chewie
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Posts posted by chewie
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Yep, that weather was hairy!
i was surfing the swell back to the ramp!
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well done!
what did the damage? nippers?
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I snuck out for a fish the last 2 days. Friday on Botany bay, and Today on the harbour.
Fridays main purpose was to target Blue swimmers and flick around some plastics.
We managed a few Flatties, Flounder and trevs and interestingly, we managed 4 crabs all of which were female with a belly full of eggs so we released them.
At about 4 we got absolutely smashed by the 40knot winds and it was fun crossing the bay back to the ramp but made it very hard to collect the traps.
Today we fished for a feed of whiting. We did well landing 9 with some nice big 41cm models thrown in. we also tangled with a few keeper bream and another pregnant blue swimmer.
We all came home with a nice feed. Its pretty cool how round the whiting is compared to the Powerade bottle.
Chewie
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Hey Kurt,
I saw that big school get smashed up that day with you.
i was out about 2 weeks ago with errol and we had a dolphin casually cruising along our bow with an 80cm kingie in its mouth.
Kings are definitely their prey.
chewie
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Well done boys,
Some ripper fish there, congrats on the PBs.
Bigger fish in the Hawkesbury?
Chewie
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And it was 50/50 on the catch rate. We just grabbed the rods when they loaded up next to us.
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Thanks for the replies raiders!
Like I said it was a cracker session. The larger models went 38ish.
Sand grouper and errol, behave! I recall cleaning all the fish!
As to getting the gf interested in fishing. Make sure it's comfortable, catch fish, preferably edible ones and have short sessions.
As to whiting spots, look on google maps for an area that's 90% sand with some scattered reef or weed in about 1.5 meters and your in with a shot. Whiting prefer shallower water and fresh live bait is a must if you want to target them. I try to fish out of the wind so its more pleasant and also allows you to try different spots.
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they are strong buggers to catch your whiting did you use berliy as we were waiting for fish to move into our area.apart from drifting in a boat i have not done much whiting fishing.
No, i didn't use burley either. i was fishing pretty shallow and they were hunting as the tide receeded on what washed off the flats. i would set a spread then when i found the fish i would focus on that area.
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I just posted a Whiting report aswell. Some Thumpers there mate. Its pretty amazing the strength of the little fish when you hold them in your hand.
Well done!
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With all this crazy weather driving me Bananas, I've been chomping at the bit to get out for a fish.
Opting for a cheeky Harbour landbased session, I fished for a few hours on Sunday morning. Armed with a bag of worms we found a spot out of the wind and had a cracker session targeting Whiting.
We ended up landing 12 Whiting, and a keeper Bream. We kept 8 for the table and released the Bream and 4 smaller keeper sized Whiting.
It was a great way to spend a few hours in the sun fishing with the girlfriend. I forgot how much i enjoy fishing for these little line burners.
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Mate,
Well done! Some awesome estuary fish there!
chewie
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hey mate,
i've got a pretty pimped out heavily modded Poly if you want to get some ideas your free to have a look. its also the 455.
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Nice mix Chewie
A bit of advice, don't let the goat fish go, they are awesome on the table!
Firm white flesh that's not to fishy in flavor, to eat I'd rate it better than snapper.
Greg
Thank Greg,
I might have to try one next time...i guess you would have to cook them whole as they look boney.
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Good report mate, that pretty much sums up the expedition. But, one thing you forgot to mention is the 2 (one each) 50cm flatties that we each tried to put in the live bait tank for safe keeping. Mine slipped out of my hands and quickly darted back to the depths and yours did the same about 20mimutes later! D'oh.
Yeah! Plus the two others at the boat! Lazy netting... A massive Aquarium full of those fish would have looked awesome including that six spine Jacket you caught. Almost tropical. Flattie for dinner last night and lunch today! Awesome!
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It's amazing the variety of fish you can catch off Sydney Chewie. When I first looked at your report, I thought you were colour coordinating your catch - just red/orange fish, but the banjo and flathead spoiled it!
