[squidding out of the yak in the bay]

great report there mate, ive had a yak for a few years and bought a tinnie with a 25 on the back last year, reading these type of reports makes me think i should be doing more yak style trips lets you get right into the rocks with worrying about prop and hull damages too i guess.

yeah, what I love about the yak is the ease in transporting it compared to the boat. I don't work too far from the bay, so come summer and daylight saving... You'll see me down there in the yak, either squidding or trolling a squid around for kings.

nice squid but Where will you mount the downrigger???

hehehe I've got the perfect spot all reserved for the little Scotty downrigger Luke.

Stuff paddling around Zarn stick to boat i say ...

Chris

the yak for the little kings, the boat for the big boys Chris.

Damn, nice Kingie bait mate, that or dinner !

they ended up being dinner, either way you can't lose

just wondering where in the bay did ya get the squids ?

Hi mate, just find some kelpy waters and you'll be in with a chance, but I was squidding around Frenchmans Bay.

Get ready zarn summer is on it's way put the yak back in the garage and get the beast out

Catch ya later

Luke

it can't come soon enough Luke!!! just counting down the days... feels like it's been ages.

hey man thought it was you.. saw you trolling a squid at molli.. i was in the ally craft bow rider we were just watching lol.. hoping u would hook up something as we didnt get no bites...

heya Tan!!! shite! yeah I saw you guys as well but I couldn't tell if were you or not, you should have yelled out to me or something. Yeah trolling that squid around, I was just hoping something, anything would take it, just for a little fun. Only could do one pass as I promised the mrs I would be back in time for lunch.

Nice squid as always. Thanks for sharing.

We were in the bay yesterday as well midday till about 5.30pm. Thousands of bait fish showed up on the sounder. They just wouldn't stop, we were hoping for some kings come after them, but still not yet. Different story if it was summer. Kicking myself for not whipping out a squid jig and practicing, instead of mucking around with the bait fish.

hey buddy! yeah practice squidding as often as you can, and when those kings come around, you'll have some candy for them , good luck!!!

[squidding out of the yak in the bay]

Hi Raiders,

I've had my peekaboo Ocean Kayak for over a year now, seemed like a great idea at the time but with the arrival of my second child, it's been collecting dust ever since.

A year on, I thought I'd start putting it to some use, so over the last week, decided to leave the boat at home and take the yak out for some squidding sessions out of the bay, a mate just recently got himself a hobie as well so we decided to hit the bay yesterday, and I wanted to see if he could peddle his revolution against my minnkota powered yak. Let's just say I smashed him at first!!! but he got me back when my battery died and I had to paddle a yak that had at least another 10-15kgs on the hobie.

Ended up with some squid, and the DIY bait tank which was just a plastic container box with some holes drilled into it and attached under the lid of the peekaboo worked really well, no pumps and no hoses required. Trolled one of the squid down around molli point but no takers, water temp is still sitting around 17 degrees. The paddle back from molli point back to Frenchmans with a 10-15knt head wind almost killed me, need a bigger battery I think.

Can't wait when the kings come in, would love to feel a king tow me around a little in the yak.

[Squiding in the shallows]

thought the landbase squidding you did a while back was pretty good, but put you on a boat and you're unstoppable! we all know who's going to be smashing them kings when they come in pretty soon

and look at that collection of jigs! I do understand the obsession however, I stock up the same, sometimes I have so many that I am lost for which ones to try

I see that you have some of those daiwa emeraldas jigs, do you find them any good?

hope those squid land some big fish on your offshore session, you've definitely put in the hard work for them, good luck!

[Kingfish Jigging Video]

one word buddy! AWESOME!

i feel drained just watching that video

[12 mile kingy]

Great work Nick! These are the reports we've all been hanging out for. Hopefully they'll be at our doorsteps soon. What size jig did you get it on?

[Bonnie Plague in the Bay 27/7 - now with video]

That's a great session.

One of those squid looks huge, what did the hood measure.

Not too sure, but it was bigger than any of the bonnies hehehe, if I had to guess, i'd say about 40cm'ish

Bonnies go great in a thai green curry when you get sick of eating them sashimi !

thanks mate, will definitely need to give that a go!

