Mousse

After a couple of quiet trips off the rocks targeting Pigs and Groper, I decided to use a Plan B next time I went, and use 2 rods. The first would be my regular outfit, Alvey 650 and running sinker straight down to hook. Peeled banana Prawns as bait and just casting into the wash and berlying with bread. The second is a Penn 750 Slammer, and this I rigged swivel, float, swivel, sinker, swivel, long trace and 3 ganged mustad hooks. Whole Pilly as bait. First few hours were really quite, and I needed to keep reeling in the Penn to cast out further to my right as the current had my float way off to my left in a few minutes. I kept persisting with this right to left drifting...and then it all started to happen! The penn drag started screaming so I ran to grab the rod and set the hook, but I heard a grind in the reel as I did so, and all of my drag was gone! What a time for my reel to break! After a few minutes of swearing to myself, and considering what to do, I decided to rig the Alvey like I had the Penn. So out it went...first cast. ... Solid Sambo! Finally getting some action I was eager to get my line out again, so rigged another pilly and out went the second cast.... Third.... And fourth and last! A great result after a hard day...fishcakes for a week! Guys, any tips on what else I can target using this common rig? Maybe a different bait? Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note II via Tapatalk mobile

I like Schneider Klearline. I use 20 pound on both my Alvey and Penn and find it perfect off the rocks. Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note II via Tapatalk mobile

They pull pretty hard don't they? Thats what I caught it in too, marty, a whole prawn... Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note II via Tapatalk mobile

Only one fish to feed so many people...I think I may need Jesus and a loaf of bread Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note II via Tapatalk mobile

After a couple of weeks where my days off aligned with the huge swells and heavy rain - I was itching to get back onto the rocks again. I bought a kilo of Raw Banana prawns lat night, up at a quarter past five and on the rocks by 6:15am. I was rugged up, rigged up, burlyed up and ready to go! I noticed that the water was very dirty from the rains we've just had, but I have no idea if this makes a big difference to the fish or types of fish showing up. I was chasing my usual suspects - Pigs, Groper and Bream or Tarwhine. Peeled a prawn, on it went onto the Mustad 542 and finally my first cast in 2 weeks! The first hour was slow, but I usually have luck in the mornings 2 hours either side of the tide changes, and low tide was at 9.30am this morning, Right on cue, I get a big hit and hook up. I though at first Tarwhine - as my last couple of visits I've landed 40cm plus models from the same spot on the same bait (prawns and cunje) and the fight felt exactly the same. When it started to come to the surface I saw a red color which had me doing that quick guessing thing you do as you're reeling in a fish. Snapper? It couldn't be it didn't fight like one and I've never seen any caught from this spot. As I pulled it up over the edge I was very surprised! A 42.5cm Red Morwong! I have never caught one before, and I guess I must be watching too many fishing shows and reading too many mags to have guessed it. Very distinctive for those who've seen or caught them before. There was another fisho there, a nice bloke, who was walking by, and he said he'd caught one off the rocks thirty years ago and never seen them caught off the rocks here before, only the reef. The rest of the day was tough - the wind picked up a little and changed to a Northerly which made it a bit uncomfortable. So I decided to call it a day, pack up and go home and cook my fish! Very tasty indeed!

Thank you for all of your nice comments everyone. What a great bunch of people you all are on here! I feel privileged to be part of a community with great people who share my passion. Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note II via Tapatalk mobile

Thank you for all the nice comments guys! Even though he caught the fish - I was just as excited and happy as I had reeled it in myself! And yeah Rob - it is a fishraider record - I know because my 43cm model which I caught a few weeks back was in top spot!

