pottsy77

Went out for a fish today in the harbour. Tried for squid for a couple of hours but got nothing. Are the squid a little scarce at the moment or is it just my crap technique?! Went and anchored next to the wedding cake in the hope of getting some yakkas but couldn't even raise any of them! After getting frustrated i decided to try off the red marker pole at Glass and bottle. After being in the water for about 10 seconds my bait jig gets hit. I pulled up 2 sweep. Having once read a report on here about someone who used sweep as bait i promptly cut one of them up and sent the jig back down baited with tiny bits of "sweep" flesh. After about 30 seconds my handline spool takes off. Quickly grabbing it i realised that i had a pretty serious fish on the end. After about 5 minutes of retrieving line and paying it out very fast, and a nervous moment when the line got tangled around the outboard! i couldn;t believe me eyes when i looked down to see a pretty healthy Kingy in the water below. It took a few more minutes to subdue the fish sufficiently to net it but i couldn't believe my luck! After unhooking it it went straight on the measure... 67cm, on an 8lb handline!! and then straight in the Esky! Once i had calmed down i rebaited and dropped the jig over the side again. Would you believe it - within about 2 mins the exact same thing happened. This time i wasn;t so lucky and after about 30 secs of me frantically letting line out, whatever it was busted me off. After this i went back to the Eastern Wedding cake in the hope of getting some yakkas. First drop i get one and it goes straight back down with a hook through its back. Thinking i should get a few more livies in the tank i throw the jig back over the side and yes you guessed it, i got smashed again (i'm guessing by another king!) Eventually my time was up with no further action and whilst i was really annoyed to have lost a couple of good fish i still had the satisfaction of landing a legal kingy on a handline! Just wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience - i.e. getting smoked while trying to catch yakkas? Cheers JP

Went out for a fish today in the harbour. I launch from Rose Bay in a VERY small tinny and usually fish off the Eastern Wedding Cake. Thats where i headed today. Got there at about 9:30am. Action was a little slow at first and there didn't seem to be many Yakkas aorund. Eventually at about 10:15 i managed to catch some bait and no sooner had i sent the Yellowtail down when it got absolutely hammered. A short but strong fight proceeded and i netted number one kingy for the day at 63cm which i released. Things went quiet again for a while but then i caught two more in about 10 minutes. The first one went back in for another day, whilst sods law, the last fish i hooked which looked to be closer to 80cms, and was definitely destined for my Esky, managed to slip the hook just as i was about to net it! Bugger! Anyway the real reason i felt compelled to write was to say what happened next. At about 12pm i decided i'd had enough and got ready to leave. I started my engine and then went to pull the anchor. My anchor was well and truly stuck and as i was straining to move it the engine cut out. Try as i might i couldn't get it going again. At this stage i was facing a bloody long row back to ROse Bay which i wasn't too keen on. But luckily the guys in the boat next to me came to my rescue. They had a go at starting the engine first - but to no avail - and then they towed me all the way back to Rose Bay. ABSOLUTE LEGENDS! Cheers guys - you saved me a lots of hassle and you restored my faith in human nature! Hope everyone else had some luck today.

Greetings fellow fishos. I have been reading the reports on this site with much enjoyment for months but this is my first post to date. So far i have had a great summer with plenty of good fish and lots of Kingies including 7 in one session last week and a current PB of 84cm. I usually fish around the wedding cakes or the various marker bouys within the harbour. I have caught all of the kings on Yakkas. I catch the Yellowtail at the wedding cakes. The problem is often the Yakkas aren't around at the Wedding cakes or if they are they are very elusive. I launch out of Rose Bay (in a very small tinnie!). Can anyone suggest any fail safe sites (or as fail safe as they can be!) to catch livies on the Eastern side of the harbour. I have also spent many an hour trying to jig for squid over the various so called "hot spot" kelp beds but to no avail. Is there a particular colour or size of jig that works better than others? Or time of day or state of tide? Any advice on the above two issues would be much appreciated. Cheers JP