changa

Swoffa, Rob Powell, (Fishcrazy) was very reluctant to try bottom bashing the deep but after i had one drop for a nice blue eye, he said ,"gimme a go". I positioned the boat for a better drift and started the drop. Within seconds of hitting the bottom i could feel the fish jump on. When the secnd one jumped on it near pulled me overboard as i take a couple of wraps with gloves on to feel bites Anyway, Rob was very excited, as was i as he wound up full of expectation. Was a good day that day. We had a good feed and tagged some yellowfin too changa

A few more pics Pic 1. a 15 & 11kg pair of blue eye. (from a triple hookup. one fish was stolen by a mako in front of us) pic 2. a 22kg model (also from a double hookup with another 9kg fish) pic 3 a 12kg fish. one of 2 on a double hookup on rod and reel (hard work ) pic 4 . A fish called a BULLS EYE. only second time one of these has been caught in Australian waters. This fish is now in marintime museum. they are generally caught in asian countries.

Knapers, Sounds like you are getting keen on all types of fishing. Great stuff. Really, Reckless has pretty well hit the nail on the head and his methods are pretty spot on. I dont do a whole lot different. I have a 14" Alvey double handled reef queen spooled with 200lb braid .i use 200 coz it wont bust off on the bottom and it allows a better shock tippet of say 100lb. if i only had 80 or 130lb braid, then the shock tippet or saftey tippet has to be much lighter so as 'IT' busts off on a snag instead of losing all of your line. I make my own dropper loops out of 200lb leader and loop on some 14/0 circles. Otto can make rigs for you too. I used to make them with crimps and branches etc but its not needed. i can make a dropper loop in a matter of minutes and they are just as tough. I use custom leads made by a guy in our club that are just under 2kg and go STRAIGHT down in a flash. As simon stated, the squid works well, as does pillies. i also use cut baits or strips of tuna sometimes for variety or to see what they are biting on. i have caught some real strange things out there too. I used a rod and reel for years and caught some great fish but it kills my back. Also taken some mates out that didnt think bottom fishing was fun and they had a blast (check out the pics). You may see my reel in the pics to get an idea. If you need any more info, let me know. changa

Wakd, you really should try and come along to the talk a guy is giving at our club next week. It all about barra fishing, lures, presentation, knots, rigs etc. He has fished lots for barra etc and you may just learn a bit too. look here for info. BARRA NIGHT changa

Tommy, email me the pics and i will post and resize for you if necessary. Another tip worth remembering is never to put your squid on ice. either store in salt water in zip lock bags or as tommy(jewie hunter) already said, keep off the ice in a bag as the chlorine in our water supply can taint the squid. changa

If using traps, we have found fresh flattie frames to be awesome baits. get some at the fish markets or your local fresh seafood place. most are happy to give them away for free. changa

Knapers, Too many people chase a fish in the HOPE of catching other species also. when hunting BIG jew, you cant do this. I remember when i was learning the ropes from a legend Jew fisho, sitting watching our rods etc and watching the tips THUMPING now and again. My question to him was......"what the %@&^% is biting on our rods here" his response? "There is whoping big bream down there" then i say..."why cant i pull that in and drop down a bait on a 2/0 and clean up" he says...."you fishing for bream, or fishing for Jew"? not long after that we had a 16kg Jew boatside and lost another bigger fish. All in the space of 90 mins. It taught me a valuable lesson, target ONE species and you have much more success, especially when the fish are bigger. Jew dont just hang out everywhere when they are larger fish. They school in large numbers when soapies or schoolies but become more independant when older. The bigger fish are big because they are smart. they dont waste energy swimming into current to catch a feed, they dont fall for shonky rigs(usually) either. they are opportunists that feed when a feed presents itself with little risk to them. They hang out of strong currents and have large appetites. In order to get enough food they must be in areas that suply that food. The closer to the river mouth(lower reaches) the more bait will pass by. This is why Juno and Flint have become popular spots to fish. Its funny to watch people fishing these places as 90% of them are not in the right spot. Take some time to SOUND and area with your sounder before fishing or take a spin around juno and sound it whilst looking at eddies and current etc and work out where the bait will hold and the fish can stay out of strong current. I used to sound places that i had heard of if i was going past and no one was there. you find some great structure and can then mark it with pin point accuracy on your GPS. Presentation of baits and rigging plays a big part too but im sure you have that area sorted out. good luck. Jewie hunter, check out the post under FISRAIDER SOCIAL EVENTS titled LURE PRESENTATION etc. changa