Love ur work. must of been fun.

hey buddy, yes it was fun, but you should have seen Formosan. I had to practically take the rod out of his hands so we can go for kings

[Personal Best on Squid]

Land base, stopped from place to place wherever i saw flat rocks and wasn't hard to get to or dangerous, i stopped and flicked, some places i caught 1 to 2 and some places was 1 to 3. noticed sitting in one spot its hard to get them in numbers unless they are there in numbers any way, so i don't spent too much time in one spot if its not happening.

U were land based! Wow! Even more impressive! Well done!! Definitely agree with the moving, same goes when you're on a boat

[Bonnie Plague in the Bay 27/7 - now with video]

nice catch, im very suprised to see there are still plenty of bonnies around this winter. They all look like the same size we have been catching all through summer and autumn.

Nice squid too, i see you are still pulling in some big ones.

cheers

Dangas

thanks buddy! yeah they were everywhere! everywhere we casted, we'd hook up. those squid made for some great salt and pepper squid.

Nice Vid guys.

Re the gopro, have you used it off the water? how does it compare to a normal video? Id like to get one But I'd need to justify it to the mrs that it could film the kids as well. otherwise...

Cheers Luke

heya Luke! awesome off the water as it is on the water. I've recently used it for my boy's 4th birthday party, and the full hd video it does is quite awesome!

[Bonnie Plague in the Bay 27/7 - now with video]

Thanks all for the positive feedback. I forgot to mention that they were just off the heads on the south side.

Top haul their champ! Those squid look so yum, do you eat the bonnies? and if you do, how do you cook them?

Yes the squid always go down well with the Mrs and kids, and as for the bonnies, what Groper said. But my mum cooks them an asian style, not too sure the exact description but I think she caramelises them. Very nice!

I personally think they are gun bream bait as well, so kept a few fillets for them.

crazy haul there

gee you guys braved the wind.

but then if i could on my hobie, i would too

hey buddy, wind wasn't too bad, but yeah might be a bit too rough on the hobie, you still getting them jews on blades?

great report and pics as usual guys can't wait to see the video

thanks mate, from the first cut I've seen, it looks pretty good

Hi what are you showing on sounder, the bonnies or squid grounds.

don't we all wish it was squid! hehehe nah, that's bonnies. if I can ever get a sounder pic of squid, you guys will be the first to see it.

Hey buddy,

Good to hear you managed to get out. I managed to get on the bay on Wednesday. Only managed one salmon. Those Bonnie's and squid look great. Top effort as usual. I can't wait for summer to come back and chase them kings

Cheers Daniel

hey buddy! yeah I think we all are waiting for summer to arrive! hopefully we can get onto a a hoodie or 2

[Personal Best on Squid]

awesome job on the squid buddy! u headed all the way down to kiama? where did you launch from?

[Bonnie Plague in the Bay 27/7 - now with video]

Hi raiders, Formosan and I decided to give the hairy's a miss this time and hit our home turf for a possibility of a winter king or 2 Started the day as usual flicking around some squid jigs to get some kingy candy, after an hour or so we had the tank full of ink, 2 nice size ones and 4 monsters. Also put our new daiwa emeraldas jigs to the test and they didn't disappoint!!! We didn't "GUN" it out to the kingie grounds this time, but instead decided to troll the x-raps first, and we get hit straight away. For the next 2ish hours, we forgot all about the kings as we were having a ball with the bonnies, they were absolutely EVERYWHERE!! Glad I spent the night before installing my new HDS 5 Gen 2 sounder, it showed great detail and as the pic shows, fish everywhere!!! Once we hit our bag of bonnies, we decided to do what we set out to do, this time we "GUNN'ed" it to the kingie spot, but after countless passes, not a touch. Headed back to the heads to see if we can have some fun with the bonnies again, but this time with the light gear, and they were still there, spent another hour just spinning the x-raps for countless bonnies which were all put back in the drink. No kings but the bonnies made up for it. We also put our new go pro hero2's to the test and the video quality these things produce is pretty awesome, Formosan's busy editing so he'll post it in a couple of days.

