LuckyFil

Not often you'll see a report with that title give those 2 species are usually in different climates. Just returned from a van trip up the NSW coast and stopped at a few locations including Broken Head (near Byron) and Seal Rocks. Caught a few good tailer and some small to average GTs from the rocks at Broken Head on metal lures. The best of the GTs went 59cms and while not big as GTs go (I've caught much larger at Weipa but from a boat) I was pretty happy to score him off the rocks. The drummer was from Seal Rocks and is close to my PB. This one went 53cm and weighed 3.5kg. As you can see from his belly he must have been enjoying more than his share of Easter eggs. I was lucky to get him as the hook fell out as soon as I got him onto a ledge and my mate had fortunately climbed down to help lift it in and was able to hold him on the ledge till I got down. Otherwise Seal Rocks is pretty quiet for shore based fishing - plenty of fish in the water from what I could see snorkelling but not much wanting to bite. Cheers Phil

Yeah I agree they are Tarwine. Some guys reckon they are even better than bream for a feed. The difference is the front of their head is more rounded as it comes down to the mouth rather than the more pointy head/mouth of the bream. Also the Tarwine are quite slippery on their skin making them hard to hold when removing the hook. Getting a couple of keeper sized ones is not easy, most I've caught are little fellas that are great bait stealers!

Rick, Juzz and Blackfish yep that looks like it, a Red Bigeye or Bullseye. From the guide it seems to be a long way from its usual habitat "northern Australia tropical offshore waters". Thanks for the quick replies

Can any Fishraider ID this one please. Caught recently in Bantry Bay Middle Harbour Thanks LuckyFil

Nice to back up and get a second round of target species - proves it wasn't a fluke! Any sign of drummer ? I prefer to chase them if they are about. Cheers LuckyFil

Sounds like a fantastic trip with some great fish across a range of species and all the more worthy given you had to locate them yourself with no guide. Good to see the bride getting in on the act with a screamer GT! I was recently up that way bringing a boat back from the Whitsundays. We caught a few good fish (spanish , bluefin, spotted mackerel , coral trout etc) but were confused about the guidelines on what species and what size were safe to eat for ciguatera - can you offer any advice on that? Cheers Phil

Great report Scratchie and bummer about losing the big one but I suspect his days are numbered. Yeah the big ones are in a different league especially on lighter line. I caught my PB snapper (5.3kg) on 20lb braid on an sp down the south coast a couple of years back . We had been getting a few reds around 1- 3kg on the plastics, they were great fun but quite manageable on that rig. Then I got hit by the big one and line just kept running and running off the spool. Luckily for me it wasn't rough reef more gravel and we weren't anchored so could follow him. I still remember the condition of my jig head when I removed it - dents all over the lead from his teeth and the hook looked like a piece of barbed wire - if the fight had gone any longer I reckon he'd have escaped. Good luck for the next snapper trip. Phil

Great report and love the underwater pic! Good to hear the bonnies are finally showing up. Which waterway were you fishing? - not after your spot just generally.

I'll ask about the transducer when they get into Sydney in a couple of weeks - interesting thought. What causes electrolysis?

Yeah can't believe my luck. Two of my mates have shares in the boat and asked me along . I've had plenty of time on different sized boats but am not much of a sailor so just helped out with all the odd jobs and tried to learn a bit about it. The boat has a fantastic chart plotter, auto pilot, depth sounder and radar as well as very comfortable cabins bathrooms galley etc, and the skipper has 40 plus years of sailing including a lot of blue water experience so I was in good hands and tried to learn as much as I could while enjoying the company of good blokes in a top location. Gotta be lucky sometimes!

