2kgline

And I thought I was a keen fisherman. Good catch and your much braver than I in these conditions. I love hairtail but havent caucht any for many years. May have to give Cowan Creek a go. I havent seen them in Sydney Harbour for a long time.

35 years local knowledge, being in the right place at the right time, move if the fish don’t bite within 30 minutes and not afraid to try new things. For example we have caught Salmon on sergeant baker strips when everyone else is flicking fly’s and plastics. I have caught 80cm+ kings on bread and sweep strips. Also we don’t fall for all the marketing hype about soft plastics and complex rigs and special braid lines with mono leaders etc. All our fish are caught on a simple rig running sinker and circle hooks no leaders no swivels . Even some of the bait we use is very old refrozen many times so don’t believe all you read. Many times we have boats sitting next to us who catch nothing. I cant stress enough Burley! Burley! Burley! and Always Light line. When we do user lures trolling we use light line 20 lb Max.

That why we like them. They are one of the best Sushimi fish I know just bleed them and cut the blood lines out perfert white flesh yum. Also go well battered or crumbed for the kids.

The bream, snapper and flathead were in Middle Harbour (Back of the spit) in really dirty water in 15m. All the other fish were caught within 200M of North head in the brown dirty water various depth from 10 -20M. Yes we were surprised to see the fish so active in these dirty conditions . The Tailor were working the line between the dirty and clean water just off the headland. Various baits including, pilchards, squid (for the salmon) bonito (Freshly caught). Circle hooks require a different strike technique hence the light drag. Basically you need to let he fish hook itself I have observed how these hooks work from being in the water with the fish. They suck the bait in and as they spit the hook out it catches the lip. You can strike but you must make sure its when they are trying to spit the hook out (you learn how to judge this with time). In other words not to aggressive or enthusiastic on the strike like normal hooks or you will often pull the bait and hook back out. As I mentioned in my report last week when some one questioning the number of fish we catch I suggested if you spend time in the water with them observing them you will understand how to catch more of them. We could hook up more with hard strike techniques with normal hooks but this damages the fish to much, to many gut and gill hook ups. Having said this we would have no chance with the flathead on 4lb line with out a leader on normal hooks. And for the record the thicker the leader the less fish you will hook up. Despite what people think they can see the line I have observed bream pulling on the line to see if the bait moves. If it does they swim away. With the circles you get a 90% lip hook up rate but a lower hook up rate in general. We seem to catch enough with out techniques and its easier on the fish. We have never had problems with circle hooks on bream and snapper we often bag out.

We went out last Saturday 4th June off North Head Sydney the swell was 2+M but very lazy. The Water was brown and full of crap from the rain. It looked like there should be no fish. Trolled (20 lb line which is huge for us) for about 1 minute hooked our first Salmon moments later a bonito . Then deadly quiet. Decided to do some bait fishing for our favourite Travalley . As you will see from the picture they were plentiful. During the madness we hooked several more salmon and bonito this time on 4 and 6lb good fun and many minutes to land, dropped more than we landed. Yes we kept them as some of our friends eat them (god knows why or how) as does the bronze whaler that took one at the boat. Conditions were very rough and we bust off our anchor so decides to call it a day outside. We must be mad as we didn’t see another boat all day. Headed back to middle harbour on the way back hooked a surprise tailor, it was now dead low tide dirty water but still managed a few more Trevally (they are everywhere in the Harbour) also manager a few just keeper snapper and a thumping bream + a bonus couple of flatties. We decided to keep on of the big flattie (we normally let them go) because it was gill hooked and bleeding profusely . For the record we let go many more Trevally than were kept we only ever use circle hooks to minimise fish damage. We also only use MAX 6lb mainly 4lb line and light drag to reduce stress on the fish bringing them up from the deep. PS The BBQ was running hot on Sunday.

I understand your concern. You will be happy to know we release many more fish than we take. We normally release the bigger ones (to much for one meal) You don't see the large flatheads that were all released that day (female breaders of course). Also the days we fish for Kings we only ever take 2 all the rest go back as I said the trevally are not in danger like other species. Also Trevally are very safe to eat if you eat a lot of fish as they have low mercury levels much like snapper and bream.

