keenist

may i ask how you're getting problems with a reel such as a certate? i thought they were rock solid?? sorry -- im an infrequent visitor to the site.

thanks strewth. so a baitcaster can be too fast?

Just interested what lube everyone is using (no, not that type!) for bearings on casting reels. I hear that the Rocket Fuel is the best? Any ideas how i can get some? I was under the impression that Jack Erskine brings it in, but i can't find it on his site. Jack, if you're out there?

just to add to bombies reply i also vouch for the "softly softly" approach on kings - having boated kingies on bream gear, albeit in a longer time than fishing buddies fishing barra style tackle with 30lb braid. they get smoked time and again, while i get smoked only occasionally. in saying that sometimes you just have nothing, no matter what! there's also the theory that the resident kingies are the ones that pop you in no time. this is due to their knowledge of the area, that is ledges, pinnacles etc. supposedly if you connect to a roaming fish it'll run wide out in the clear water. supposedly all the record fish taken from the stones are thought to be roaming fish - an 80lb resident king off the stones is close to impossible, on any tackle!

you talking about the storm twitchin nipper? if so they are the goods. especially out on the flats. an ultra slow retrieve with broken pauses works well. caught a solid whiting on the smallest one a few weeks back...

nice report mate, well done. any chance of pics of the dory? a mate was trolling inshore near maroubra this morning and nearly ran over an 8ft hammer sunning itself! seems there are a few around

its also incredibly important in situations where the fish are so one-tracked, to present the lure properly. that is, getting the lure travelling in mucj the same fashion as the rest of the bait. much easier said than done. with the fly however you can cast it in and twitch it, making it look like an injured or shocked bait. this is usually a successful way of hooking up. a metal crashing to the seabed hardly looks natural.

headed out by around 7 to be confronted by schools of frigates (or mack tuna?)erupting everywhere. upon closer inspection we could see that they were feedin on 'eyes' about 3cm long. without the fly rod on board it quickly bacame a chaotic scramble, mixing changing lures and ultra fast to dead stop, retrieves we were not to be rewarded. we soon gave up and headed for greener (read easier) quarry. if only i had brought along the 6 wt and a few eye flies! had a few flicks around the markers with sluggos and it became apparent the kingies were on the job. thing was they were only half-interested in the usual stick baits so again it was head in tackle box time. the winning lure became a cultiva popper that scored a few tiny 40cm kings before being claimed by another larger resident. guess thats what you get for fishing bream gear for kingfish around markers. youch! mind you while all this was going on we could see the splash and dash of feeding frigates in the distances pretty much everywhere we looked. the fish seemed more tightly packed up around the clifton gardens area and also down near the mouth of rose bay. it was all too much to bare, so we decided to give them another crack. swapping trebles on the smallest metel jigs to black ones and attaching via loop knots we aimed to minimise the size of the lures, so as to better match the hatch. also we upped to 2500 and 4000 size threadlines in order to fasten the retrieve. and finally.zzzzzzzzzzz-zzzzzzzzzzzz-zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz that sweet sweet sound. made sweeter by the fact that it took us a solid hr and a half to entice one! funny thing was we didn't actually entice it to strike. the fish was jagged in the ass! this continued for another hour or so. the fish staying up, feeding the whole time. we tired before they did and so we left for home. but no, we arrived at the boat ramp at rose bay and here again were thousands of macks doing the mack-attack thing right up against the wharf! much to the bemusement of some travelling asian tourists - who were well into shooting off rolls and rolls of film and video. all in all a good day. frustrating but good. the moral of the story... never leave the fly rod at home, never ever!

any fish being caught on them? andrew?

well done to all. especially matt for organising! any help as to what lure is hanging out of that big fish's mouth? mick?

the downsides were the fact that we were competing with 50 other boats for fish, but worse was the attitude of many fishermen killing and keeping their billfish!! not good guys, not good at all!

don't have much time, so briefly: fished SWR also 15-18 feb only had 1 good days fishing, weather-wise. the fishing potential of the place is amazing! some pics:

had a quickly planned session late sun afternoon. headed out at around 6:00pm. on arrival to the mouth we were confronted by a few whirling birds. hopes were high. on closer inspection we could see that the culprits were in fact yakka feeding on plankton. a lot of casts with bigger plastics namely; weighted sluggos, 5" berkley minnows, bigger squidgies, as well as some jigging with metal under the yakka schools all went untouched. it seemed the bait was being left to feed unmolested... headed over to kurnell for a troll and straight away up to a sizeable salmon. caught on a pilchard CD-7, gave me some nice curry on my lightish baitcaster outfit. picked up the troll and after 5 min hooked and proceeded to drop something much bigger, probably a nicer king. aargh! we continued the troll in dying light for a lone tailor and that was that. funnily enough there were four boats anchored off kurnell that didn't seem to be boating any fish, while we caught fish snaking our troll between them? all in all was perfect to be out on the water. heres the salmon:

good fish there. well done! if you don't mind me asking how far up or in what stretch of the river are the bream? i usually fish the lower parts but haven't been bream fishing in a while. might do so soon so any help is appreciated...

well done mate! would have been fun on that raider i provided you with...

tiny king taken on - of all things - an ecogear minitank in green!! thanks jo

hey joe, so how do i enter the comp? here's the close up pic you wish i'd taken . and no, there were no bigger kings. not to say that they aren't there. we were forced to take up plan B, then plans C and D and E due to the weather . our fave kingie posse was left unmolested yesterday. swof: we'll get out soon... tell you what - that little king gave the bb a serious workout!! still can't get over just how hard these kingies fight. this season i'm aiming for some graduated fish. rats are fun, but i want a biggun!

also caught chasing jew were a few flathead. two went over 60, with this one going 71cm. most caught on 80-100mm shads: squidgies and storms fished deep in and around bridge pylons.

after a sizable fishing drought, finally headed out to get into it. with fair weather predictions and all the recent kingie reports expectations were high. well nobody gave notice to either the weather gods nor the fishing ones!! ended up with a few fish, nothing spectacular. interesting was a tiny little king caught chasing slimies with bream gear and a mini tank fished down the berley trail! nice surprise and possibly the smallest king i've seen, let alone caught. they still go hard at this size though (they'll pull a slimey backwards!) good to see the stocks are reproducing well.

hey andrew, how much to a bulk pack of owners, and at what price?

a bit off the topic, but: for those with a budget or those who prefer jigheads to be expendable, buy bulk packs of 90 degree bend hooks (mustad are perfect - $7 for 50!) and squash a split to it. the problem of keeping the plastic up the shank is sorted with the tiniest drop of super glue before loading up (zap-a-gap is perfect). i was a bit hesitant at first when using the glue because of its smell, but it really hasn't changed results at all. i think the mustad hooks are near perfect in regards to strength and penetration, and they hold their sharpness alot longer than some other brands. plus you get each jig for around 15c!! i have also started experimenting by first putting a drop of glue between the shot and the hook, then sqaushing them down using a vice (bottom up) and fininshing with a few taps with a hammer to give a "stand-up" jighead. this way the crimped shot never comes loose and you have a jig with the advantages of lower snag rate and better hook-up on fish that take it on the bottom.