chewie

Top Fish! GO the Poly!

Well Done. I have the same goal this year, just need to get out! Awesome report.

Awesome pic!

Awesome!

Hey mate, You will definitely catch more Squid on your jigs. Sometimes the squid can be super aggressive and will smash plastics and other lures but the jigs are 100% designed to catch Squid. one bit of advice is fish your jigs dead slow. also learn your different jigs sink rates and try and keep them about 2 foot from the bottom on your whole retrieve. once a squid hits go gentle on them as their tentacles are super soft. just slow constant pressure and you will land them. Nothing worst than loosing a Squid from too much pressure. its probably easier to catch them from the shore too.

Whats the water Quality like in the Bay? the Harbours filthy at the moment... too much run off. plenty of Bonnie and Tailor schools though with a few kings mixed in.

Nice way to end the year! Sounds like there are a lot of fish about. Lets hope the weathers kind and we can all have a bumper season.

Thanks Iceman.

Any ideas on the names of these reef fish caught in the Whitsundays? (thinking wire netting cod or honeycomb cod) we caught a few and called them giraffe fish. Frog fish? it didnt have a lot going for it as it stank too! (blue bone/ bald chin tuskfish? parrotfish(surf?)

Yeah, i agree that its easy to take too many from an area. The spot i have been fishing has only produced keeper sized fish so far with no smaller ones mixed in. I have seen a few spots with the spawning whiting stacked up in big schools of up to 30 fish but at different times during the year. Apparently, they spawn twice a year and the larger ones are generally female as they grow faster after becoming sexually mature. Some good info on growth rates and Spawning can be found in this article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_whiting

Thanks for the replies guys. That weird looking fish is a remora close up and it's pretty easy to take post card shots up there.

I have just returned from a week Bareboating the Whitsundays. What can i say but it its a fantastic place to go boating and the fishing is awesome! Having been planning the trip for quite some time i took all the gear i could possibly use as i didn't want to let any chances slip me by. The weather was great and the wind changed direction half way thru the trip allowing us to visit both sides of the Islands comfortably. We had a great time fishing the area mainly using lures. some memorable sessions included tangling with some big Mac Tuna, i Managed one to 81cm on my 4-6kg Shimano Raider Rod before my GF got spooled after about 15minutes when a suspected big shark grabbed the tuna on one of its last dives. I've never been spooled before and its a pretty shit feeling as you can see it happening all of a sudden then suddenly your left with a smoking spool and the last image of the backing burnt into your brain. Chasing these speedsters was a fun challenge in a boat that went 8knots! The flats fishing was awesome! we had one session catching Big eye and golden trevally to about 40cm on our 2-4kg outfits sight casting around the mangroves to hoards of hungry fish while watching sharks, rays, turtles, big shovel noses, milkfish and mangrove jacks cruising around under us. what an amazing sight to have all to yourself.(ps- the gf totally outfished me in this session and i am jealous not to have caught a Golden Trev!) I really wanted to catch my first spanish mackeral and put in a fair bit of time in the pursuit. I trolled on most days between anchorages, fished baits on balloons out the back of the boat and fished bommies where i got absolutely dusted up by a big GT. The GT's were awesome to see and proved to be fish of a thousand casts. when you got a follow from a pack of the brutes over a meter long it gave you the shakes and enough of an adrenalin hit to forget about your fatigue from casting the heavy gear! On the second last day my efforts with the Spanish paid off where it all happened in textbook game fishing style. trolling a big Qantas colour diver i saw a lone bird dive into the water in front of the boat. As we past over the spot the sounder showed a tightly packed bait ball and then watching the rod out the back we got our hit. and although not a big fish, it was so nice to finally put the research to good use. We caught fish with most styles of fishing we tried from plastics to Baits. I did put in a bit of time with some skirts in the hope of a small black marlin or a sailfish but they didn't read the script. For a Holiday, i cant recommend it enough. its comfortable boating and there is heaps to do. we managed over 20 species of fish with 2 species of squid (including a very aggressive long thin arrow squid that hunted in packs) and even caught mudcrabs in the mangroves. Although the fish were not large for their species they were easy pretty easy to catch. The wildlife is awesome with turtles, dolphins and tonnes of fish to see. the friendly batfish are simply amazing as they wait to be fed pieces of bread at the back of the boat and yes, i was good and didn't feed them any bread with a hook in it. A couple of things i found was that the humidity is hell for braid tangles casting light lures and the Asari Mahi metal lures with the single owner hooks proved the best piece of gear i took up catching heaps of species. I'll pop a few shots into the fish id section to get the names of a few weird fish we caught from our QLD raiders. tight lines Chewie

Top whiting mate. I've been continually catching 41cm models on my last few outings. I'm now planning a evening session soon to see if the bigger ones bite at night. Top fish!

