[Anyone heading offshore this week?]

Thinking of getting out there this Thursday or Friday.

[blues]

well done, those are some big ones

they are everywhere, we put a pot out and got around 7 in one trap and 3 in the other in a couple of hours, we got a big muddy as well

[A FEW SOLO MARLIN 2014 VIDEO]

well done, a small boat but a mighty one, some great fish there, I used go out miles solo in my 15ft half cabin, it was great fun but scary at times

I got my first solo marlin this year as well. Would you believe my go pro stuffed up on that day, the battery crapped out, so I recorded most of it on my Iphone for the evidence, I will post it up as soon as I get bit of time to edit it.

peter

[Sydney Offshore – YFT, Striped Tuna and Dolphin Fish]

Great reports but hard reading them when the forecast is bad weather for the only days I could get out hope it changes sweating to catch a YFT Congratulations on a fun day Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

yeah its bummer, the weekend is not looking good. Friday, Monday and Tuesday look fishable. Hope it calms down and you get out there.

[Blue Swimmers]

I recon there would be hardly any difference in catch rate between those and witches hat traps but the hat traps would store more easily but in the cage traps easier to get the crabs out and no chance of a crab eater munching on your crabs

Nice job on the crabs there mate get a lot around my area

Great job mate

I love eating them

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There's only one way to find out, you might get back to the crab trap and find 30 crabs lol

If it's to good to be true, it usually is...

Ok, I think they can get out of those traps. I had 4 in their the other day, I left them in the trap to take out a few hours later, a couple hours of later when I pulled the trap up there was only 2 left.

So they either found their way out or something ate them, not sure what would eat them inside the trap. Octopus maybe? They were big blue swimmers, so it must have a been a big octopus.

[Sydney Offshore – YFT, Striped Tuna and Dolphin Fish]

nice fish mate and i really want to get out there but the weather is holding me back in my small boat

cheers sydneyfisher12

right now the warm water is in really close so you wouldn't have to go far out maybe about 5NM, hopefully the weather behaves so you can get out there

[Sydney Offshore – YFT, Striped Tuna and Dolphin Fish]

Headed offshore yesterday, didn’t get out there early, but we rarely do. Wind was not too bad, it was NW and then turned NE 15-20 knots in about 2.30pm. We didn’t see any another boats out there, which was a first in quite a while.

Out of the Sydney Heads we travelled NE, about 1 NM past the Whale Fad the water rose from 22.9 to 24.8 and there was massive visible current line running about 5 knots north to south, honestly it was like rapids on the edge. Headed north along the outside of the current line, we got a Striped Tuna and a couple Dolphin Fish along it. The water was electric blue. Autopsied the fish, they were full of small purple Puffer Fish, so we put them in some of our lures and ran a few purple lures to match the hatch. Our lures represented giant Puffer Fish, the ultimate bait huh J. We had fresh Stripped Tuna, Pilchards and Squid in some of the other lures.

At around 2.30pm when the north easterly kicked in we decided to head SE towards The 12 Mile for a slightly softer ride. The sun had peeked out from the clouds we had no hook ups for about an hour and half so we decided to add a shotgun lure to our spread to increase our chances. About 3NM from The 12 Mile the shotgun and the long rigger got hit simultaneously. The shotgun line sprung back for a second and unfortunately the line wrapped around the tip of the rod and we got busted off. The rigger rod was bent over hard and the fish peeled off about 100 metres of line before dropping the lure. We trolled around the area for a while and didn’t hook anything else. We continued to The 12 Mile. We did a few laps of The 12 Mile but we got nothing, the water was 25 and electric blue out there.

At 4pm we decided to the try The Peak, so we put out 2 high speed lures and trolled there at around 13-15 knots. About 1 NM before The Peak we spotted about 50 Tuna Birds circling, we slowed down to 8 knots and put the rest of our spread out, the lures got smashed straight away. At one stage we had 3 rods bent over and couple of double hook-ups afterwards. We landed 2 Striped Tuna, 1 Yellowfin Tuna and we dropped quite a few fish in all the chaos.

It was almost dark after the last hook up so we started punching the boat back into the north easterly towards Sydney Heads. We couldn’t go that fast on the way back anyway so we kept the lures out to the death and we hooked and landed a small Dolphin almost in the dark before bringing all the gear in. It took us a bit over an hour to get back into the heads.

Is there still a FAD at The Peak, we couldn’t see one on the mark we had for it?

Anyway, get out there if you can, the water is insane, there are distinct current lines and temp breaks everywhere. I am sure there will be a few marlins in that water somewhere and even if you don’t come across any, the Tuna and Dolphin Fish will keep you entertained. Unfortunately I can’t fish for about a week now but I would be out there every day if I could.

Good luck to anyone heading out.

Peter
SB Lures
www.scentblazer.com

[Blue Swimmers]

very tasty. Do you find the traps better than witches hats?

i am not sure, this is the first time i have tried to get them in ages. Got 10 in around 2-3 hrs, so the traps definitely work.

[Blue Swimmers]

Hi peter

Good haul of blue swimmers. Maybe some sort of led torch will do the trick.

