kadavu

We got them around lunch time all caught on blue skirts

Well after nearly 4 years of failed attempts we finally did it! We began trolling to browns and then worked our way south seeing lots of whales along the way and after hooking a stripy, both of us thought that the day would end like all the others. However about half an hour later we got a double hookup and landed two small jelly beans around 6kg and thought that maybe our luck was turning around. We still had two rods out and a tangle on board so we decided to start trawling again and before we could get any more rods out the left rigger goes off and after un-tangling two rods we managed to boat my first decent yellowfin going 38.5kg. While we were sitting there watching our breaths and celebrating bait fish suddenly began jumping everywhere and then yellowfin well over 30 kg began jumping everywhere and then yellowfin well over 30 kg began busting up jumping higher than our boat and dad looks at me and says 'do you want to get another one!' So to prevent the tangles from before we only put two rods out and not even a minute later we were on again and it was dads turn. After a short fight we manages to get the fish near the boat and only then realised how big it was. Dad passed over the rod so that he could get a gaff into the fish but as soon as we got the gaff into him all hell broke loose. The fish then decided to take off ripping the gaff handles off and taking the gaff with him, took off again. Luckily the drag had been backed off otherwise we would have lost it easily. After another 15 or so minutes we finally managed to get another gaff into him with less commotion then before and boated our second fish which went 42kg. By this point both of us were exhausted and as fish busted up around us still we had a choice to make, continue or leave? Although there was the possibility to catch many more we realized how much cleaning was ahead of us and we already had our bag limit so we decided to head home and got caught in traffic (go figure) which gave us plenty of time to talk about what a special day it had been.

Just something out of the ordinaryWe are currently camping at Hat Head near South West Rocks with reports of many blacks being caught in close around the 30-50kg mark and with the weather have not been able to get out so farHowever today we did see some fellow campers go out into the bay only a kilometre or so offshore and land a small black around 30kg off a jet ski which was something new for them. They caught the fish on a small skirt after only a few minutes on the water and were very shocked at catching something the size of their ski Hopefully the next couple of days will offer some better weather to go out Tight lines Squizzy

good on ya mate great catch

Yea mate there is a sacnturary zone on the right side of the island comes out about 100-150m from the shoreline we catch our fish round the other side though just where the pictures were taken

Another pic

Went out to browns today and had a bottom bash and managed to land our first blue eye cod which weighed in at 7.1kg We also managed another smaller one around 3 kg and a small gemfish before the wind picked right up at around 10-10:30 and we decided to call it a day . Found it hard to hold bottom when the current and wind picked up but all in all a good day out

we let our boat off at tea gardens a lot more room then hawksnest

All got to do with fresh bait

Yea it's Yves but Marcel came out with us one day and got a nice 9kg fish

yea mate we head up there every christmas had some success with the reefs and pelagics last year

haha yea we also found that the run out tide fished best and the sounder also showed the fish more tightley packed together during that period which helped when the current wasnt running hard

We havent tried the Myal river yet but we heard of a couple good fish being caught in the area

more photos

some more pictures sorry for the rotations...

For some reason some of the Photos have rotated wrong sorry

During the holidays the family and I went up to port Stephens for the long weekend to chase jewfish. During winter we had problems with our sounder meaning this was our first trip in the area for a while and we were keen to get amongst the fish . On the first day we headed out to our 'secret jewie spot' and produced 5 fish all over 75cm with the biggest going 8.2kg. On the second day we experienced a difficult drift and only managed 2 around 4-5 kg each and then decided to fish a different spot and managed 3 bream around 30-35cm. On the third day we managed to catch a fresh local squid which produced 3 decent sized baits all of which produced a fish within an hour including the biggest one of the trip going right on 10 kg. On the last day the conditions were near perfect and we managed to re-use the baits from the previous day and land another 6 fish ranging from 4-9kg within less then an hour. Overall we finished the weekend with 16 jews, 3 bream and several whiting which were caught between 5-6 anglers who were all keen to try out catching a jewfish. The spot has produced countless fish over the past 3 years with consistent schools of fish appearing on our sounder each trip. All fish were caught in a deep hole in the bay and were all caught on Hawksburry and Port Stephens squid using 5.0 circle hook. All in all it was a great weekend with no rain and happy faces all round

great eating and great bait!

most exhausting part of the day was probobaly lifting them up for photos

After many weeks of bad weather we finally got out today with fellow fishraider member Crusher aboard Avalon and headed out to browns in 'reasonable weather' conditions. The grounds were fairly busy today and we managed to get our bag limit in around 2 hours with the largest going 6.2kg and measuring 112cm long. only got sharked once but heard of many other boats losing fish to makos and many more being hooked up around the area. All in all a great day out considering it was our first try at bottom bashing off browns.

nothing worse that's why it's called fishing not catching

not sure about current but going to be bumpy Sunday for sure we were hoping to do a bit of bottom bashing off browns and have a trawl later but weathers looking a bit foul for our boat at the moment

thinking of going after tuna but weathers looking questionable has anyone else heard about the forecast?

shame the weather isnt looking good wanted to get out this weekend

sounded like an awesome trip out great catch