joshGTV

The other good thing about using barbless hooks is that if you plan to release the fish, you don't mangle its mouth trying to unhook it.

p.s. nothing to worry about when handling a wrasse... except for their slipperiness.

Not a bad start to the day...

So satisfying! Congratulations.

Jealous! Cracking fish.

Jenno what part of town do you live in? When I was on Pittwater on Sunday there was a school of macks busting up off the sandflats at Palm Beach. As an aside - I'd always heard that they were rubbish eating - not the case I presume?

Awesome session. Can't wait to get my boat up there.

Unfortunately no. That'd be a great idea though.

We did last night. Yum!

My mate sorted out the parking, I think he said it cost $27.

Nice work fella!

Mate and I hit the ramp at Bayview this morning at about 8am. Headed to West Head for yakkas but they didn't seem to want to play along. Ended up with four, incidentally all some of the smallest yakkas I've ever seen. Then headed to troll around Barrenjoey. Shortly after we started my mate's hard body Rapala was hit - a few minutes later he had a nice bonnie on board. My livie was hit shortly afterwards - pulled up a rat king about 40cm. Kept trolling and my next livie was hit as well - I could feel immediately that this was a more serious fish. Five minutes later I had a 68cm king in the boat. I've been chasing kings on and off for 25 years and have caught plenty - but only ever around 5cm too small to keep. So this was one of the most satisfying fish I've ever caught. We then pulled up another undersize rat and decided to call it a day as the swell and the wind were picking up. Can't wait to get out after kings again.

Great work Crabstar. Imagine what you'd pay for all those fillets in a fishmonger these days.

Been a while between posts, haven't been fishing a lot lately, I suspect that's going to change as last week I finally bought a boat big enough to get offshore. The southerly finally lifted and my mate and I planned to to get out early, catch some yakkas then head out to Long Reef. However electrical gremlins (caused by me) meant that we weren't in the water until 1pm. Went to West Head for yakkas but the wind was blowing pretty hard and it was too rough to head outside. So we decided to drift from the west of Barrenjoey back towards Mackerel Beach and hopefully pick up some flatties on light gear and pillie cubes. We started picking up undersize flatties and then my reel started screaming and I was obviously on to something big. Was wishing I was fishing heavier gear than 10lb line and leader but I left the drag fairly loose as it ran and ran. Headshakes told me I was on to a decent jewie. I finally started to turn it around and after about 10 minutes it was on the surface - would have been close to a metre long. Just as I caught sight of it the leader broke at the hook and the fish was lost. Gutted! Continued the drift and bagged a decent flattie and a pretty big flounder but it's fair to say they weren't too exciting after the tussle with the jewie. Oh well, he's still out there and I'll be back to chase him another day. Nice to know that there are still big fish out there.

Many years ago - can't remember it unfortunately