Hi Raiders, I had been wanting to take my uncle fishing with me for a while - but he's getting on a bit in age now and we don't live really close to each other any more. With busy lives and health issues it's near impossible to get him out on the rocks I know well. When I was a young kid - it was he who would take me fishing to places like Bundeena, Wisemans Ferry, The entrance and Tom Ugly's. It was mainly bread and butter species like Bream, Flatties and whiting - nothing really arm busting, but great memories and heaps of fun for a young kid. Fast forward a couple of decades and he's been getting really worked up about the pics I'm showing him of 40cm plus Tarwhine and 50cm plus Drummer and Groper I've been regularly landing from my favorite Botany Bay rock spot . "We've got to go fishing together!" We'd always tell each other, but it just never seemed to work out. Finally, he decided that he's up to it, so I bought him a pair of cleats, rigged up my second rod and Penn 750 reel with 25 pound Shneider mono and picked him up 5.30am Wednesday morning. As we were driving from his place down to the bay - it brought back heaps of fond memories - just with the roles reversed! I was the one doing the driving, rigging, choosing the spot, getting the bait, burley and he was the one coming along for the ride! I have to say, it felt great to be able to repay the favor. Now to the report! Willy weather had the swell at 1.8m, which was usually comfortable coming from the South. Now I don't know what it was but the ferocity of the swell made it seem like they got the 1 and the 8 the wrong way around! No way was that 1.8!! Luckily the spot I fish from is still very much sheltered from direct waves from any swell from the south, but they were still breaking up to our left and spraying us making it uncomfortable, but not in any way dangerous. "See, that's why I made you wear your cleats!". It was cold and overcast - perfect bream and drummer weather. I rigged up his rod with a no 2 ball sinker straight down to a Mustad 542 hook. Baited up with half a peeled raw King Prawn, and out into the wash it went. As I was rigging up my Alvey, I heard him laughing with delight and turned around to watch him reel in a nice mid 30cm bream! Great start! First cast - keeper! I unhooked it, put it in the esky, and baited him up again. As I was baiting up my own outfit, he snagged his. So I put mine down and busted him off and re-rigged it again. Payback for the days he used to do that for me as a kid! I had been telling him about all of these kilo plus fish I'd been catching from here - and over the next half hour or so we landed a few small drummer - all throwbacks and another keeper bream smaller than the first. I was really hoping that one of us would land a whopper - then it happened! His rod buckled over and he started screaming in excitement! "It's a big one! Michael it's big, it's big!" "Relax!" I told him, "Keep reeling!". I was expecting a drummer, but as it came closer I started to see a silver body thrashing about! It was a Monster Tarwhine!! I grabbed the line and helped lift it up on to the rocks and it was really a whopper! A couple of weeks ago I caught one which went 43cm. When I measured this one...48cm!!! The look on my Uncles face was one I won't forget for a long time. I am so glad that I gave him this opportunity and had the chance to create a memory doing something we both love before he gets too old to do it at all. He might not be able to get out to spots like this very often - but this trip makes up for all that! The rest of the day we got another Tarwhine, a 35cm Drummer and another couple of legal bream. A great feed, and a great day!

Haha probably. ..the idiot I am! Usually if a fish is small enough to need measuring to see if its legal..it gets thrown back before measuring anyway. Like this guy: Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note II via Tapatalk mobile

Haha I'll try targeting mullet and see what happens Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note II via Tapatalk mobile

Thanks guys. For some reason I thought measurement was from nose to the fork in the tail. Even happier now! Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note II via Tapatalk mobile

Hello Raiders, Went for a fish today at my spot off the rocks in Botany Bay. I usually target Drummer, but they've been a little quiet for me lately. When I fish for Drummer, I've had the best success when I use the smallest possible sinker, straight down to the hook and Cunje as bait, and bread Burley mixed with a little chopped up weed. It's been a simple tried and tested formula. But the last five or six visits to the same spot - I've had to contend with either too flat seas, or way to much swell movement to be able to keep my lightly weighted baits in the zone. I have however been landing Bream, Grouper and Tarwhine using exactly the same technique and rig - but having the heavier lead to get the bait down. I've struggled to land any legal drummer the last few weeks, but at least I've a had a couple of sessions where the grouper have shown up - so today I decided to give myself the best chance of trying to land a beast by collecting a few Urchins and trying to concentrate on the Grouper only. So I arrived dead on low tide and again - the sea was anything but flat! I still decided to stick to my plan - so I cut up a bit of red and green weed, crushed up some urchins and found some red crabs. Since I caught a 40cm and 50cm grouper the last couple of sessions while fishing for Drummer using Cunje - I also grabbed half a dozen cunje for bait as well. The first hour was a carbon copy of my last two visits - I just couldn't get my bait down where I wanted it. So upgraded the lead and started to get bites. Drummer! I target Drummer I get grouper. I target Grouper and I get Drummer. They were all just on or under legal so they went back. Then, alternating between crab and cunje - I feel a different bite. I was on and I could feel some weight but it wasn't a Drummer or a Grouper. After about a 30 second decent fight up comes my personal best Tarwhine! A smidgeon under 40cm and very fat! Even though I was more than pleased to land this fat guy - I'm still left scratching my head on what the hell I'm doing wrong. I target one species and land another! A 50cm Grouper while targeting Drummer, Drummer and a 39cm Tarwhine while targeting Grouper.

Hi SMn, Yeah, mate still using the Alvey! Haven't done any estuary / light fishing since I've bought it so I've not needed to use anything else.

Hi Steve, Not that day there wasn't. Couple of guys spinning metals in the afternoon but none of the usual black fishers there. You must have cleaned up all the stocks already mate! Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note II via Tapatalk mobile

Onya Steve, well done mate. Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note II via Tapatalk mobile