WOAH! World class fishing fellas, Who needs to go to NZ with fish like those on our doorstep! That popper take would have been epic!

Yes i agree this is a very sad decision. The sign of a healthy ecosystem is the presents of mega fauna( ie large predators) in the system. From someone you fishes the Sydney region frequently, i am enjoying the rebirth of a system ( since the buy out of commercial fisherman since dioxins and the ban of kingfish traps). This year at Sydney Heads we have constantly seen the amazing scene of dolphins herding and smashing bait balls (of salmon- to the dismay of us fisherman) , i've seen kingfish in the mouths of dolphins, and the presence of many seals in the harbour which are the signs of a healthy system. for commercial fisherman the Australian salmon is an easy get. its easy to just trawl an obvious school and thats what will be "bait" for their catch. maybe they should use a little of their dead "by catch" and recycle that as bait... living in a major world city, this is pretty depressing... the hawkesbury system is in no way what it once was and i wonder what the value of commercial fishing is compared to the value of what it would be if rec fishing and ecotourism (as it has the ability to be) would be compared. on a side note. this year i had the privillage of witnessing the sardine run in sth africa. predators everywhere... filming such an awesome event only to return and see similar event in sydney made me proud. we have something special in the making and its still only early days. Maybe we should just give it a little more time to see what happens. after all apparently it just over bait????

Sounds like an awesome session! Everyone loves massive flatties! Good luck cracking a meter... I'm still trying.

I'm sure all raiders have been stunned, if not amazed by their pbsf, i'ld like to start off submitting a thumper king! can anyone upstage? It chased down a 65 gram Raider lure meant for something a lot larger. It would have been awesome in a fishtank.

Again we found kings both inside and outside of the harbour. Erroll, we definitely gotta get out soon. It's going off!

You can reliably find poddie mullet at points where storm water drains meet the harbour. Glebe park, rose bay, ruscutters bay, double bay to name a few. Also on the flats at clontarff. The trick is to burly up heavily with bread and catch them in the shallows. If i use a bait trap I put it so it's only an inch below the water so under 1 foot deep. If i see fish in deeper water, I'll use a handline and small pieces of bread. Generally over any of the harbour flats, if you set a burly bread trail floating mullet will turn up sooner or later, often good sized ones too.

We managed to get out on the harbour early this morning and were met once again with ripper conditions. Yakkas were easy to come by and its always fun when kings, Bonito and Snapper turn up in your trail while collecting bait. It seems that there is heaps of bait in the system and predators are starting to bust up on the surface more regularly. We ended up landing 4 kings, 2 being keepers and had a fair few missed hits with destroyed Yakkas coming back to the boat in a state of rigamortis. by about 12 the wind had well and truly kicked in so we called it a day. The Kings are becoming more consistent and turning up all over the place.

I was in the water by 6am and was greeted with a perfect Sydney morning. Yakkas were thick even taking bare hooks. In no time we were off in search of a few kings. We managed probably about 12 kings for the morning with schools found both inside and outside of the harbour. Plenty of double hook ups with fish smashing sluggos and yakkas often hooked fish had their mates with them to the boat making for a awesome session. We kept 3 for the table. Damn i had forgotten how hard they go! What Combos are people using for casting plastics at kings this season? The fish were all fired up today i hope its a sign for the season!

Awesome kings mate, great fun from a yak!

Awesome King mate, + 1 for the Saltist 40h its my fav king reel.

Ripper king mate! Well done. I hope to tangle with a beast like that this season!

Hey Jack, Bundeena is a fantastic place to fish. You just need to decide what species your after as most can be caught there. If your staying at the campground at Bonnie Vale you can collect Nippers close by if you have a Nipper pump. These are the number one estuary bait and you can pretty much guarantee coming home with some keeper fish. There are also some good Rock fishing options with bait available at the spots. i grew up there so PM me and i can tell you a few spots depending on what you want to fish for. chewie