Did you eat the goatfish? Just wondering what they were like. I've caught a few but never eaten one. And you can't go past a good feed of flatties.
A successful day just using lures. Did you find any particular lure or technique more successful than others?
Good report and great photos.
... and that baker's eyes keep following me!Cheers
Peter
Hey Peter,
Yes i Agree, the red Fish go nice with my Red PFD.
The Goatfish was released as we are pretty picky with what we normally take home for the table( we had Flatties as our target and i have never eaten a goatfish).
As with lures, i love the idea of the Octajig fluttering away down below. Its the first time i have used them so i look forward to giving them a shot in the next few outings.
We have been refining our Flattie drifting techniques and have found the larger plastics catch the better fish. This really means your not catching as many small flatties(although you still do get small couragous fish) so your keeper fish to smaller fish ratio is reduced. I did use a small fluro lobby/yabby which accounted for the Banjo but i was continually removing the smaller flatties while Sandgrouper was getting the Quality Fish. We both ended up using 7 inch gulps.
Another point to mention is if we are fishing in an area with heaps of jackets, we fish with cheaper non scented Plastics so we are not wasting a fortune on damaged gulps.
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Fished with SandGroper off Sydney yesterday. We experimented with a few different techniques and Lures and caught an amazing variety of Fish. Its awesome the colours and variety of fish we have at our fingertips and its always fun to pull in a few firsts, and some new PBs.
First up was a Pretty little Porcupine fish who even after being caught still looked like it wanted to eat the Octajig.
Then Some Bakers of all sizes and a Scorpion cod.
I was happy with this vibrant little Blue spotted Goat fish that took a liking to the octajig.
Then we had Double hookups on Barracouta, sorry no photos as we both tried to get the smelly things back into the water before blood and scales went everywhere…
We wanted to come home with a feed of Flatties so we changed tack and used the wind and drift to target them for a few hours.
The mixed bag of fishy allsorts continued, with this Colourful Fiddler/Banjo Ray in amongst the Flatties we caught. (It would have been nice to have been a thumper Flattie though).
We consistently caught flatties to 52cm and went home with some nice dinners.
Funnily, out of all the Flatties, they were all Eastern blue spot, with no marbled mixed in. I wonder if it’s a seasonal thing?
It was nice to be out on the water and catch such a colourful mixed bag and come home with a great feed using only Lures. When the wind dropped at about 2pm we headed back in.
Cheers.
Chewie
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NIce Fish!
I release all my big Flatties, Its always nice seeing them swim away and Its always nice Fishing those same areas in the future knowing those trophy fish are still down there somewhere.
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Hey Sam,
I would head out if i was you. The weather looks awesome and those days are few and far between.
You may struggle finding Kings in the Harbour this time of the year but Trevs, Blackfish, Flatties, salmon and big squid are all an option. The boat traffic will be fine, and a good chance to explore a new waterway.
Were heading out too.
Chewie
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whoa! looks like an AWESOME session!
Are you noticing the bite comes on with a certain tide? and are you finding the fish few and far between or stacked up holding in a certain spot?
well done,
Chewie
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Hey Kurt,
Yeah that was me you were talking to. That was it for our day. We pulled the pin after the dolphins. I forgot to take my fly rod out yesterday which would have been fun.
I'm glad the sambos have turned up. Looks like it will be a good winter.
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How Awesome was that this morning!
We were fishing the school following it around and managed 3 salmon before the 100's of Dolphins came in jumping at full speed. It was as if the Dolphins had located the school with their sonar from km's away. All of a sudden there were massive Dolphins everywhere herding the Salmon and smashing them out of the water. They were on such a mission. I have the same video from a different angle. I loved how all the fishos just put down their rods and picked up the cameras as the Salmon were no longer thinking about feeding only escaping!
it was awesome seeing them burst out of the water with the fish in their mouths!
chewie
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Hi Trung,
I have a side console polycraft 455 with a fully plumbed tank on the starboard swim platform. it fits nicely. i also run a rail mounted down rigger with a 10lb bomb on the port side. it works a treat.
chewie
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For 20 years I have read and wondered about the infamous Papuan Black Bass and for the last 3 days I have had the opportunity to finally fish for them.