Ken, like many others, you will continue to use squid, and in certain places, it reigns supreme. Places like bar point and spencer, neverfail etc always did well on squid over other baits, but in the places where the big fellas hang out, the butterflies even outfished everything and more often than not, it was the yakka that got the bite. Over the years of running the hawkesbury classic, and with our club predominantly based on and around the hawkesbury river, i have had the pleasure of not only catching some great fish, but also weighing many of the winners. Some great fishos like the WANTUCH family, Steve Nolan, The PIERCE's have won time and time again with BIG JEW with most caught on fish baits and not squid. I know many charter operators that also advocate similar methods. Sure squid works, but its not the ultimate. Yes, we will have to agree to disagree Lightweight. We used to make our own springers out of polyethylene rods. The ones available thru shops are just too thin and weak. We would use 13mm rod and taper it to 1/2" and fit them into propper chromed rowlick holders that sut flush on the coaming. very neat and gave us the ability to fish many outfits for variety when using blood droppers also. Breamnut, check your PM. Knappers, you should be out there now. Moon is good for hawkesbury Jews. Col Buckley is a great bloke. He has great success with beach jew and certainly worth listening to. The hawkesbury has been fishing exceptionally well this season for jew. I know of over 20 captures of 15kg + fish to 40kg in a small window of time and places. There is monsters about on beach and river if you do what it takes. Our club is looking to hold a jew night in the coming weeks which will cover baits, rigging and what to look for etc. Interested people can PM me and i will give you more details. changa

Knapers, I cant believe no one has answered you here. Although died in the wool Jew fishos can be pretty secretive. I used to fish Flint and Juno regulary back maybe 6 or more years ago, and did for years previous to that. Its not a matter of fishing an area, its a matter of fishing the RIGHT spot at the right time. Before these websites started up, and people started to share info, it was very hard to learn how to catch big Jew without putting in MANY years of hard work of trial and errror. When i told people we were fishing 80lb handlines on springers with 10/0 hooks & whole slimeys and yakkas, both live and butterflied, not only did they think that squid was better, but not many people used springers then either or knew what they were. The Jewfishing fraternity was quite small back 10 yrs+ ago(thats serious jew fishos) I even had mates that fished different areas for years looking for big Jew that could only manage up to 10kg jews with LOTS of hard work and fishless nights. Why? because they used squid and fished the wrong places. Only this year did one of my good mates finally succumb to my ways(even though i dont fish for jew these days) and every trip he has pulled big Jew. Its all about the moon, the tides, the right spot, using your sounder, sussing out eddies, positioning your boat in the right spot. Our best fishing was always at Flint on the run out to low and Juno at the run up to high 1 hr either side is more then enough time to fish. Daytime better than night. The bridges SUCK I.M.O. If you want some more detailed info, email or PM me as i dont think splurging everything on here is fair on those that have done the hard yards. There is big Jew around, and you WILL get one of you are serious about it. cheers changa ps. most trips we would get at least 1 15kg fish or bigger with the biggest being 32kg. I know there has been some real thumpers this year. A mate of mine has got a couple over 35 and close to 40kg.

The day we lost four was...... i hate fishing Port that time of year with lures PURELY because there is so much baot around that the fish dont seem committed to the bite. I suggested that we switchbait that day. Others wanted to troll lures, and i was not gonna force my opinion onto others, and anyway, we were out to have fun, numbers dont matter to me. first fish was on a lure..........we managed to shake that one off(using 24kg and staino hooks which i hate) second fish was on a lure also, again, shook it off after a fight. they then agreed to try switching, as we did until we located some bait. I jigged up some bait and we started using livies. First fish was being fought and the leader was broken after 10 mins. I have caught fish to 200kg and fought over 2hrs on same leader. 4th fish was being fough and brought boatside to tag when the fish went nuts and jumped from the boat and AWAY from angler at high speed. With such short line and drag pushed all the way up,something has to give, and the line parted with a KAPOWW!!!!.......lol Anyway, same angler all 4 fish, and very funny day. end play is a very important role to either winning or losing the battle. changa

