and precise pieces of equipment, im talking about stuff worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.If you look after your bearings strip, clean inspect and re-pack them on a yearly basis i cant see why they would ever cause you issues. A bearing that has begun to fail ie loosing chrome of its cup etc will run for ages with good lube before it fails completely but hey if paying a bit extra for bearings gives you a bit of extra piece of mind to do with your trailer why the hell not, just my 2 cents though. And yes always change the cup with the bearing, even if you cant see a issue bearing will cause some wear etc so old bearing on new cups could cause all sorts of problems. Glad you got it all sorted out though mate

just ring around charter companys in the area you want to fish, they will always take extras if they have free spots available unless a client has booked the whole boat out. We always used to have a extra 1 or 2 randoms on the charter boat i worked on when we had free spots, more people more money etc

to be honest im not actually sure what data he is quoting, so a few fish that people know about have been caught and caught again, so what....provide some actual scientific evidence as to what this actually means and ill happily read into it more. Ive lived on the south coast and fished since i was a kid so some 20 odd years and i have never heard of or seen the same amount of kings being seen or caught that i am seeing these days and its big and small ones, the amount of kings around at the moment is insane, but hey thats just my opinion, maybe its social media or as mentioned above the tag system doing its thing now days who knows. Personally i think before you start drumming up some sort of frenzy in the media saying our kingfish stocks are in trouble maybe you should provide some real evidence to back this up not just a few incidences of the same fish being caught more then once, but hey once again thats just my opinion, personally i think our kingfish are in far better shape then they have been in years