No offence taken. Yep know that I been involved in many research projects and have been fishing this spot for over 30 years and scuba dived there many times believe me there are many thousands of trevally at this location and I have never know a bad year for them. They may grow slow but the bread like rabbits. On the other hand many spots we fish/dive that used to produce snapper, bream, jews and flathead have dramatically depleted. From my personal experiences Trevally’s are one of the great survivors. The reason for this is they are not commercially target (like snapper and others species) and most people don’t know how to catch them in numbers they are an accidental catch. We often sit next to boats that don’t catch a single fish while we a flat out for hours. One hint I can give people if you want to catch fish in numbers you need to spend time in the water with observing them . Closing note we also like to eat them.

Big family they wont last long, bonito will be converted to bream and snapper, as for the salmon have to give that one away I have some friends that love to eat them !!!! I dont know how they do it I have tried many ways to cook them and they always taste like #$@%

I didn’t tell you how many we lost. Believe me with salmon this big and rat kings in 15m of water over reef you go through a lot of hooks. Basically when you not winding you tying knots. Some time we had no gear in the water at all. Such is the nature of light line fishing. The Bonito and Macs were taken on 20lb braid using rapala CD9 red nose.

18 in close to the heads 1km out 17 in the harbour. If you look at the sea surface temprature on the bom.gov.au web site under marine and ocean you will see the cold water is moving in rapidly. This is actualy a better site than MHL for surface tempratures.

All along the front face you can spot trevally on the sounder but the bonito were only small in number and not schooled up. The trevally were also in middle harbor as they have been for a few weeks now. The large number of king fish also surprised us normally only expect to see a few big guys this time of year as the water is now 17 Even used old snapper frames so much for theory it scares away the snapper

Went out to north head (Sydney) Sunday great day the rain held off and no one else around. We went mainly to catch bait as the bonito are thinning out so we wanted to get some more for bream baits for winter. Dropped the lures in 30 seconds latter hooked a good Mac tuna, soon followed by a smaller one, only manager 4 bonito one of which was sacrificed to the bream, trevally and snapper . There was also a plague of king fish (45-55cm) good fun but no keepers. Gave up on the bonito and decided to bottom bounce changed down to our usual 4lb outfits we found the trevally in their usual spot along with a good supply of snapper. We had many hard runs and bust offs from the plentiful king fish and large salmon yes the one in the photo was taken on 4lb line. As was the larger red. Headed back into one of our bream spots at the back of the spit, as you can see seemed to work ok. Once again the back of the spit was full of king fish hanging around the boat. They were not taking anything but eating the bread from the burley bag. Wish we had live squid to tempt them. These fish were much bigger than outside 80cm to 1m+ and in large numbers . One of the 1m+ guys decides to eat one of the snapper whole (25 cm) right at the boat. No chance on 4lb line got smoked. It was about time to re-spool anyway. There seems to be a lot of kings around for this time of year. All in all not a bad day out. And as I said in the beginning the best part no one else around.

I guess the Taylor was 60+ didn't measure it. We only use circle hooks so he was hooked in the lip. However we did get a few quick bust offs around the same time so I assume we got "choppered."

Not land based but within casting distance of the rocks (30-50 meters off) north end of north head facing east in the wash.

Went back to North Head (Sydney) again today same story as Friday , Trevally , Trevally and more Trevally. Also a nice taylor, a couple of small snapper, a bream, leather jacket and some other thing I have no idea what it was ??? but my friend said he eats them so we kept it. Just for the record as some of you know we usually only use 4 lb but today we ventured big and went to 6 lb on 2 rods. They didn’t get much action but certainly made the Trevally they hooled shorter work. PS the Taylor was taken on 4 lb and went like a rocket.

Maybe I should change my users id to cob webs I like the way it sounds. And I tell you when the line gets old it does feel like a cob web soem days.

Went for a morning session Friday 22nd a north head (Sydney) using our usual 4lb line. We were well prepared with serviced reals and all new line. We had a good session with screaming drags most of the morning. The Trevally gave us a hard time and were on the chew most of the morning. At one stage we had 4 fish hooked up (with only 2 people in the boat) and on light gear its always amusing and a bit of chaos. The bonito and salmon were also caught on 4lb line, a good fight but as the line was new we had a bit more of an advantage than with our usual old extremely stretched line. We tend to let the line stress and age till its probably more like 2 lb before we replace it. This gives the fish a more sporting chance and tests our skill. The bonus for the day was the bream, flathead and snapper that were all taken in Sailors bay at the back of spit in a quick session on the way home. We did drop a lot of fish (as you do on light gear) but the esky didn’t end up looking to bad. We also released a lot of fish.

