kingpig

My son and I went yesterday to see if we could get some kings. After trying all the spots I know in the harbour we downrigged some live bait and squid around North Head. Still nothing and no sign of fish on the sounder. It was a great day, so when we got to bluefish I decidede to go to Long Reef Wrecks. We Jigged the wrecks and I put a couple of squid down but still could not get a touch. In a effort to get any fish I moved in from the wrecks to a gravel patch in front of Mona Vale. We found a patch of flathead. In 45 minutes we bagged out with 20 fish between 45 & 50cm. We ended with 20 flaties, 2 trevs and 2 big jackets. There was a heap of slimies around but nothing chasing them. I took a photo if I can get off my phone I will post it. Cheers Kingpig

Try putting a small split shot about half way along your leader. This will make the bite more direct and works well in areas of little current flow. Cheers Kingpig

A friend of mine has the same type of issue in his garage. He needs to put his boat in bow first or it will not fit. So he cannot reverse his boat in. He got a cheap electric boat winch. He mounted it on the floor of his garage so it could be removed when the bost was in place if he wanted. He puts the boat in his driveway attaches the cable of the winch to the trailer and pulls it in with the winch. It works well. This may a way to solve your problem. Regards Kingpig

The sage is a 9ft 9 weight most likely two pieces. It woud be worth a fair amount. I have seen them for about $250 2nd hand. Nice rod.

After some drama yesterday morning with batteries, I got to put my boat in the water, at River Road about 11am. We cruised down to the Moons. By the time I got my boat anchored the run out tide had began to slow up. After sending down a conciderable amount of berly and rigging gear I finally got fishing at about 12. Between then and when the tide stopped at about 2, I got 6 blackfish. All good size but a couple of really classy ones around the 35cm mark. I have not fished like this for blackfish for a few years, and I had forgotten how relaxing this can be, the wind was a bit difficult. It was good to see that I can still do it if I want to. Cheers Kingpig

I am taking my boat and fishing for blackfish tomorrow, most likey in the Georges River. I have a spare spot for someone who wants to help launch and achor. PM me if interested. Most likley leaving about 9.30am and I live in Erskine Park. Cheers Kingpig

I am going to fish for blackfish on Wednesday. Most likley in the Georges River. I am taking my boat and have a spare spot for someone interested. I live in Erskine Park. Cheers Kingpig

I have caught some very big pigs but I will only use one type of hook for th esame reason. I use Mustard 542 in 1/0 size. These are double strenght shank. Cheers Kingpig

Rum

Before there was park there I used to go into htis area to get blood worms sometimes but mostly to get the best green weed I have found in Sydney. Now its a park it is against the law for me to go in and collect green weed to fish with. I think this is ridiculous. The NSW Department of Primary Industries web says the following about carp:- "Along with habitat degradation, poor water quality, reduced environmental flows and barriers to migration, carp have been identified as a major threat to Australia's freshwater fisheries. They should not be returned to the water alive and strict penalties apply for translocation of carp. Live carp may not be used as bait. Should they ont be eradicated from the park? Cheers Kingpig

I am very sorry to hear this. Back problems are difficult and painful. I wish her a speedy recovery. Cheers Kingpig

Hey Yakfishing I have 6 Okuma Avenger baitrunnres. I bougt them for my kids and liked them so I bought more for me. I use them with 6lb line and smaller. I have one spool for each with braid and one with mono. I bought my first one two years ago and none have of them have given me any trouble. I have even caught a kingfish on one while fishing for yakkas. Cheers Kingpig.

Use a bead on the line and then tie a stopper knot. The knot looks like a UNI-Knot. Get a piece of line about 30 cm long make a loop like you are going to tie a granny knot in this pice of line. Put the loop next to your main line and pass the tag ends around the main line and through the loop about 4 times. Pull the knot up not over tight. You should end up with a knot that will then slip up and down your main line to adjust depth. The best thing about this method is the bead will stay at the top float and will not get in the way when casting. Because the knot you tide on your line is small it will pass easily throuogh your runners when you cast. Cheers Kingpig

Guys I use a simple uniknot in the leader material and pul it up tight on the fly line so it bites in. I have used this method from 3 weight to 12 weight and have never lost a fish because to knot failed or broke. There are plenty of other methods and knots but this works for me. Cheers Kingpig

Guys. Just my 2 cents worth. Graphite rods are good, and I have a few, but I would not use one as rock rod. I many cases you are trecking into places long distances and over rough country through bush. When you get there you want to fish trouble free not walk back with your rod in two pieces. Over many years I have built some very nice rods. However, my rock gear is as basic as thay come. You know they are going to get damaged. I would stick to the schnider 7144 & 4144 in glass. If you want a bit more punch in the tip of the 4144 you could get a bent tip version if it still available. My blackfish rod is a Butterworth MTE5126G and is the best blackfish stick I have ever owned. Cheers and tight lines Kingpig