[Humps Friday]

Bad luck on the reds Luke, we were planning to head down to bellambi as well but had a change of plans and went to the bay instead. Didn't do too bad, report on it a little later.

[Hawkesbury/Cowan creek]

Easiest lures in the world to troll bud, put em back about 30 metres or more behind the boat and between 3 and 6 knots works a treat, we bagged 8 Bonnie's and 3 big tailor doing this on the weekend... Best part is after you have hooked up knock the boat in neutral and crank the remaining lures in and if your using threadline you can have a spin while your mate handles his fish, action breeds action!

Thanks for the info mate! So I assume the lures will sit just below the surface? I've only been trolling rapala divers, might give the chromies a go next time.

[Hawkesbury/Cowan creek]

Hey mate we have had some luck on frigate mackeral, tailor and bonito in the last few weeks. Have just been trolling tiny chrome lures from Apple tree bay all the way up the hawkesbury and if we see some big groups of bust ups in a bay we'll stop and flick towards them. Hope this leads you to some fish! Am heading out tomorrow so hoping there is some fish around!

Mark

hey hiles, maybe it was you guys a couple weeks back at the cleaning table with a very decent catch of bonnies

if you don't mind me asking, how do you troll the chrome lures?

[Sydney Bluefin Tuna - 12/07/2012]

There we go! Been waiting on this report and pics! Ur phone call on thursday arvo got me so hyped up. Awesome job buddy! bet the fin tasted real good as well!

[A little bit hairy - 6/7/12]

We had a cracking session on them at smiths creek as well as a school of kings came through which was a massive eye opener,

Did you end up getting onto any of those kings? how big did they look? on a previous week, we saw them busting up outside north of WB, we got the lures ready but this massive boat ran straight over them and they went deep.

Sounds like i picked the wrong night! Went out to WB on Saturday for a donut. Grabbed a few yakkas and legal snapper at west head but when we arrived (6pm) it was quite crowded. Around 15 boats in there which isn't a lot compared to what theres been lately but still very crowded. Over the next 4 or so hours we didn't even get a bite. Not even the bream/jewie rods had a bite! Pretty slow... I guess thats fishing though.. I'll be out soon chasing those silver bastards! AGAIN.

Cheers, Tom

Hey Tom, that's hairtailing for ya, sometimes they are red hot and other times it's pretty hard. It makes even harder when there are that many boats in there.

Nice haul, We got a good few on Thursday night and also smoked by a king.

Have to ask what is your method to set the hook on these hairtail?

I lost twice as many as I caught, not sure how to hook them when you see the tell tale 'slow loading' of the rod tip.

Very exciting catching something so unique, see ya out there!

Shame about the kingie, did it feel like a decent size?

Nice batch of fish,

With all the amount of boats targeting these fish you done pretty well.

thanks buddy!

can't complain with that

Not complaining at all but it did take me 3 trips to finally get a decent haul.

Cracking mixed seafood feast, top looking catch guys.

Chris.

thanks Chris

[Dollies one week... Hairtail, Squid , Flatties, Tailor the next !]

Hey Raiders

Back from a quick holiday and managed to find the worst charter in Hawaii. Caught a stack of Dollies on the troll on 6 million sized rod/reels... the gear was that heavy rod never bent and we just winched in all the fish... i would rather mow the lawn than to go out with that mob again. Also, found out the "captain" of the charter boat owns all the fish that is caught even though you pay $800 to go on his stupid charter!!! (they sell the fish to the local eateries i was told).

Here is a picture of me with the captain's catch!!! Cock..

Anyway, back to Sydney was with all the reports of Hairtail I had to give it a shot. Being a complete Hairtail virgin with absolutely no ideal what to do, where to go I flicked Quintrex480 a PM for some help (thanks mate!). A few emails later and a quick read of the fishraider hairtail article off we went in the polycraft to Cowan Creek for a crack of these cool looking beasts.. Left home late, a bucket of KFC and missing the turn off to the ramp meant we did not get into the water until 9:30pm.

