Yowie

Spotted-fin Glasseye - Priacanthus macracanthus. At least you had a pleasant time on the water. Plenty of undersized reddies about, and the tailor are rather scarce. Reports of tailor in Botany Bay, the Harbour and the Hawkesbury, so someone needs to invite them into the Hacking.

Rat sized kingies have been splashing around further up river, Gymea Bay and North West Arm, for a few months.

Not amongst the boats. Sometimes the drop off, sometimes else where.

Have seen a few smaller ones in Gunnamatta Bay.

I was using 6 pound mono, a size long shank hook and no sinker. Small pieces of bread crust, no more than 1cm square. Flick it out like you are throwing a Frisbee. Now for the hard part. You need a slight breeze blowing from behind you, try throwing that into the wind and you won't get anywhere. For windier conditions, a small bubble float, half filled with water will help casting conditions. For really windy conditions, the gars probably won't be biting. Gars will swim down several metres, but usually swim very close to the surface. Bread is the main bait I use, though have caught them on dough, squirt worm pieces, small pieces of soft fish flesh, and the occasional ones on a whiting hook and nippers, when fishing shallow water for the whiting.

Once they have the bait (usually the crabs slowly move away and the line slowly moves off) just a matter of slowly pulling the line to the boat and slipping a net underneath. Sometimes crabs will let go of the bait, so stop pulling the line, let it sit there and they may return and grab the bait again. Sometimes they drop the bait and don't come back.

Last week was sh^thouse. 1 bonnie and 2 crabs all morning, not a report to publish. The bonnies were cruising around the boat for some time, and only the 1 hit. Today, not a bonnie or anything else cracking the surface.

Cut off the gar fillets, and with a long bladed filleting knife I remove the rib bones. The fillets are dipped in flour, then egg/milk mixture then into Panko breadcrumbs (or normal breadcrumbs) and pan fried in a butter/olive oil mixture. Crisp them up a bit more than other fillets, home cooked chips and veges. Washed down with a young crisp Riesling. Though small fish, they are a reasonable size for gars. 5 gars produced 10 fillets, 6 for me and 4 for the missus, which is plenty. Dark colours in the cobia, certainly stand out. Needs to grow another 30cm or more before coming back to the Hacking.

Fished the deep near Lilli Pilli early, hoping for a tailor or 2 but not a bite from them. Caught a couple of yakkas for strip bait, and one as a livey. Burleyed for the yakkas, and the gars turned up in the bread burley. Pulled out 5, dropped a couple and they disappeared by half light.. The flattie and flounder on yakka strips, the crabs on the same bait. Was nearing time to move, when the little cobia grabbed a pillie. Thought I had my tailor. A quick snappie (he would not sit still for the photo) then released. My second cobia in the Hacking, bigger than the first one, but not big enough to keep. Moved to Maianbar flats, pumped some nippers and pulled out the whiting. Bites were few and far between. Released the tarwhine, but it floated belly up a short time later, so retrieved it. Not a big one at all, but it is legal size.

Nice feed of pannies.

I body surf regularly at Wanda or Elouera beaches, and have noticed recently that the terns are diving for bait fish, even fairly close in during day time, so the bait fish are bringing the bigger ones in.

Bream on 6lb mono amongst structure is not easy, have been dusted many times myself, even with heavier line. Bream are dirty fighters around rocks and pilons.

That is a good fish from the beach.

The old saying is "3 times proves it". Maybe you needed 50 pound trace.

Good work on the flatties. Mowies are a give away or release fish for me.

Good work Scratchie. Better to be scratching the scales off fish than scratching your a#se instead.

You most likely hooked the bonnie first ( the tail vibrations were the giveaway) then the kingie has spotted the lure in the bonnie's mouth and tried to take it away from him. Have had a few kingies grab the baits from hooked tailor mainly, not all get landed as both hooked fish pull against each other and sometimes one tears the hook out of the mouth of the other.

Wait until February, too many boats until then.

The outside flatties go a bit quiet at this time of year, suspect they move to deeper and cooler water.

Saw a photo of a 26 kg yellowfin pulled out of south west arm ten or so years ago. Then there was the 71 pound yellowfin pulled out of Gymea Bay a few years back. It was a bit sick and had swum up onto the rocky shoreline, before a couple of blokes pulled it on shore.

Tried that style, did not like them, fish kept spitting the lure. Not the style that I used to buy for use as singles on lures.

I tried the single hooks on lures, and the fish were still spitting out the hooks. Used the Gamakatsu singles. The bonito of late have been spitting out the trebles. The singles I used to buy for lures (cannot remember the hook name or style) are hard to locate (a single hook with no Kirby, that is, a straight hook with no bend along the shank)

The flatties are scattered about at this time of year, with plenty of little spikies taking the baits. Try out on the edge of Bate Bay, rather too close in.

Merry Christmas to all and sundry, don't drink too much from the bottle of Bundy. Dave.