Hi Guys, A couple of weeks ago I was fishing in my favourite spot in Botany Bay with the missus, and I was targeting Drummer. We weren't having much luck as the seas were pretty flat - but a couple of hours before High Tide a school of Grouper decided to play with us. Well, my missus' gear was relatively light - so she was getting reefed or snagged almost every hit. They only stuck around for about an hour and a half - but I managed to land three and my missus managed to land a legal bream and a legal drummer. I was very happy as I had never caught a groper anywhere near legal before. I was fishing for Drummer with Cunje - so I wasn't even targeting them. The only dissapointing thing was that when I posted the fishing report on this site - in my excitement to show off I didn't write up a detailed report - and it didn't say that I was fishing with my wife so my post was deleted as technically it was an illegal capture (3 groper - limit 2). I really felt horrible - I understand why the post was deleted and the only reason I kept three was because I thought as my wife and I were both fishing - it meant we could keep 2 each. I always do my utmost to follow the rules - most of which I learnt from this great site and the people on it. So I was a bit devestated that I had broken one and I apologized straight away to the moderator. I learnt a valuable lesson. Anyhow to Tuesdays report! I turned up at my spot at 6am - with my brother in law and another mate this time, who I had been promising for a while to get them on to fish a little tougher than Bream and Flathead. I've become accustomed to tangling with Drummer so I thought there was no better fish to get them on to than these stubborn species! It was bang on high tide with a decent swell, so there was no chance of getting any Cunje until around lunch, so we persevered with Endevour Prawns. The conditions were great - except for one thing. There was North Westerly wind blowing - which when combined with the swell direction and outgoing tide made it very, very difficult to keep our baits down directly beneath us. I like to fish as light as possible, and even after a couple of sinker size upgrades the bait still stayed up close to the surface and off to our right. It meant for plenty of snags and a tough time to get the baits into the zone where I knew the Drummer were. After a couple of hours, my brother in law Mark had his rod tip buckle over - and after a short exciting fight for him - up came a just legal grouper! He was fat and would have been around a kilo and a bit I reckon - but I wasn;t keeping him. I remembered my mistake from last week - and back in he went to grow bigger and destroy my tackle next time. For the next hour or so it was a battle against the conditions - and as the tide came down I went to gather a bit of Cunje to give that a go. Boy did it work! When I was able to get my bait down between the swell I was getting mauled almost every drop. Problem was I was also getting reefed almost every drop as the conditions made it a bit hard to feel the strike on time. But soon I got my timing right and I was on! It felt familiar - I knew it was a grouper and not a drummer and I had him to the surface pretty quick. He was too fat to risk lifting straight up even with 30 pound Schneider - so I played with him on the surface a bit until a wave washed up over the rocks to my left that I could wash im in with. About 50cm and 2.5kg-3kg max I think. Another session when fishing for Pigs that I get Grouper show up! I'm not complaining - as long as I get to play around with either of these beasts I'll be very happy!

Well done again Steve. Impressive effort considering the conditions. Also really nice to meet a fellow raider on the stones! Hopefully we'll get a chance to fish together again down the track!

Hi Mate, With the berley, try throwing much smaller amounts every 5 - 10 minutes instead of larger amounts just when you start or every half hour. I have two bait buckets on the same belt - one for bait and one for berley. Smallest possible sinker to get your bait down but still keep it moving around the wash, and just straight down to the hook. Did you get many snags? If not - your bait could be in the wrong spot! I never catch drummer without a few snags - as you need to put your bait right infront of their home which is usually rocky outcrops, caves or bommies. It doesn't matter whether it's deep or shallow - what's important is finding that spot that they're hiding in. Throw your bait around a few areas close in until you feel that heavy tap, tap, tap on your line - and then concentrate your efforts there. While I have caught drummer on outgoing tide - I find that the rising tide seems to coax them out of their hiding spots a bit more.

Many people learn how to fish by reading forums such as this, and magazines and TV shows. They spend hours and hours learning about rigs, techniques, spots, baits, lures, etc. If all of them put in a fraction of the time reading up about safety there would be much, much less injuries and deaths. It's harder to learn how to catch a fish than it is to use common sense to save your life. Might have to resort to an L-Plate / drivers licence type test before you can get your fishing license.

I find that Cunje works best for me, then Banana Prawns second. As the Guys said above, burley with bread, and also use a simple rig of sinker straight down to a mustad 540 / 542 Hook. Keep the sinker as small as the conditions will allow you - you want your bait to swirl around the wash naturally. Start with no sinker or a small 00 sinker and if you find your bait washes away with the current then upsize your sinker. Fish in close, in between bommies and keep your bait just above the bottom in and around the zone. Don't be afraid to get snagged - you won't catch big drummer without quite a few snags. Morning rising tide seems to work best for me, but I've caught them at all times of the day. If the seas are flat, ie very little swell and no wash things can get very quiet. Look for washy areas with that milky frothy coloured water.

Yeah, I'm sure I've been snagged by them heaps when fishing in close for pigs. This guy was just unlucky today! Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note II via Tapatalk mobile

Hit the rocks again today...not quite as big as last week...but landed a lucky occy! Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note II via Tapatalk mobile

Give em hell!

Sure are. The fight is hard and fast and over pretty quick - one way or another! Thank god this time it was in my favor!

Hi Mike, I'm fairly new to the forum and probably not the most experienced guy when it comes to giving gold advice...but one thing I have learned from reading these forums is that if you target ONE species and keep targeting it until you get success you will learn a ton on your own on the way. I wanted to target Drummer so I spent weeks and weeks fishing the same area and learning a lot about fishing techniques for that fish only, and reading about and asking about only Drummer. Good luck with it mate - sorry I couldn't help more specifically.