Rigged up a few rods and even before our balls had a chance to freeze due to the cold we on! High fives all round when the first fish hit the deck! Landed a few and dropped plenty also... had a good run which we suspected was a good jew. All up a great night out and happy with our first attempt at hairtailing

Sunday, had nothing to do so hit the Bay at 2:30pm to see if there was anything around... meet Formosan and Aeroguard at the ramp as they were about to head home, good see you guys again! The plan was to get to squid and flatties for dinner... fished till sunset and got 3 massive squid, 4 tailor and a small 50cm flatty home for dinner. Happy days once again, so good to be back in the water

Cheers

Trung

hahah you serious buddy? you paid $800 for the captain to keep the fish?!?!?! WTF! you can pay me $50 to come on mine and I might let you keep a bream or something!

well done, you've lost your hairy virginity! top session for your first time! all good with the help buddy.

welcome home! now just for summer to come so we can get onto them kingies again! can't wait!

[A little bit hairy - 6/7/12]

Hey mate- great catch! How did you manage to get on the water at 4pm..don't you have the thing called a job to go to?

Sh1t ... I was also at WB on Friday night for the first time so I must have seen your boat light there in the dark... we rocked up at about 9:30pm and was the northern most boat away from everyone else (I think we were a bit loud!!). We got a few hairy bastards also!

Was very surprised to see only 4 or 5 boats fishing there all night concidering how good the conditions were .

Cheers

Trung

getting on the water at 4pm is all good when you're the top dog!

so it was you guys that was making all that ruckus! was thinking to myself, "what bloody hoons!, don't the know hairtailing is a quiet affair!" ahahhah

yeah I think it had been a bit quiet of late in the hairtail for the reason why there weren't too many boats that night, should have seen the number of boats in the last few weeks there, thought I made a wrong turn and was at Mollineax Point.

Excellent mate top bag yet again

wish to catch something apart from bream & trevally .

Chris

Anytime you want to try for them buddy, more than happy to lend a helping hand to yourself and your dad.

Nice hairys they looked good size about them. Top effort. Are you starting to enjoy Cowan.

thanks buddy, well this session was going to be the final straw, the last 2 attempts have been miserable failures. The difference this time as mentioned is there was a sh!t less number of boats.

[A little bit hairy - 6/7/12]

Hi raiders, headed to Cowan for another shot at some hairtail, had a couple of failed attempts in previous weeks so wanted to really get onto them this time.

Got on the water around 4pm and decided to troll around with the rapala for a possible kingie but only ended up with a nice salmon.

With night falling, decided to camp down inside WB, the bite got hot around 8ish and continued on till 11pm, not that they weren't biting still but promised the wife that I wouldn't be home too late, so we "left them biting again"

Got onto a nice flattie at 62cm, a new PB for me.

[PB Kingfish]

F'in me!!! That is huge!!! That's a fish of 2 life times! Awesome fish mate, now not to get my hopes up too high, was this caught out of Sydney by any chance?

[ROSEVILLE KINGFISH! - 30/6/12]

ahahaha no pic mate. They new what they were doing though. Fishing with chicken strips for big bream!

AHH DOH!

now a couple of chicks who know how to fish!! think I might have to pay Roseville a visit sometime soon. ahhaha

[Tonight was a bit Hairy!]

well done mate! you did much better than me, I was there last night and they they just weren't around, could not pick them up on the sounder when on previous weeks they'd be everywhere.

but we did manage a mix bag of soapies, breams and flatties, and a massive stingray that took my livie which had me fooled for a big jewie.

[ROSEVILLE KINGFISH! - 30/6/12]

awesome report Tom! and well done on the kingie on such light gear. A kingie in winter is worth 5 summer ones I reckon!

did you take a picture of the Chinese girls? mind sharing?

[beecroft ledge]

hey mate, shame about the fg knot failing, whatever it was it must have been massive!

I have been thinking of changing to this knot, my current knot is very strong but it's annoying how it always gets caught up in the guides.

But now that I've read your post I am not so sure about switching, would you mind answering what part of the knot failed? how heavy is the braid/leader you were using?

thanks

[Never try never know]

You the MAN Felix! sheesh 17!!! awesome job buddy!

I was out there on Friday night with the 101 other boats as well , it was tough going, we managed a few takes but couldn't hook up, but ended up with a salmon and a few bream.