Yeah apart from one night of sea sickness when it was pretty bumpy. Very lucky with the conditions, 7-10 knot winds every day meant calm seas although that also meant we had to motor/sail a lot of the time. Just got into Hervey Bay before a big southerly front thats due to last 3 days, so the remaining crew will have to sit that out behind Frazer Island till it passes

More pics

Just back from 12 days helping some mates bring a 40 foot catamaran back from the Whitsundays. I got off at Hervey Bay, the remaining crew were sailing it the rest of the way to Sydney. A 40 foot cat is not your typical sport fishing machine but we managed to drag some lures for nearly all of the approximately 1200ks of the part of the trip I was on. Only 2 of us were keen fishos but we all enjoyed the madness of trying to retrieve a fish while bringing an 8 tonne sailing boat to a stop and negotiating a snapping mackerel up the back step with nothing more than an average size landing net! We had some long stretches with no hits but other days scored more although not always sinking the hooks . Lure losses were high losing 3 rapala CD18s with one spooled fish, one broken leader trying to drag a massive spanish up the steps and one wire trace broken - we think that fish was sharked. Strangely all strikes were on one side of the boat, not a single hit on the rod with similar lures on the other side - any theories on that? We switched sides a few days but same thing every day, only hits on the starboard side. Species were cobia, Mack tuna , Spotted mackerel, Also a spanish mackerel (no pic as we lost him on the way in but he was too big in any case - definite candidate for ciguatera), long tail tuna (very nice sashimi) and a cracker coral trout caught on bait from the little tender (interesting getting that on board while bobbing around 80 miles to sea in an 8 foot tender!!). Will try to add more pics in further post along with a few underwater shots as we did a lot of snorkelling at Fitzroy reef, Lady Musgrave and Heron Island - fantastic water colour and temp (28 degrees). Cheers Phil

Well done on picking the right conditions and following through. Its always tricky getting enough swell to create the wash they like but not too much to make it dangerous.

I use 30lb braid on a Daiwa Seagate threadline with 30lb black magic leader. It sounds pretty heavy gear but the bottom is rough and you occasionally get bigger pigs and groper there. At the business end is a small pea sinker running straight onto a double X number 1 suicide hook. My rod is a Gary Howard 7144, which I love after using a general purpose 12 foot rod for my first few years of drummer fishing which was Ok but lacked the grunt necessary for extracting the pigs when they dive hard. I also use an old Alvey sometimes with 30lb tortue line straight through which is very reliable. I prefer the threadline just 'cause I sometimes have a spin if there are no drummer about.

I was inspired by another Fishraider's post last week when he caught a nice pig and dropped another so I decided to have a go this morning after not hitting the rocks for a month or so. The low tide I wanted to get cunje wasn't till 9:20 so it meant a late start, so it was very much gentleman's hours and I wasn't too confident with the sun already pretty high , but I was happy just to have a go after the break. I tried my first wash after throwing in some bread burley but just managed a few sweep and a kelpie. It just didn't feel right so decided to treck a bit further to another wash that works better in the smaller swell. First cast and it seemed pretty quiet but at least no sweep stealing the bait. The bait was slowly being washed closer to me with each wave and when it was almost vertical I felt a small bite then some weight so I struck and it seemed like a decent fish, he lunged deep looking for cover and I knew it must be a drummer. After a bit of a tussle up comes a pig of around a kilo. I kept up the burley and fished the spot for another hour but nothing other than pickers. Still I can't complain, at least going home with one keeper. I put him on the tape when I got home and it was spot on 40cm.

I was inspired by another Fishraider's post last week when he caught a nice pig and dropped another so I decided to have a go this morning after not hitting the rocks for a month or so. The low tide I wanted to get cunje wasn't till 9:20 so it meant a late start, so it was very much gentleman's hours and I wasn't too confident with the sun already pretty high , but I was happy just to have a go after the break. I tried my first wash after throwing in some bread burley but just managed a few sweep and a kelpie. It just didn't feel right so decided to treck a bit further to another wash that works better in the smaller swell. First cast and it seemed pretty quiet but at least no sweep stealing the bait. The bait was slowly being washed closer to me with each wave and when it was almost vertical I felt a small bite then some weight so I struck and it seemed like a decent fish, he lunged deep looking for cover and I knew it must be a drummer. After a bit of a tussle up comes a pig of around a kilo. I kept up the burley and fished the spot for another hour but nothing other than pickers. Still I can't complain, at least going home with one keeper. I put him on the tape when I got home and it was spot on 40cm.