Guys I have fished rock all my life and for what it's worth I have never found a rod to do both the things you want. Currently I am using a 5126 for blackfish and 7144 for everything else. If I was going to chase groper than I would need to pull out the 9144. Reel seat positon depends on what reel you want to use. Alvey are good but line spin is always and issue. You can run two swivells if you want and this helps reduce the problem. I currently use an Alvey blackfish reel but use it as centre pin. The 7144 has a big Okuma threadline or my old favorite Mitchell. The gropper rod has a 9inch Alvey and the only reel it will ever see. Cheers and good fishing Kingpig

At the other end of the bay (North) is Bribie Island. I have fished this area into the bay around a few small sand inslands. The insland have fairly deep channels with a few large wooden markers. This was few year ago but most likley still there. The channel produced Long Tails, Mac Tuna and spotted mackeral for me as well as Big Eye Trevs. If you want the mackeral you will need to use wire. You should have a look on Google Earth. I fished this area a fair bit in 4.5M Quinrex Lazabout. Cheers King Pig

]Hey Guys Last week my Brother "Allen" My son "Joshua" a good freing of ours "Paul" and myself set of the fish Lake Awoonga. This is inland from Gladston and a big drive from Sydney but since my son and I were on holidays in Ballian and my brother and freind Paul both live in Ballina we got a chance to split the trip into two. We left Ballina at 2am in the morning and where past Gimpie befor sun rise. The idea was to get to the lake, set up camp and then fish for the rest of the first afternoon "Saturday 19th Jan". While setting up the camp we got the talk to a few of the guys already there and they all told us the fishing was hard and not many fish were being caught due to the weather. While I was setting up my tent I looked at a guy in a caravan behind us and got a big shock to see it was Rod Harrison. This guy is a legend of Australian Fishing being one of the first people to make fishing films in this country for all types of fish. By the way he is a great bloke easy to talk with, helpful with tips and advice and a good yarn over a beer. Anway back to fishing. We launched my brothers 4 meter webster and began to troll the lake. After a fair amount of time a few different lures were trialed my brother shout I'M on and turn to see a big barra jump out of the water. After a good fight lasting about 5 minutes during which my brother thought he was going to get spooled me mamaged to net his fish measure it and put it back for another day. This fish was 103cms and proved to be the only fish we got on this afternoon. Day 2. Up early and back on the troll. We trolled from sun up to just after 11am and did not get a hit. we tried everthing we could think of but no go. Back to camp to regroup eat and think about the afternoon session. We launched again at about 3pm and trolled until well after dark with no result. Just when we were about to pull the plug my brother and son got tangled after getting this undone there was one loop left that was wrapped around the first runner of my son's rod. I took hold of the line "40lb braid" to take the weight of the lure off the get the loop undone and SALM a fish hit the lure ripped the line though my hand cutting all four fingers. When the line came up tight on the rod runner it just snapped like cotton leaving me bleeding and P....sed off. Day 3. We decided that all the action was coming in the afternoon so we did not start early. We went into Gladston instead. You guessed it to the local tackle shop trying to replace the Mad Mullet lure lost the previous night. NO LUCK. Had a look around Galdston and then came back to Tennent Sands for essential supplies "beer". That afternoon we trolled a long way into the back of the dam with no result so we headed back to the basin in front of the dam wall and set up a trolling pattern in this area with me driving the boat. About an hour after sun set my son screams his on and after a good fight he land his first barra ever this one measuring 98cm and makes up for the disappointment of the previous night. We setup to troll again and the next pass within about 50 meters of where we got the previous fish my brother hooks up and lands a fish the measured 81cm. No more fish this night. Day 4. Trolled early up into some very shallow section of the lake to see fish tailing in the weed beds but no takes. Agian we did not get any fish until jaut after the sun began began to set in the afternoon. We troled along a steep drop off that showed big schools of bait. My son yells that he got a big hit and then nothing when he wound in the bib off his lure had snapped off the body not pulled out but snapped clean through. We started to troll again and I got a solid hook up but after the first burst the fish jumped and mamaged to throw the lure I estimated this fish to a small one of about 60cm form the look I got when he jumped. Felling a bit down we started to troll again and within about 30 minutes I got another good solid hookup and aftre a good fight landed my first and only barra for the trip the measured 89 cm. Our friend Paul then got one measureing 83 cm and in the next 15 minutes my son got his second fish for trip measureing 81 cm.Sorry I could not attach this pic to many on this post.. We headed back to camp with big hopes for the next day. When we woke up the next morning we were greeted by a gail force south east wind and a forecsat for the same for a few days so we decided to pack up and come home a day early. We all got at least fish and man do they hit. If you want a big barra there are some in this dam. Queesland fisheries stock 200,000 fingerlings into this dam annually. No licence is required to fish it and the facilities are good. A camp site cost less than $20 per person per day. Alll fish were caught on blue lures no other colour took a fish although plenty were tried. Takle was bait caster with 40ld mono our braid and 60-80 lb trace. If you get a chance do knock back a trip to this lake but you need t put in plenty of time to find where the warm water is 'over 26 deg is good' and where there the boney bream school after dark. Then just hold on. Cheers Kingpig