Just got back from 3 days at SWR where i took my boat for a few days before the PFT. At SWR the fishing was not real hot, pretty hard work for 5 marlin 2 wahoo some YFT and cobia in 3 days. I also SWITCHED my first marlin SOLO. Then went to port stephens, fished thursday, had a mate on the rod for every fish and we lost all 4 marlin........lol friday slept in and didnt fish, saturday went out again and managed only 1. Sunday went out again and got 2 marlin. Left there monday, went to work for a few days and then back up to port friday just gone for interclub. Tagged 6 marlin last weekend and still managed to shake about 8 off. bit more of crew honing skills and we should manage to stay attached to more next weekend i hope Great to catch up with some great people at PFT PS. i took some river fishos out one day that i met at our units that were havin ga hard time trying to catch anything at SWR. An elderly gentleman approx 65(or more) and his son. We managed 2 marlin that day, a small cobia and a YFT. Needless to say, when the biggest fish you catch is a bream, they were pretty happy..............not as happy as me though. ...........putting first timers onto fish is something you can just not get enough of. pics attached.

a simple bridle for small baits like slimeys is to half hitch a elastic band onto your hook, using a bait needle, pass it thru the top of the eye socket, in one side, out the other. then twist your bait needle with lacki band attacjed still until the twists are tight all the way along the band. pull the lackie taight and pass the loop at the bait needle end over the hook point. the tension on the twist stops the lackie from falling off the hook and our hookup rate using circles this way is well over 95% on marlin/kings etc. changa

Trag have a concave tail fin, and jew have a flat to convex tail. Thats the easiest way to tell at a glance. Definately undersize. At least he will learn something from it. changa

Dont worry chris, i look after the waitresses for ya :1clap: changa

Allen, week previous a couple of BBay boats gots some small ones, i fished their poinscore day and we scored a nice 13kg dollie. Theres a few about. If that water comes down from coffs its gonna go off. southern QLD is soooo hot at the moment. Nasty, Dunno what they are doing at the ramp. lots of roadworks barriers and ploughing up of ground etc. Hope they dont stuff it up. Wouldnt you think they would do all their work in winter? in saying that, the whole of Stevedores terminal seems to be getting revamped along that road. changa

thanks chris, see ya friday nite. you gonna go home early this time? :wank: should be HUGE!!!!! changa

How is that ramp? I'll be heading out of Botany on the weekend and don't want to risk Kyeemagh again... 21577[/snapback] hey swoff, the ramp is 3 boats wide if others there can drive(which is not often). in saying that, you can get 5 wide at parsley bay, but again, people dont think of others waiting and dont care to learn how to reverse. foreshore drive is easy for me to access. they are doing major revamps there at the moment, but everything is still ok, just looks messy. certainly a better run outside, much closer but sometimes can cause havoc for those that cant load boats onto trailers. changa

Andrew, i used the foreshore drive ramp at Stevedores terminal. Much better than Kyeemah. much closer and usually less crowded. i came in early as i knew that being a mega hot day, it would be full of people that dont use their boat so often. cant really blame them i suppose. it was hot, and great day for boating. Tony, spoke with dave just yesterday, he is keen as. Get him out there, he needs some fishin in him. Darryl, it seems to be kicking on for a little while. certainly one of the latest runs of fish we have seen for a while, and not many biggins around, but there is some good ones at least amongst them. I have had pretty good success last few years on YFT. you just have to pick you techniques. Maybe troll, maybe cube, maybe do both. you just have to be prepared to do the work to get the fish. Its not easy to catch consistently without hard work. Bluecod, My best performer for the day was a PAKULA ZIPPER(screamer)tagged 5 YFT to 50lbs closely followed by a PAKULA COCKROACH (zacatack) tagged 3YFT and boated one at 70lbs and one albacore tagged. Pakula Cockroach in lumo also scored one tagged YFT. Only had 2 on board so we ran 3 lures always having double hookups. cheers changa

Dan, fair trip back into nor easters. about same distance as browns to the northern edge with the southern edge much further down. They start in about 80fth to the north. Anyways, but can sometimes pay. changa

Launched from botany sunday morning in still conditions. Was going to head to browns but decided not to fight the traffic and changed my direction to the southern canyons. Weather was tops!! took about 40 mins to get to within 5nm of the canyons and i set the spread. sounded over the area and water looked a tinge of green to it so i decided to venture out further and find some better water. Anyways to cut a long story short, We tagged 9 yellowfin to 50lbs(that fish caught on 10kg) and also put one on the deck at approx70lbs(on 15) Also tagged a albacore. Came back in at 2pm to a typically crowded ramp full of clowns that cant reverse trailers or load boats onto them all in all a good day out and nice conditions. cheers changa