paulthetaffy

Bucket & a belt! Seems so simple when you say it but I never thought of that Thanks for the tip! I had a couple of great sessions wading there last summer fishing the run in for tailor, bream, & whiting. It's easy wading as you say, as long as you keep an eye on the water level. Almost got caught out a couple of times with my phone and car key blipper in my pocket and an ever deepening walk back

Hi Alfy, welcome to the forum. I've sent you a PM with the details

A good morning's work there fella!! Might have to give the lake a hit again some time soon now it's a bit warmer for wading Was that fished from boat/yak? I've fished those drop-offs a few times with plastics and thought that livies would go down well there, but have never figured out how to transport my livies out whilst wading

Thanks! Yeah it's the biggest silver trevally I've seen caught - other than TV - so pretty happy that I was the one to catch it!! I think I've beaten the fishrader record (56cm) too - will submit it for review

Had the morning off work so headed out at 6am for a fish. The plan was to locate some salmon or tailor schools in close enough to have a cast at (I'm land based) and I found myself at Taylor's Bay. Beautiful spot but with the low tide this morning the fishing didn't look good. I caught sight of some bust up's but they were all a good 200m offshore so out of range. Tried throwing some metals, poppers, & plastics but had nothing - no sign of bait schools in close either. So I decided to change tactics, burleyed in close and whipped up a light running sinker outfit. I spotted a few bream & whiting so had a crack at them on prawn but they weren't playing ball either. Bites were coming but they were very very timid and I just couldn't hook up. After an hour of changing leaders and weights and hooks and baits I finally hooked up after another timid bite. My little shimano bait runner starts zinging as line is peeled off against the drag and I'm thinking - this is no bream or whiting!! Has to be a trevally. I get colour on it and yep it's a trev - looks a good one too - until the hook pulls daaaaaam!!! I know there's some nice flatty's in this bay at times so I had also put out a second rod with half a large pille & running sinker. It sat there most of the morning without a touch, not even from the pickers By 10:30 I'd just about had enough and decided to pack up. I was just dismantling my first rod when the flatty outfit with the half pille get's absolutely walloped - baitrunner screamed off but by the time I'd got to it it had gone - grrrrrr!!!! Decide to rebait and recast it just in case while I'm packing the rest of the stuff up - you know how it is 30 seconds later it screams again but this time I'm there to grab it and strike it. Immediately I know this is a good fish as it starts taking line from me and this is my heavier 20lb outfit. I take it nice and slow and don't get much line back in the first minute. But it soon tires and starts arcing it's way towards me and 30 seconds later it's on the bank. My PB trevally that went 77cm No one around to take a pic though so I had to do my best myself (pic attached). I let him go in good shape to fight another day. So while I was releasing the trev the hook and half eaten pillie was dropped in the water's edge. I picked up my rod to find that a pretty good sized blue swimmer had taken a liking to it!!! So I carefully pulled him in and he came home for a feed instead!!

I'm going to be out early sunday driving around the points and wharves of middle harbour seeing if I can track down any tailor and sambo schools within casting distance (landbased ) There seem to be enough around at the moment. Hey Welsh Dave are you Welsh as in the green green grass? If so where abouts are you from?

Took the out for her fist time fishing on Sunday (payback for watching a chic-flick with her on Friday ) Fished Kurraba point from 5:30pm - 9pm with high tide at around 7:20pm. It was surprisingly quiet for the first couple of hours with just a few bites from the expected pickers, but nothing big enough to swallow a circle hook. Tried to burley up some livies but even they didn't show up so we resorted to pillie cubes / tails and a ganged pillie on a heavier outfit. Once the sun had set we settled in to wait for the bigger specemins to show up and sure enough at 7:30 the missus had her first proper run. So she picks up the rod, it bends double, and the thing doesn't budge - I'm thinking she's snagged until I see a few definate thumps followed by a few metres of line peeling. Then it goes slack and she says she's lost it and starts winding in only to find there is a bit of weight there and it starts thumping again. After a minute or two she manages to get the thing to shore and it turns out to be an eel of some description - at least a metre long and as thick as your arm - and bright green. I was pretty sure then it was a moray and having googled it now I'm certain it was a green moray. Not quite the first fish I was hoping she would catch but not a bad start. Within 10 minutes I've got some bumps happening on the ganged pillie. So I strike and get the same response - feels like a snag so I give it some and it frees itself. Then I have a thump thump slack, thump thump slack all the way to shore. Another eel, this time a run-of-the mill eel (didn't see whether it was a long or short finned). I thought it was a bit of a coincidence since I'd never caught an eel before and we'd now had two in 10 minutes. Over the next hour we had several more eels and no other fish. Very strange indeed as this a place I have fished numerous times and caught all manner of fish there but never any eels. We left the them biting at 9pm. I'm glad that I managed to put her on to her first "fish" but was dissapointed it was an eel. Anyone have any thoughts as to why there were so many eels and nothing else? Maybe some alignment of tide/moon/weather/humidity?