A few days after the flood peaked on the Richmond River earlier this month my son and I fished Ballina South Beach. For people that know this area we fished about one 1kl South of Patches Beach, this is about 5kl from the River mouth. We got to the beach early just after low tide and I had not trouble getting enough beach worms to for us both to fish in about 20 minutes. While I started to catch worms I asked my son to cast into a very good looking gutter that was getting a lot of sand stired by waves washing over a sand bar in front it. Within a few minutes he landed a nice bream and then before I finished worming he got a smaller one that was a throw back. We fished this gutter for about another 30 minutes landing another bream slightly larger that the first and a good whiting. We moved further South along the beach to find another spot that just looked like fish and sure enough it was. The bream were on fire. Every cast connected with a fish and it turned out to be a red hot bite. We would cast our baits into an area that was being churned up by the swell and let them wash into a gutter at the back of a sand bar and every time SMASH. In total we kept 12 bream and 3 whiting but returned a lot of the fish were not hooked deeply. One of the bream was the largest one I have caught for many years being 43cm and weighed in at the tackle shop at 1.344Kgs.

Hi all I have just got back this afternoon from Ballina. I have fished the Richmond River and around this area for the past 25 years. I will post about the fishing I did in the chat sections. What I wanted to discuss was the very large fish kill that took place over the past three weeks. We left Sydney on th 5th and drove straight into major flooding of the Northern Rivers. All the rivers from the Tweed down to the Clarence suffered from flooding but the Richmond got the biggest. The fish started to die about three days after the flood peaked. As I said I have fished this river system for the past 25 years and flooding always meant great fishing as the clean salt water pushed up the river. It was a time for good catches of flathead, school jew and bream. However three days after the flood peak, I went to launch my boat and found four good sized flathead many bream and some blackfish all sick sitting in the shallows on the boat ramp. I actually scoped up three flathead in my scoopnet. My son and I fished for two to three hours using fresh nippers close to the mouth of the river near the Porpose Wall and did not get a single bite. Over the next three days thousands of fish died. Jew fish, flathead, Bream, Whiting, Mangrove Jack, Blackfish, Mullet, Bass even Toads and Mud Crabs. In one day Ballina Council picked up 8 tonnes of fish from three or four small areas of foreshore. There is no way to know the total quantity of fish that were killed. The River and large sections of the adjencent beaches and 1 kl to sea are now closed to all form of fishing. This now the second large fish kill in the Richmond River after flooding the first being in 2001 when the river was closed for 7 months. The official reason given is rotting vegitation being flushed into the river and reducing the oxgen level so the fish drowned. These rivers have been subjected to frequent flooding in my liftime and I have never witnessed any fish kills before these last two. I do not know the answer but as a fisherman it was very upsetting and sickening to see fish of a liftime and the breeding stock of millions of future fish washed up on the bank of a river or the beach dead and rotting. Sorry this is so long Cheers Kingpig

I welded one on my old evinrude motor. I got a lot of news paper and put it in a bucket of water for days until it turned into a pulpy mess then packed this around my gerbox still fairly wet then welded the piece on. The wet paper mush stops the heat transfer and you will not get any distortion of the gearbox housing. Cheers Kingpig

I bought an Eagle Seacharter 502 with an external antenna. Currently $444.44 US this coverts to about $500 Aus. I recently say this unit in an Australian Boat magazine for over $1000. I did not pay and extra duty and the guy I deal with in the US could not have been any more helpful. The unit is excellent but being the only colour sounder I have owned I do not have anything to make a comparision against. Cheers Kingpig

I delt with a company in the US for my last sounder and they were great if interesed go this site. www.jandhproducts.com Good luck

A trick I have used and still use is to put a small piece of the rubber, the type used in bike vavles on the line above the hook. Put what ever hook you want in the fish and then slide the tube over the beak of the garfish. This is just like the rubber band but i find it a lot easier. I have used a lot of garfish for mackrel and kingies. Mackrel need wire and we use a two hook system one downwards through the beak were the mouth is and the other under the fish into the body near the vent. Then the tube over the beak with the wire through the centre. For kings we use a four hook gang no swivel. We put the hooks up into the fish from the bottom not in the side. Make sure you twist the bait to make it swim after yuo put the hooks in. Agin the tube is used to keep the beak straight. We aslo used a lot of garfish fo taylor of the beach. These are a great bait but seem to have gone out of fashion since pilchards became popular.

If the females are not changing shape with their bellies getting bigger then they are not pregnant. I would think that the babies of a few guppies will not be enough to feed your barra though. I used to catch the small mosquito gudgeons in the creek behind my place to feed mine. I also had a two large Jungle Perch and a big Sarratogo. Most of the time I fed them whitebait. Cheers Kingpig