Good old bread its great for burley and accounts of plenty of drummer. Easy and cheap bait!

Nice pig there Harry and shame about the one that got away - still that always keeps us coming back! What bait were you using? Cheers Phil

Top first report Conor . I also fish the Lake for flatties but usually off the shore and more towards the back end of the Lake but haven't bothered lately. I assumed they would have shut down for the winter but obviously that's not the case! Have you found the tide makes much difference to your catches in the Lake? Looks like you got some good weather for your paddle around the Lake as well! Cheers LuckyFil

A great report and pics. I've heard from others that the sea conditions getting out to Swains can be wicked and it sounds like you had some rough stuff to contend with while there as well. The GTs an and sharks are also notorious but looks like you managed to drag plenty of good fish away from them. Have you stopped swaying yet??!!

Scatchie, that has got to be a first - catching not just a snapper but a real corker on a popper! I've heard of big snapper cruising the shallows in South Australia sometimes, I think it was around the wharves in Whyalla, and I recall the locals got them to take burley off the top on occasions but I've never heard of it over hear and certainly not 'in the wild' so to speak. That's one for the history books! Congrats on a memorable day and another good read. Cheers LuckyFil

Hi Leonard, my rod is a Gary Howard 12 foot model MT 7144. I love it after having a general purpose 12 footer previously which was Ok but didn't have the grunt necessary for this type of fishing. Wilson Live Fibre also make good rods suitable for drummer and groper. They have some models that are 13'6" if you prefer a really long rod but this can be good and bad depending on how much room you have to fish - obstacles etc. The main thing is having plenty of guts in the lower section but with a reasonably light tip to provide sensitivity. I think the broken hook was a circle not sure of the brand (wasn't one of mine) but clearly too light gauge. I use double X suicide number 1 size which I haven't had bend so far! There is a hook the old time drummer guys would only use but I don't know the model number. It was maybe 3 or 4X so would never bend no matter what! Cheers Phil

Ha that's a great bit of research Ryder . Hope I get another Bonk soon!!

Just back from a couple of sessions up the Central Coast rocks near Avoca. Son Pat and his mate had arrived the day before and had already picked up a few good drummer and an average sized groper - sorry no pics of those. So I was hopeful of catching a few after struggling to catch any decent pigs from my local rocks on the Northern Beaches. We had a good supply of cunji and several loaves of bread mixed with weed for burley which we were feeding out regularly. Despite this we only managed kelpies and small pickers for the first couple of hours. Then the sun dropped behind the cliff behind us and everything changed for the next 20 minutes. In short succession we caught 3 smallish pigs 33-35cm dropped another one that looked over 40 cm but then I hooked up to something big that ran me straight into a cave… I could still feel the tail beats so kept a steady pressure and resisted the temptation to try to drag him out as I could feel the line rubbing on the rocks. I changed the angle of the rod and laid it over in the direction I hoped might extract him and with each wave I got a little more line and then I felt him free swimming so pulled hard and got him to the surface. Then a struggle to find a place to wash him up - nothing obvious and a dead lift on what was a big pig looked dodgy so Pat got as low to the water as he could as I tried to keep the fish off the barnacles as he zigged and zagged. Eventually Pat got a hand to the line and lifted the fish up and climbed back to me with it. We were whooping and hollering as it was a beauty and I thought a pb for me. As Pat went back to get the camera I put the fish on the rocks at my feet and the hook fell out!! It was sloping rock and I was still close to the water so I dropped the rod and fell to my knees to wrap both hands around it to stop it sliding back into the water - heart pumping I carried it back to safer ground for some pics and a measure - it went 55cm and was a real fatty. I'm guessing 4 - 5 kg. Not long after this Pat fastened into another big fish that just wouldn't stop. He had his dragged locked but he couldn't make any ground, but then his line went slack - bugger! He wound in and the fish had straightened the hook and broken the last part of it right off, hmmm another big drummer or possibly groper. I went back the next day - same place, same bait, same time and didn't score a fish. Ah well that's fishing. Here's a pic. Funny how drummer still look pretty much the same even as they get bigger - they just get fatter. LuckFil