Ojay Samson

Awesome stuff!

if its just a reel, i would definitely suggest the soron stx 20. this was my first proper reel purchase and has served me for many many years without fail, it also comes with 2 spools which is handy. 1 for mono etc and the other for superlines/braid. my one has caught me everything from jewies to kingys and everything inbetween with the regular species... bream et al. however it is a bit old now so i dont know if the technology has been superseeded so it pays to do a bit more research (but its still got specs which are nothing to sneeze about). In terms of manintenance and servicing, the internals are a little bit more fiddly than the common layout of that with shimano's but its not rocket science either. i cant speak from personal experience with a stradic 2500FJ, but i can with a 5000FJ and if its anything to go by, i defintely would be having a hard think about that reel to. cheers

Tip 1: bring some shrapnel as buying a ticket for parking is a must... the rangers are scrupulous.

shame about the wind. i was planning to head out today on the boat to but ended up becoming lazy and stayed home. congrats on ticking a new species off the list.

thats unfortunate, i use the 8lb and never had a problem with it. another go to fluro leader i use extensively is black magic.

Shimano Stradic 2500 FJ, symetre 2500 FL, Abu Garcia soron stx20. stradic and soron would be reel only, if u want combo for 200 and under you cant go wrong with the usual specials that happen with symetre combos u can find at the bigger camping boating and fishing stores.

2nded, I to would like toclarify this, as it looks like an aussie salmon to me in that last pic to. Congrats and well done on the dedication nonetheless! Great to know there's still activity out there. I'm still trying for my first king on lure, what soft plastics were doing the damage for you?

so where do i sign petitioning for these @rseholes to bugger off again...

Good stuff for giving it a go. was this boat or land based? I was scheduled to go in the harbour today on boat but ended up pushing that back to tomorrow when the wind is forecast as less than today.

That's geniusly simple. I shall add this to my cleaning schedule, I do find water ingress in some of my reels drag and I generally just unscrew it completely and dry off manually or air dry. Along with the full service every x months.

I generally chuck my stuff in the shower and just rinse them while I'm in there at the end of the day... The warm water helps wash off the stubborn stuff... Water efficient to... However I am recently rethinking my maintenance as I've been reading any water on a reel is a no no, even fresh water.. So I'm rethinking my routine. Last outing didn't catch anything but still had Saltwater on the reel from the wet line.. Ended up just wiping it down with a baby wipe instead... How do others clean their gear? Especially when their stuff is subjected to a decent amount of salt water spary.. Ie from an open tinny running through a ' crosswind' in some chop?

To make things more confusing, I also herd a while ago that fishing here is not permitted land based, however if you had a boat and didn't anchor, it's perfectly fine due to some grey area with jurisdiction on authorities... Can anyone confirm? I understand why its not allowed land based especially with all The grubs out there who would no doubt ruin one of Sydney's major tourist and money hot spots with the rubbish left behind... Not to mention all the potential dangerous weapons, bait knives etc Easily accessed by intoxicated folk and easily irritated fisher 'groups'. I've seen a few fishing shows that have fished boat based in and around the darling harbour area and seemed all fine, however I've never seen it personally and wonder why more people don't do this... Unless I'm missing something completely.

Haha, I'd love to but the biggest one that day was actually caught by Mrs Ojay... And she has a 8 minute video to prove it haha. The one I'm holding in the pics actually a fair bit smaller then hers lol. I regret not taking a pic on measuring tape as the pics of hers doesn't do it justice, cheers.

Thanks seasponge, glad you enjoyed it. The bait I was using was my specially prepared chicken breast cut into strip's and then marinated in minced garlic with extra virgin olive oil for at least 4 days... Very stinky, that's why I prefer to wear gloves. The marinate manages to impregnate itself and you'll have stinky fingers for days otherwise. Thanks Jim. Yeah the photos are from my Samsung galaxy s3 lol.

