josamill

Nice session......been catching tailor and salmoln from 2 great gutters at Palm Beaches over the last 4 weeks. Blue surf poppers and pillies. I'm with Morwong re letting them go if they are in good shape..........no such mercy applied to the odd flathead that arrives at my feet!

Best alternative to livies is fresh squid from the fish markets.

Back from kimberley. Nulla nulla west of wyndham. Fished billabongs from the bank. 78cm, 2 x 75cm, 73cm and stack of 50-65cm all in 2 x 4 hour sessions. All my fish caught on squidgies and gulp sps. Biggest fish in our group 91cm on fly. Thanks for your input.......went with 20lb braid and 40lb fc leader. Caught 12 fish myself but must have hooked 30.............can't they spit a softy. Next time will run a short trace to a treble. There are some fish up there.

Nice work. Must have been fun. What's your tip for cooking. Love thr flavour and texture of sand whiting but they are bony and fidley.

Have been using this exact rig at palm beach lately. Star sinker below a ganged pilchard and a blue surf popper further up. I use the three way swivels. 10lb braid and 20lb fc leader. 50\50popper v bait. Lots of tailer about.

If you are going to Batemans, I'd go another 50 mins south to Narooma. Weather providing, and with the right research, it will be hard to beat. I've fished between Narooma and Montague Island for tuna and kingfish over the years and it has always produced. Continental shelf is also relatively close to the coastline there.

Good advice thanks. Clareville easy for me and always yakka at West Head. Time of day or tide an issue? Got a suggestion on hook size?

I fish Pittwater and am told Winter is John Dory time. Can anyone enlighten me re tactics? Time of day important? Best bait? Likely locations? Pittwater any good? Happy to send you thefirst fish if you can help me catch some.

Thanks again. A bunch of cash invested today in the lures and SPs you all recommended. Leaving Friday for El Questro........3 days fishing involving helicopters........i will report back Tuesday. Any barra will be a PB. Very exciting stuff.

Thank you one and all. What a great site this is.......put a question out and within a few hours you have top information. One variance seems to be leader weight suggestions which ranged from 30lb - 80lb. Reckon i'll go with 40lb and GregL i'll think of you shaking your head if I lose a big one. Here's a question......you're fishing a river for barra during the run off. You can choose either hardbodied lures or SPs, but not both. Which would you choose??

Would appreciate any Barra tips......my first trip this weekend. Am heading to Kimberley area out of Kunanurra....Fishing several rivers. Understand a lot of gear will be supplied, but I am keen to take one outfit. I will take an egg beater reel, simply because I don't know how to use a bait caster and don't think i'll pick it up in 3 days. Keen to know: Lures: 2 or 3 recommendations Braided line: What weight? What leader? Any advice is very welcome!

I agree it's time to look to the beaches. Had a great session at Palm Beach last week. Mid/late afternoon, excellent gutter, 5 tailor......4 of them very solid beasts. 2 on surf poppers, 2 on metal halcos, and one smaller one on a ganged pillie. A second rod with blood worms caught 6 flathead, but.........they were all tiny. Beach fishing from April - June is great.....often calm seas, gentle westerlies, good gutters and just great to be there. Anyone checked out the gutter in the middle of Newport Beach?? From the headland, it looks amazing......may give it a go this week.

Went back today. Zilch.

The flathead in pittwater this month have been big and plentiful. Sunday morning headed outside hoping to downrig headlands for kings but too sloppy for my tinny. Trolled up a frigate mack and headed back into Pittwater. Found a drop off............8ft to 42ft ..........burleyed up and used frigate strips. Nothing for 30 mins then 48cm, 52cm and my PB a 75cm flathead all in a 20 minute run. Caught a 63cm last week. Spent many Summers drifting for hours for the odd 40cm fish, so great to enjoy these quality fish. PS the big lizard was sent back, the others not so lucky.

Nice work. Yakka or squid?

If you're going 22kms @ 8kts will take 90 mins

Some of you will be way ahead of me on this, but had a good chat to Andrew Tiede (Anglers Action Group) this afternoon. He expalained that the minister Katrina Hodgkinson will make a decision about commercial fishing in Pittwater in the next 2 weeks.......whether to shelve it, or give it more consideration and act. I'm sure many of you were among the 9000 people who signed the petition, and Andrew informs me the best action now is to email the minister (Katrina Hodgkinson) direct office@hodgkinson.minister.nsw.gov.au and cc Rob Stokes our local member pittwater@parliament.nsw.gov.au and voice your opinions. I am told that less than 0.01% of NSW seafood comes from Pittwater, yet trawlers give Mackeral Beach and other places a working over 4 times a day.......they may collect 4 or 5 decent whiting and decimate a nursery. Other stories tell of 2000 juvenile jewies in a net in Broken Bay. So please Pittwater fishos, send an email, make some more noise......and any raiders who fish in protected waters, Botany Bay, the Harbour etc.....feel free to chime in.

Yuk

I met a guy last week who targets blue eyes and gemfish 30 miles off Sydney in 400m-600m. He showed me some thumping fish on his iphone. He uses length of metal poles like what street signs are mounted to, as weight. Says he gets boneless fillets the size of 2 housebricks, but somewhat tastier. Obviously the use electric powered reels.

looks like that website is blocked by fishraider........fair enough too.

Scotty 1080 is perfect for your boat. I bought one last month and here's the sad part. $500 was the best price I could get in Australia. Ended up buying online from #$#$#$.com in the US.......delivered in 4 days for $230.

Thanks. Are there more around in warmer months do you reckon?

I agree with the comment about boats spooking schools. We had a blast off the front of Lion Island on Sunday morning catching Bonito on small Halcos and light braid. One guy with a very noisy 2 stroke kept charging the schools when they popped up. He might have been on the fishes side.

I am targeting kingfish around Palm Beach, Whale Beach and Pittwater and have 2 questions........ if anyone feels inclined to chip in, I'd appreciate it. 1) I have never caught squid, because I'm always on a bit of a time limit and yakka are so easy to collect in numbers and quickly. Is there a place to grab squid in the area, early morning, that is reasonably consistent? 2) Downrigging: I'm using mono backing, braid, and a fluro leader....using a bait needle, rubber band etc etc to secure the yellowtail. Should I be using a swivel? Hope you're all fishing tomorrow. Weather looks a treat. Josamill