wchh

A beautiful looking fish, well done!

I tried metal a few times for tailor after got bitten off. It worked OK, probably because tailors were there in big number when I tried. In general I prefer bait (pilchard or cut up tailor) fishing better on the beach as you can catch all kinds of fish.

Will have a few friends coming over this Friday, got the permission to go fishing with a special instruction attached: need 6 fish for the table as there will be 6 adults for the backyard party. It was about 8pm when I arrived at the beach. The bait I had was a few pillies left over from last weekend and really soft/messy after re-freezing. There were a few sparse drizzles around and I had to keep an eye on the sky. Anyway when saw the cloud became a bit dark and left the beach just before 10pm, I had five fish in the bucket. Did not fulfill the target but not too far off either. The 5th fish was a dart which is not in the photo. Charles

Photo of my catch last night.

I was fishing the gutter @ southern end of the beach

I normally get there just before sunset , find a spot, then wait for the surfers to get out of water. At the moment, there are a few very deep gutters running close to the edge of sand and the surfers are far out. If there is no swimmers in the gutter, you can fish the close in gutter without interfering with the surfers.

Pilchard was the bait

Knowing there is a storm brewing and chance of rain was 100%@6pm, a decision was made to do a quick fishing and try not to get wet. Got to the beach about 5:00 pm , found a quieter area about 30 meters wide beween the surfers and swimmers and put my bait into water. As it was still day time, I used size 2 hook on 40 lb leader, hoping for a few dart. First fish was indeed a dart, then a tailor of about 35 cm almost chewed through the 40 pound leader, then another tailor of silimar size did manage to cut the leader after I pulled it onto the sand. Now that tailors are around, I reverted to my regular 80lb leader size. As a trial, I put on a 3/0 circle hook and baited with a cube of pilchard. A dart took the bait and the hook pierced the low lip perfectly. I am not used to circle hook and after the dart, I switched back to a single 1/0 suicide hook and baited with a half pilchard. This bigger bait attracted a bigger tailor which was about 45cm. Up to this point, it got dark. The storm had not arrived yet but I can see lightening from the west and cloud moving toward southeast. I rang home to check with the boss what the whether was doing there and I was told the storm started 1 minute to 6:00 and it was heavy. I cancelled the plan of cutting up one of the tailor and try something bigger and quickly exited when the time was 6:07 on the phone. Good decison. The rain started when I reached the car and got heavier and heavier on my way home. All up, left home 4:40pm and back home 6:30 pm. Net fishing time about one hour with 5 fish landed. This is a shorter session than my last Maroubra beach trip but result is similar. Charles

I cook them whole. To me they are similar to small trevs or the more Asian fish pormfret. Charles

It was 34cm. Not huge in length, indeed it was very wide and thick.

I was fishing straight down from entrance no 5, at the end of the car park. Charles

Got to the beach around 5:30 pm yesterday without too much expectation knowing it was low tide and the wind was strong. Anyway, reeled in the first tailor within 5 min. Took the last photo at 7:30 pm and packed up. A pretty busy two hours. charles

Here is the photo of the crabs

Fished from 10am to 1pm to cover the midday high tide on Saturday. Was thinking to get a few darts which I recently found pretty good eating. End result was not according to the plan but I am not complaining. For those interested in trying different bait for flatheads, I found two small crabs in the stomach of the 39cm blue spotted. Tailor not huge but good eating size of 33-35cm. Charles

I recently found them pretty good in the oven. Prepare a mixture of soy sauce, cooking wine, strong flavoured herbs (to mask the strong smell of tailor, the mixed herb from supermarket will do and I will also add some chilli paste), a bit of peanut oil or any other thing you prefer. Marinate the fish (cross hatch the flank) in fridge for a few hours. Bake at 220c for about 25min. Pretty good prepared this way. This is my recipe anyway. Charles

80lb leader is now my default setup when fishing the beach at night. Mainly for the purpose of preventing from bitten off by large tailor. I may use lighter leader during the day. But rarely lighter than 40 lb.

Yes. But after swimmers and surfers get out of water

7:30pm to 9:30pm

Half pilchard on single 2/0 suicide hook ties on 80 lb leader. Cheers Charles

A lot of fish on Maroubra beach last night. I was the only one fishing the beach. Caught 9 fish between 7:30 to 9:30 pm. Tailor are all about 40-45cm, one flathead got to close to 55cm. All size are estimate except the smaller flaty is measured 38cm.Did not have time to measure them all. Charles

The beach was busy with fisherman but fishing was rather slow. Caught only one 43 cm tailor for the 3 hours session. Charles

Thanks. I went back last night and got the same result. Three shovelnoses, one bream, one tailor. I got bitten off at around 10:15pm I think it was some sort of shark. I felt the bite/pull and struck but there was no pressure. Ended up the 50 pound main line was bitten off and I lost everything hook and sinker. I had this type of bitten off three times now. The main line came back with about 50 cm section at the end scuffed. Charles

For tailor, I use single 3/0 suicide hook on a 30-40 cm section of 80 lb leader (instead of using wire) tied onto 40 to 60 lb leader through a swivel. Bait is half or whole pilchard. Matter of fact, I use this set up for almost all my beach fishing. Charles

Happy New Year to everyone! Armed with one frozen 37cm tailor caught from Wanda beach two days ago, we arrived at Maroubra beach with the only bait. Found a slot between weeds currently in the waves, we set up two rods with small piece of tailor on 3/0 hooks. Within about two hours between the usual scene of shovelnoses, we caught two take home fish. The bream at 34 cm was the second best I caught off Maroubra beach. Charles

Fished for one hour between 8 to 9 pm. Caught two fish then the session was cut short by the drizzle blown in from the east. Charles