After putting flick stick 1's reel into retirement after a recent fishing trip to brooklyn ( shimano sienna 2500fd & shimano catana originally a 7' rod but breaking the tip and repaired to a 6'5" rod) with the oscillation gear being worn down into a square looking gear this cranking the handle no longer being smooth and 8 years of service I got a replacement combo from a camping fishing and boating store a shimano symetre 3000FL loaded with berkley fireline tournament exceed flame green in 5kg and a shimano sahara 6'6" rod in 3-5kg. Now to the report, hit the harbour from hunters Hill ramp, and to my disappointment, newly implemented parking ticket machines there with a very active ranger booking people with no tickets. Paid the $9 and was on my way. Ps launching there sucks during low tide, as I managed to find out first hand as to many selfish @rse#holes have chewed up the ramps foundations from power loading their boats. I digress, off we went only armed with the 2 new flick sticks, it wasn't long till we found the schools of seagulls and bust ups. The rods that did the damage were : - Pflueger trion 2-4kg bream specialist matched with the aforementioned symetre 3000FL and 8lb fluoro leader attached by fg knot. - Shimano sahara 2-5kg 6'6" with the 2500 symetre and 8lb fluoro leader attached by improved albright knot. The soft plastics used were berkley powerbait in clear minnow using bream jig heads more accustomed to 2" grubs 1/16 & 1/32 jig heads and alike. A few of the jig heads had to be rebent inwards after a few blistering runs from the frigate mackerels. The day went with us chasing the schools around fort Denison and taronga zoo, with myself casting out hooking and passing the rod over to the gf to reel in all the while casting the other rod and hooking up to. Was definitely the most fun day yet. Near the end we switched up to using 10g halco twisty and river to see whitebait 10g metals. It was the best.... With the schools of fish ending up surrounding us many times chasing the whitebait hanging around my boat for protection. Was a great afternoon, my only regret was not buying a bag of ice for the day for the keepers. Was a great day out with even horse yakkas on the chew with one instance of the gf fixing slack line from a reel and to her surprise a 30cm yakka took the sp that was only in the water due to maintenance and not being worked or anything. Ended up boating 16 frigate mackerels and 2 fat yakkas, and lost about just as many due to either luck on the fishes part in bending the thin gauge bream hooks just enough, or the transition from passing the rod over to the Mrs. Was definitely the best day for christening the new flick stick combos, the sound of drag peeling is euphoric. Here are a couple of pics of the first few fish boarded. Ps never anchored, just chase and drift the entire time. Also have some video footage but am yet to process it as I don't have video editing software to cut out the boring bits and such, I'll get to it eventually I hope. Never caught frigates before till then, loved it on the light gear. Didn't manage to catch any rats or Aussie salmon or bonito. Not sure if they were in the pack or not though, is there a different tactic to catching those other than what I was doing of cast and fast retrieve? Parents were happy, fish were cooked or smoked.. Just in time for ash Wednesday lol. Anyways, thanks for reading.