As others have reported there are plenty of Salmon in middle harbour at the moment busting up the schools of whitebait. If you're land-based, like myself, you'll need to be mobile and search out a few spots until you locate the bait schools or see the tell-tale surface splashing/fish jumping/birds diving etc. But most of the MH bays & wharves are worth a check as they'll all be holding whitebait soon. Get out early as I've found the action tends to die down once the sun is fully up. At close range I've been using 3" Berkley power minnows in clear, as they're a fair representation of the whitebait. For longer range a 3" whitebait metal is perfect. There's still a lot of trevally around too and I've found that the larger specemins are often hanging around under the salmon. I've had several to 40cm while casting to the salmon schools. My guess is that there are a few tailor and kings doing the same thing, so make sure your leaders are up to it and your drag is set!! Just waiting for the kings to follow suit now and get into casting range!

I was landbased at Bradley's head on Sunday morning watching these schools bust up everywhere from the point all the way to Taronga zoo. Just out of casting range for me. There were boats everywhere but no one seemed to be catching. Eventually they came in close enough for a few casts at them and I bagged a clonker salmon. There's a lot to be had if you can get in amongst them!

Thanks for the tips. Love the idea of the bait-catching rig for the missus So putting livies at night are worth a shot then? I'm guessing I want them on the bottom along the edge of the drop off to some deep water rather than under a float?

Hello Raiders!! My first post here as I'm new to the community - hopefully the first of many! I started fishing middle harbour about a year ago after moving from the UK so the species and techniques are all very new to me. I'm learning lots very fast thanks to friendly locals and the raider forum and think I've become competent fishing my local MH spots during the day (Balmoral, Clifton Gardens, Clontarf, Bradley's Head, Cremorne Pt, Kurraba etc). However I'm planning a night session this weekend and so I'm looking for some a advice as to what to target, as I've only had a couple of previous night sessions with mixed success. The big motivation here is that I've persuaded the to join me and I would really like to put her on to fish that will provide us with a feed (thinking snapper, bream, flathead are most likely). My day-light approach at this time of year has been mainly pillie cubes with a lightly weighted running ball sinker for trevally and occasional bream on one rod, and a half/whole pille on a second rod for the occasional bonus flathead or larger trev. The last couple of weeks has seen the occasional salmon / tailor school busting up within casting distance too so I would switch to metals / unweighted whole pillies to target them (had a clonker 4Kg Salmon this way at Bradleys this week). I fished Clontarf, Cremorne, and Kurraba a few times and found I got molested by picker snapper. So I had the idea to try back there at night to see if I could pick up a bigger specemin. Sure enough on my first attempt I had a 1 Kg snapper and lost another similar size on the way back in. That was fishing pillie cubes at high tide at sunset at Karruba Pt. I tried a similar tact at Blues Point for one flatty and nothing else. So I guess I have a few questions.: 1) Was the snapper a fluke or am I right to assume that the bigger specemins will feed at night where the pickers do not? 2) Is it even worth targetting snapper at these deep MH locations or am I more likely to catch a feed targeting flatties, bream, or trevs somewhere with more structure like Balmoral (given that it will be a night)? 3) Do daylight tactics (rigs, berley, bait) transfer well to night fishing or do I need to adopt a different approach? 4) Is it worth trying a bait under a float (whole pille, fresh squid, livie) for a bonus salmon / kingy / tailor or is this more likely to work during daylight? I think I'm fairly limited to these kinds of locations as I need somewhere "comfortable" to take the missus so any advice on these spots at night is welcome! Thanks in advance for your help!