I was in PNG for work and managed to organize 3 days fishing on the Aora river about 90 minutes out of Port Moresby.
Well what can I say… This type of fishing is tough with a lot of variables and frustrations.
The rivers are very dynamic, always changing and from what I have learnt you need to be quite lucky for conditions to be suitable enough to catch fish.
Water clarity, temperature, depth, log jams, snags and current all come into play and Landing a fish after hooking one is another thing entirely!
There were 2 of us fishing hard for the three days adopting techniques like those used when fishing for barra in the top end. The tackle used was super heavy, not unlike jigging tackle,stiff rods and reels with a heavy drag capacity 50lb braid 80lb leader was the minimum.
We cast at likely snags and trolled using various lures similar to Halco scorpions in the 125 size. And on the final day tried live baiting with Tilapia on heavier tackle again.
For the period I fished, the conditions were tough. We covered a lot of ground experimenting with different techniques fishing snags, eddys and where rivers joined creating colour breaks. Often one river would be clear green water whilst another was a murky Flat white brown colour.
Although primarily fishing for Black bass day one resulted in 6 barra all about a nice 65 – 70cm eating size.
Day 2 I managed 3 catfish while the guy I was fishing with landed 2 bass, the largest going 14lb.
I should mention these fish have been caught to 45lbs and an average fish is around 20lbs.
Day 3 was my last day and by lunchtime I had fished hard for not one single hit. I was fearing my time was running out.. Finally whilst trolling my lure got smashed and I brought the lure in with the back trebles totally ripped out of the lure. Lets just say I was very quiet for the next little while and really disappointed at the tackle failure. 3 days fishing for one 2 second hit (they have been called 2 second fish for this reason) Lure selection is so important as you need to use only really well constructed lures with the lure eye to back treble all connected with wire. Having the lure eye on the bib will not cut it as these bass smash like freight trains straight in to the snags and it really is quite unbelievable how they have the capacity to break lures.
Well, I was not beat, I re rigged and got another hit. It really does seem like they hit your lure on the way into a snag. You literally feel the hit and then you feel the fish pulling you through the timber and rainforest junk that has washed down the river.
I was stoked with my first bass landed, although no monster, I was so happy to land one after fearing the worst. It went 42.5 cm
(possible fishraider record)I had another big bass bust off pot-holeing snags with live tilapea. But again it hit and was buried in the snags by the time the rod loaded up.
Landing these fish really has so much to do with luck. If you hook them in open water you stand a chance but often there is nothing you can do. The snags are not like your traditional barra snags more like the tops of tree with vines, leaves and branches so you get heaps of snags with this style of fishing.
It is quite a frustrating style of fishing. The heavy tackle makes super accurate casts difficult and the matted rainforest hanging over the top only adds to this. Lures are constantly fouled by debris from the rainforest floating in the river
I fished hard for three days for 4 possible bass hits. Most lasting under 2 seconds. The conditions were not the best and I feel we did well to catch the Bass we did.
The area really is frontier fishing. In the 3 days there was no one else fishing the river and we rarely saw another person.
I should also mention that the guy who I was fishing with had landed a 61lb barra a 26lb GT and a 23lb bass in an area not far from the river we fished in the 10 days he got to fish. So there are definitely some massive fish to be caught in this region.
I hope I get the chance to fish for them again, next time I would love to be holding a 40 pounder! there is definately alot of mystery surrounding this fish.
Cheers,
chewie
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It looks like some sort of Goby. Possibly Long Finned Goby (Favonigobius lateralis)
... and that baker's eyes keep following me!
Flatties on the bite
in Fishing Reports
Posted
Nice catch Rob,
it certainly is a good hour of work prepping that many Flatties... This time last year i did the same taking flattie fillets to a grand final BBq. went down a hit. enjoy.
chewie