Hey all, been lazy with the reports as of late, better late than never I guess. Booked a little getaway with the girlfriend from the 3rd till the 6th of Feb staying in a holiday house for the duration. Took the boat down too for some fishing too. We arrived that day when the moon was at 100%, little did I realise how much havoc that would play when fishing there as the current was out of control for the duration of our trip. Didn't catch as many fish as I was hoping, based on the previous day trip I went a few weeks before with some of my mates. Caught fish nonetheless so it was still ok. Day 1 Arrived in Brooklyn and made a day of it, fished on the boat from 7am till 430pm for only 2 bream, nice bream though as the gf caught them both and got her new PB for bream. Almost lost the anchor at the last stop around the road bridge but luckily managed to free it while gf was on the phone with the owner of the house we were staying at asking if there was a place to buy a replacement anchor. The 2 bream were fat and healthy while being caught in quick succession during the turn of the tides, where our baits could actually reach bottom and not floating on the surface due to the 50km/h current lol. They went 32cm and 35cm. 35cm 32cm Decided to explore later that night for the boat ramp down the road, stumbled on a local catching mullet in plague proportions from a wharf using bread so quickly convinced the girly to go back home and grab 2 rods and a loaf of bread. Had a ball catching mullet for about 45 minutes, now armed with fresh bait for the next day. Day 2 We started lateish that day trying to fish the change of tides that day but was still a hard day due to the crazy current. Deployed a crab trap at the start, using a mullet frame from last night. Current was still so crazy and feared the trap would be carried away never to be seen again. Went off to fish the rest of the day and once again the gf was the only one to catch a fish. Broke another PB for herself catching a nice flatty that through some miracle didn't fall off the hook even after smashing itself into the boat a few times and doing acrobatics as she mistakenly thought she caught nothing but dead weight until it was boat side and lifted it's head out of the water, and I didn't have the net ready. Anyways netted it and fell off the hook as soon as it was in the net. I got a bit worried thinking she just beat my PB of 70 but luckily it was only in the 60's [emoji16] Went to go check the trap after this and to my surprise had a nice blue swimmer, thinking my bad luck would continue after only getting a few stinky catfish for the day. never using a crab trap before I was quite pleased with the result. Day 3 Started late this day to but there wasn't really anything to report on. Decided to stay out extra late compared to the previous days and ended up with 1 nice fish. I caught a soapy jewie on a strip of fresh mullet while on the drift going towards the hms Parramatta wreck. After a few scary minutes reviving the fish with my hand in the water and my head torch beaming into the water, it finally kicked strong and swum to the depths. Called it quits after that. The jewie went 55cm. All in all was a good trip away for a few days, with the Mrs enjoying it. Only let down was the high expectations going in. Oh well, can't win everytime. If you're all still reading, hope you enjoyed and cheers for your attention. tl;dr Went for a 4 day fishing trip, caught some fish, current was crazy.

wow, thats impressive...

Good job for giving it a go nonetheless. Seems like the harbour activity isn't as it was a few weeks ago, darn. On another note I've been seeing a lot being caught in botany Bay recently though. Better get in there quick before it becomes emptied as I've seen a few different reports on fb pages with catches for the day with 30- 60+ bream, whiting, flatty being pulled from the Bay with some very overly defensive original posters saying either the amount of people on their boats none of anyone's business or claiming that the boat they were on had 50 people on board.... Hard to believe unless Sydney ferries have started doing fishing tours... Must be a big ass boat to believe those claims. However I digress. Better luck next time Jim.

Haha good stuff guys for taking out newbies. Well done salt water k9, if I had seen this earlier you might have had competition haha. Good luck guys.

try octopus circle hooks in 3/0 as well they seem to work for me, steady gradual load onto the rod, no need to strike as they will either unfortunately gut hook themselves or hook on the side of the mouth. when using long shanks and alike, i find that striking hard first works, then bringing them up . need to set the hook yourself with long shanks and suicides etc. also if you can see its a flatty, its best to avoid lifting its head out of the water until you are certain it is in the net, so its best to bring the net into the water and scoop it out from under as opposed to skimming the surface of the water with the net and the fish flopping about on the surface.

Good work champ . Just out of curiosity, you never seem to happy in your pics. Is fishing a way to earn a living for you or is it just a hobby? [emoji38]

That's a nice session out. Gotta love the humble bream. Was this east or west of the bridge if you don't mind sharing?

Thanks for the report Jim. Interesting start to the day with the keys haha. I would have thought all the rain from days previous may have pushed the fish back out, gladly mistaken. how was the swell and stuff that day? Ive been reading reports that it was supposed to be pretty crazy waves a till at least the end of the weekend.

Oh man... And I was getting g really excited for a badge too Yes, for all those wondering, it is also known as a Mother-in-law Fish, hence the acronym, apparently they're not that great eating, but also not poisonous and complete garbage either so you usually just palm them off to the in-laws... I didn't make the name up, the internet told me, so who am I to argue haha.

Subscribed due to interest also