Yowie

Well Jim, I hope you like catching bonito. Dave.

A great feed there Ash. There are still a few fish up river as well.

Depends how you hook up the baits. I use longer strips and only hook through once for tougher baits, twice for softer baits. The flatties, and other fish when drifting, will grab the bait and hook up, even with a 10 to 12 cm bait only hooked through once at one end. If you bunch up a bait on a hook several times, this is what can cause spinning of the bait and line.

Tying mono to mono with vastly different sizes (30 to 80 pound) is very difficult. Much better to use a black swivel to join the lines. If I bottom bash for flatties outside, I use 20 pound mono and tie on 20 toughened mono (more resistant to abrasion of most fish, except jackets) joined by a black swivel. 2 droppers and a snapper sinker on the bottom. Have pulled out a variety of fish on the rig, except for toothy critters like jackets and sharks. I would drop the 80 pound leader to 40m pound, unless you want it for a reason. You can lift the fish with the heavier trace, but I would be grabbing the trace line, not the main line, to lift on board.

A great day's fishing there Penguin.

Yes, there are a few techniques that do help. Does take a while to learn them by trial and error.

Thank you Dave. (I'm not a show off. )

A good feed there Scratchie. Swell should stay down until Wednesday.

That reminds me of a fishing outing many years ago, when a mate's father wanted to catch a few jewies ( when the jewies were biting big time in the Hacking) He kept wanting to go fishing, so I took him to the jewie spot, let him use one of my lines, hooked up the bait and cast out (handlines only) and I fished at my end of the boat (about 6 foot apart). I pulled up a few jewies, and he caught nothing. He complained about everything and wanted to swap sides, so we did. I fished at the front of the boat and used his line and he used my line at the rear of the boat. I caught more fish and he caught nothing again, no bites at all. Took him home and he never wanted to go fishing again.

Before I headed out this morning, I threw out a line at my mother's place and picked up the bream. There have been a few good ones about lately. Headed out to the deep water up past Lilli Pilli. Picked up the tailor and flounder on strip baits. Flounder is a bit small, was going back but it had 2 ganged hooks in it's mouth and gills and was not looking too healthy. Bitten off by a few tailor as well. Plenty of reddies, but all just under sized. When the tide stopped, I headed to Maianbar to pump some nippers, then the wind turned to the south. 3 flatties pulled out but only 1 legal. While I was standing in water half way up my shins, the jacket followed a nipper until it was beside my feet. The hook was too big to hook it, and when It had nearly eaten all the nipper, and not been hooked after a few attempts, I grabbed it near the tail and dropped it into the boat. A different way of catching it. A lot of time for not a lot of fish., though happy with the size of the bream.

You need a side on view of fish to be I.D. A top view is not as good.

A nice feed there Sam (except for the mowies) Wanda Beach was a bit bumpy and lumpy today, waves coming in from a couple of different directions and not too good for a body surf, though the board riders were catching a few good rides.

A nice feed of reds there Finin, spoiled by a couple of Yowie fish. Keep your green toads up that way.

Sounds like a good day out with the family. When you pull up a good sized flattie, you do not want too much tension on the line. Keeping the drag pressure down a bit, can help with the head thrashing of the big ones. If you need a bit of extra tension of the line, place a finger onto the spool for the extra lift, and if the big mother wants to take off or head thrash, release the finger from the spool and there won't be too much tension on the line. Takes some practice to get that correct.

Too many other boats for my liking over any weekend, especially a long weekend. The flatties were in shallow water over the sand banks.

No point in blowing up about the mowies. You keep them just to annoy me. As for green toads, not much in the ocean is worse than them, You can keep them up your way.

Nice fish there Finin. Hopefully the green toads disappear. Caught the odd 1 or 2 of them inside Port Hacking a few years back, horrible critters fast enough to grab a lure or moving bait.

I pull out the odd one now and then, no big ones like outside. Up to about 45cm, but most are a little bit over or just under legal size - 33cm. One morning I managed 3, but 2 were undersized.

Yes I have picked up a few things from webpages, and not contributed, because I was not able to reply. I am on 4WD and caravan websites, and have contributed many helpful comments and information on those sites. I do share info on this forum, but keep a few 'secret' spots to myself, otherwise other people will fish there and there will be no room for me. General info. can be given on many other forums and websites, but as a fisherman with nearly 60 years of catching fish, some info. remains a guarded secret, and many older fishos like to keep it that way after gaining this info by trial and error. I have had fisherman follow me to find my spots, especially as a teenager fishing around Windang in Lake Illawarra when they followed me like a plague of flies. One of the old fishos I knew in Port Hacking (now gone) had a secret blackfish spot in South West Arm where he pulled out many fish, but others could not catch much at all. Someone blew up his spot with dynamite and this stopped producing fish for many years thereafter. And I am happy to pay a fee.

I did join a fishing Club, St George Anglers or something similar. I won a few competitions as a junior angler, but was never allowed into any licensed clubs to claim any prizes as I was under 18, so just received the prizes out the back door. The only good thing from that club was that I was able to fish with Gary Chapman a number of times, and learnt a few things from him. (for those that remember, Gary was a great fisho who died many years ago in a boating collision while fishing at The Peak. Appeared that his boat was hit by a large vessel or container ship that did not stop)

A nice feed of pannies there.

What some of you may not realise, is that there are many more people who are not Fishraiders, and who are reading our reports every day, using this information to find OUR fishing spots, and take OUR information for their own use, and DO NOT contribute anything to us. Dave.

A good feed there. A mad muddie loose in a boat will keep you hopping on the seats.

Thank you all. Good luck for those of you heading out over the weekend. Water still has a little bit of colour up from Lilli Pilli. The run up tides are pushing up clean water, but the deep water takes a while to clear, however, it is a good fishing colour.

Headed out early this morning to beat the Easter rush time. Fished a bit out from Lilli Pilli, tailor on the pillies, and the only 3 tailor bites at that. Tried strip baits and picked up the small blue spot flattie, not much else about, no crabs either. Hooked onto something better, but when I pulled up a shovelnose about the metre long mark, decided it was time to leave. Hardly a fish jumping, apart from some mullet in the shallows. Down to Maianbar to pump some nippers, tried around there for a stingray and a long tom just under the 60cm mark, which was released, Not a whiting to be seen. Drifted in other spots for the 3 duskies, also bitten off by a few tailor in water not much more than a metre deep. Tailor do like nippers at times and did not land one. Headed home after that.