dwan8337

As the Hacking starts to die down, decided to hit Middle Harbour in search for some late autumn Kings hanging around past the spit bridge. Found a nice spot around Sugarloaf and started the burley trail. Wasn't long before good sized trevally started to show followed by some 65-70 specimen Kings. A steady burley trail really does keep fish around! just found myself a new favourite spot! All caught on pilchard cubes with 2500 sized shimano reels spooled with 8lb braid and 6lb leader. Must say any sized kingfish are great fun on light gear! Kept two for the table rest were released. Interested in how the salmon would taste as thai fish cakes

Cheers Scratchie!! they are definitely a bit less fussy this time during the year!

Hi Raiders, Morning coincided with a good tide so decided to hit the hacking again with Adrian and Shen despite the rain during the past week. Read that if the water gets murky there's a line between where the big boys use that to hunt in or just switch off the bite, so we were eager to find out. Launched the boat at 5:30 motored towards Gymea to look for any bait fish on the surface. Not much action here so headed towards Lilli Pilli. Found a cove with some pilchards hanging around so we anchored up and sent the burley out. Loaded up on Pilchards and yakkas sent two live baits down; one just off the bottom and one mid water. By sunrise there was still nothing substantial except some good sized Trevally that found their way into the burley trail. On the turn of the tide, as I was burleying i saw a yellow tail swim through the trail and I yelled at Shen to wind up the livie rod and pass it over to the back. Thought if i dropped it in the trail, the kingy might come back around for another look. Boy was i wrong..... Literally as the yakka hit the water, a kingy literally jumped out of the water from underneath the boat, swallowed the yakka in one go without even thinking about sizing it up first. I had no idea what was happening even though i saw the take, still thinking it was a god strengh yakka that was pulling the drag.... Adrian unhitched the boat and motored out to deeper water and from there it was relatively easy. Measuring 90cm, this was our biggest fish of the season. Hi-5's all round, we anchored up on the spot again and reset. As we ran out of live bait, we started cubing into the burley trail and managed to land 6 Watson's bonito. Every bonito we reeled in a key-ring kingfish followed it up so we'd keep the bonito in the water and hook up to the kingfish sitting underneath it before bringing it in. It was like working in a factory obviously non of the smaller specimens were kept but they were mad fun on Shen's 1000-sized setup. As they boys landed more fish, they got cockier and cockier. The leader went from 10lb to 6lb to 4lb progressively hahaha......The action died arounds midday so we packed up and called it a day. The fish Adrian's holding up was a sample of the key-ring kingfish schooled up under the boat.

Beautiful specimen!

Agreed, one of the more pristine systems in Sydney.

holy crap! the girth on that girl is insane...i think she grew side ways more than she grew length wise!

Haha we don't mind. We can hook up and just keep the fish in the water whilst the other boat hooks up If we do middle harbour we launch from tunks. Port hacking we launch from Swallow rock reserve.

Around Gymea bay and Lilli Pilli just sound out the baitfish and keep them there with your berley. The predators won't be far behind

Skimped a day off uni and my mate got given a day off work because he was working so hard... I think we just having a good run recently haha. I have a downrigger but it puts too much pressure on the plastic since the polycraft is polyurethane. Just a good berley trail and a round ball sinker drop to bottom and a couple winds up. Similar to what the botany charter guy does with his livies. Forgot his name but its on YouTube "the fish and the cook"

Conditions weren't great 25km winds, usually calm waters of the hacking looked like the open ocean. Me and two mates launched from swallow rock with only 2 other trailers parked. Motored to a relatively sheltered spot and started berleying for yakkas and pillies. Adrian brought his blow up kiddy pool in an attempt to keep the pilchards alive as their scales just come off so easily and die. Managed a fair few bite size yakkas and pilchards and down they went on the jig sticks paired up to the Stella 5000s. There's got to be some smoking kings in this system as one got reefed after the other on i'd say about 6/6.5kg drag settings. We lost count of the hookups but these were a couple of the kings we landed all about similar size. Ones that smoked us i'm calling 90cm-ish. The buoys and the anchor ropes all around you does not help the cause. After the kingy action died a watsons bonito lept onto one of the remaining livies and the rest of the time we spent berleying and cubing for trevs.