The sounder is easy to read the only issue is in big seas when you get a lot of water in yak this well tends to fill up with water. As you have the same yak try this water pump if you want to use you live bait tank it screws straight into the drain hole (push hard), past this link in you web browser http://cgi.############/DC-Submersible-Water-Pump-12V-Aquarium-Fountain-Pond-1A-/320672214045?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4aa98dac1d You need a short tube in the outlet start the pump suck on the tube and away it goes. Fresh water no need for an air pump. Next season if there is enough interest and when I have more experience (this is my first season in the kayak) I would like to see if we (us kayak fish heads) could start our own forum/discussion report group on this site. PS. I also have a Ocean Kayak prowler 4.5 I prefer the Viking as it has more space and is more stable however the Prowler is faster and is much better in rough seas and wind.

Pretty sure it is some type of bonito there was a big school on the surface. It was an accidental catch that strayed into the shallows. I was going to chase them but was having to much fun with the sneaky bream. It was a good fight on the light gear, but did waste some bream time. The positive note it added to the species list that I have caught from the kayak. So far Bream, snapper, trevally, salmon, king fish, flathead (dusky and tiger), tailor, whiting, leather jacket (I actually target them) and of course the usual assortment of sand rays eels and other junk.

Went out for a quick paddle in the kayak today started late 9:30 (due to poor tide) this is against all my rules normally I have a very early start. Went to my favourite middle harbour (Sydney harbour) bream spot. I like this spot because I have never seen anyone else ever fish it. As you will see from the photo very productive. Released many more than I kept also had a large number of bust offs. This is what happens with 4lb line in 60cm of water over oysters. I have seen many very large bream in this area and judging from the screaming drag many saw my bait today. The surprise catch was a salmon (yes in 60cm of water) taken on prawn on 4lb line and size 1 circle hook, I thought the drag was going to explode and I had hooked the mother of all bream. I think landing it was more the salmons stupidity than my skill with all the structure around I don’t know how he didn’t bust me off, took about 10 minutes and 100 meters of line out (I had new line this week so could give it some stick). Unfortunately I was anchored so couldn’t let him drag me into the deeper water. By the way if anyone likes mullet they are also around in very large numbers (I don’t fish for them). Some one asked me about my setup last week so I have posted a photo. Yes if you look carefully that is a big game rod with 100 lb braid. I generally down rig when travelling between spots optimistically look for that last end of season big king.

This time of year is good for bream in Pittwater and will improve by the end of the month. The trick is you need to be fishing as the sun comes at close to high tide. Its normally all over by 8:30. And I can’t stress enough, light tackle burley, burley, burley and a quite boat by this I mean not bumping around and dropping things that go bang. This is why the kayak is so good its silent. Often we will sit next to boats who catch nothing using heavy gear or plastics. Don’t get me wrong plastics are great but we have never seen plastics out fish bait for bream, and we use both all the time.

In answer to your questions yes it gets uncomfortable the first few times out or when you haven’t been for a while but you get used to it and its fine (no longer uncomfortable) . It s not for people with back problems. I would suggest borrowing or renting a kayak a few times to make sure its right for you. Yes it gets crowded. I will post a picture of my kayak ready for action next week. I take 4 rods, net, gaff, sounder, esky, and also have a live bait well. The real trick is in re-rigging or double hook ups. For the kings we work a buddy system where the second kayak hooks a line to the kayak that has hooked up and pulls it away from any obstacles like mooring ropes. Seem to work OK. As in my other reply I have 2 kayaks and when I have a bit more experience I will offer forum members who want to try it out the opportunity to tag along the only rule its a an early start and of course must be able to swim.

I will be posting a lot from now on and I am willing to share a few tips and locations. All these fish were caught in the channel between Lovett Bay and Scotland island. As for sharks they don’t eat plastic so they don’t worry me. Having said I am careful not to let blood or the bait wash through the scupper holes in the kayak . I actually have 2 kayaks and next season when I have a bit more experience will offer forum members who want to try it out the opportunity to tag along. You just supply your own gear.