Yer there's cubes in trail all sizes, i go smaller don't want to feed them. Given the water isn't too deep i think smaller size cubes sink slower and stay in the opfkfpo longer

I second that. You can add a livie to the list of things you drop down once you got them berleyed up

Shhhhh haha port hacking is sydney's best kept secret ><

Around this time things get a little easier, the fish get a bit more desperate and less picky

Cheers buddy, just the right place at the right time

I suspect alot of them stick around during winter after they come in past the spit bridge in summer. There's enough yakka schools that stick around to support a few small kingy schools over the winter months. yer 70-76 would be the norm

Yer they seem to hit with less hesitation as there's less and less baitfish around

Hi Raiders, Sunday was an absolutely beautiful day to be out on the water with your best mates. The bonus? well of course getting onto some well deserved Kingfish action after a long week of 9-5 of whatever they call it these days. oh yer... Work disgusting 4 letter word. We started the morning collecting some yellow-tail inside middle harbour close to Tunks park. Loaded up on livies we motored around to clifton gardens and started the burley trail. Not long after, first mate Adrian pointed out that we were marking some big fish underneath the boat. I decided to have a bit of fun and chucked out a livie on his 2-5kg stick matched a stradic 2500. Down went the livie and within moments the drag starts singing, Adrian picked up the rod only this time didn't set it straight away. He knew he had ample time as there was no structure where we were. Plus he wanted the added fun in bringing in something that just took out 50m of braid. Knows how to get the most bang for his buck; shrewd bugger if you ask me Around 8 seconds later, he lifted the rod up gently but firmly allowing the fish to hook itself and the fight was on! I directed our apprentice Shen to drop the anchor while i started the engine ready for the chase. After a series of "back up back up", "forward forward", "neutral"....the Kingfish measuring a respectable 75cm was on deck with hi-5's all round. Truth is, he probably would have landed the fish without dropping anchor or motoring after it. However, after all agreeing to watching several episodes of Wicked Tuna Season 2 previously during the week, this had to be done Back to where we first started, the burley trail started again. Luckily the school didn't move too far and before long we were on again, only this time Shen tested out his baitrunner 4000D with his jewel snapper outfit. Adrian had dropped the anchor and we motored after this one again with Shen standing on the casting deck. Boy did that fish dish out some hurt on this baitrunner/jewel combo. 5 minutes later, wrists sore, back aching, another king on board. This time it measured 76cm. By the time we motored back to where we burleyed, the fish had moved on, and so did we. Middle harbour was where we planned to finish the day off. Autumn, Winter you'll find some very decent kings lurky around sugarloaf etc. so that's where we headed. Anchored up and out goes the burley cubes and livies. Half an hour later the sounder went berzerk, there was literally markings all throughout the water column. I lost count on how many kings we landed. Most memorable was where I managed to hook up and bring one in on a surface lure. We kept two for the dinner table and the rest were released. Can't wait for this weekend Oh i forgot to mention there were a few stonker bream mixed in there as well the biggest measuring 40cm.

25 Grand! brand new spanking 4 stroke for ya or a very good 2nd hand boat =(

Cheers Dave

I cannot fathom what a 70 would do last couple of weeks there were some common bonito mixed in there, but this week only the Watsons. i've noted they rock up around this time late March all through to May.

I had a size 2/0 live bait mustad hook. We were cubing with pillies and luring at the same time. So the bonnies that follow the lures and don't take eventually takes something else. I find the live bait hooks bury into the cubes better without showing any part of the the hook except for the eye which is important. My mate prefers small tuna circle hooks because its too tiring for him to set the hook =p Rig's nothing special just weightless floated down the trail.

Just luck! the Bonitos in distress must of got this trev interested

Cheers mate! Yer I've landed some 45-50's at Clifton gardens during winter and around middle harbour but this one just tops it off! Even seeing colour my mate called it a kingy i called it a trev...you know it's something when you can see the fish and don't know what the hell it is Dave

Narh we let this big boy back to fight another day. Bonnies are definitely my favourite sashimi if you bleed and ice straight away. Try the one with the fish slice on top of the rice ball+soy sauce and wasabi =p they are heavenly if prepared right.