Harry

If it's to good to be true, it usually is...

yeah, that's what I was thinking as well, it was late arvo when I put the go pro in the trap. you lose a hell of a lot light at even at 6 metres underwater

I wonder if the torch will attract them or drive them away, I'll give it a go sometime

[Blue Swimmers]

heading offshore tomorrow, I spend a few hours fixing a few things on the boat this arvo, putting in a new pump in and repairing a few hoses, there always something to fix

thought I'd throw a crab trap out while I was doing repairs, used pillies and dolphin fish scraps in a bait chamber for bait, got 10 crabs, six were legal, gave 3 to Andrew and kept the other 3 and released the smaller ones

tried to film it on the go pro by cable tying the go pro to the trap, 6 meters down it was totally black so the camera didn't capture anything, next time I will try sticking a light in the trap

Peter

[Sydney Offshore – 24-4-2014]

Hello Pete in relation to the current lines, When I come back from BALI last year and coming in for landing we coming in over the peak, And just past the peak you could see the current line you could not miss it. if you know any pilots this would help heaps, Thanks for the reports , Also I will get some lures in the future just got to talk to the misses OUCH OOOW. HONEY BUNNY. LOL.

unfortunately I don't know any pilots, I fish with an American guy and he says same thing, he says all the fishermen should chuck in and hire a pilot to give us the co-ordinates of the currents and the bird flocks over winter to find the tuna.

It's a pity there isn't some sort of daily hi-res satellite image, like a hi-res version of Google Earth that you could view. The current lines would show up on that and you could get co-ordinates and go straight to the lines. You could even get app which could guide you there.

Good luck convincing your misses, have a good one.

[Sydney Offshore – 24-4-2014]

Nice fish there you always get something might have to myself some of you lures

Cheers sydneyfisher12

Thanks mate, yeah we always seem to get at least a few every time we get out there which is great. The biggest we got went about 15lb earlier in the season, we're hoping to get come across a bigger one before the season ends.

Yeah give the lures a go, you will do well on them.

Peter

[Sydney Offshore – 24-4-2014]

more pics

[Sydney Offshore – 24-4-2014]

Got out there today again, can’t help myself, warm water and calm conditions, it’s too inviting. I’ll pay this weekend when I am catching up on my work.

Had a problem with my GoPro this morning spent about 1 hr trying to work out how change some settings, argghhh, looking on Google for answers, so got a later start than we would have liked.

We got to the heads around 10.30am, fanged it to the Whale Fad, about 1 mile before the fad there was massive current line and temp break, 21.5 to 23. We spotted a shark cruising along it, thought what the hell, so we put out our hi-speed lures and trolled near where we saw it, we didn’t see it surface again. We could see the Whale Fad ahead with 4 boats on it, didn’t bother going anywhere near it.

We started trolling our way to MH at 12knts. MH was crowded as well so didn’t bother going near that either, kept trolling at 12-14 knots heading towards the Bait Station. About half way there we hooked up a Dollie at 12 knots, almost ripped it’s head off J, so we slowed down to 8 knots for a little while and got another hook-up, it was another Dollie but we dropped it. So we picked it back up to 12-14 knots and kept trolling towards the Bait Station.

About 8 NM from the Bait Station we found a decent current line and the water temp rose to 23.5, we slowed down to 8 knots put out our regular spread and ran that current line, there were small Dollies chasing our lures but not hitting them. After about 1 hour of no hits we headed wider towards the Bait Station.

About 5 NM from the Bait Station we came across another decent current line, temp 24.2. We ran that line for an hour and the same thing happened. Dollies chasing our spread but no hits, so we headed towards the Bait Station again.

About 1 NM from the Bait Station another current line, 25 plus, this was biggest of line of the lot (photo attached) it was running north to south at around 4 – 5 knots. We only had to go 3 knots for the lures to pop when we were running up current. A couple of Dollies chasing the lures again, still no hits. The only reason we could think why the fish weren’t hitting the lures is because the type of bait we had inside them. We put scraps of Tuna and Dolphin Fish inside them and we normally always put some Pilchards inside them, but we didn’t bring any Pilchards with us this time. So we autopsied the Dolphin Fish we caught earlier, it had a small Leatherjacket and some other juvenile fish in there, we emptied out 3 of lures and put bits of Leatherjacket and bits of the juvenile fish inside them, it worked for us and the lures started to get hit.

We ran the line south starting near the Bait Station for about an hour and half and got about 5 Dollies along it. At around 4pm we turned and started trolling towards Sydney Harbour and we kept hooking up all the way back, a few double headers. We fished it to the death and got our final hook-up almost in the dark about 6NM from Sydney Heads.

Boated around 12 Dollies in total, not massive fish but some of them pretty decent, we kept 3 and released the rest.

We are stinging to hook another Marlin this season, but we haven’t come across any in our last 6 outings. It’s still 25 degrees at the Bait Station, there could be granders in that water. With so many good temperature breaks, good current lines and an abundance of blue water the Marlin could be anywhere, in close or out wide. It’s like finding a needle in a haystack.

Good luck to anyone heading out in the next few days, hope you come across a few.

[Sydney offshore - 22-4-2014]

a couple more pics

[Sydney offshore - 22-4-2014]

looks like a great day out you always catch something

you did better than me at the fad

cheers sydneyfisher12

yeah we have been avoiding the fads recently, there have been too many boats on them even mid week, we'll do a pass on them if there one or two boats on it and sometimes on the way back when there is no one on them, but its rare now that you find them with no boats on it

A lot of dollies we have got trolling about 2-3NM directly north of manly hydraulics and trolling our way out to the bait station, just anywhere. We come across patches of them. Sometimes we can see 20-30 of them jumping out behind the lures chasing them down.

[Sydney offshore - 22-4-2014]

Great stuff guys! Really is awesome when you can get out mid week.

yeah, I work on the weekends and late nights to get the mid week fishes in, but its worth it. I got say though over the last 2 months weekdays have been sometimes more crowded than the week ends. I guess when a good reports come in coupled with good weather people just go for it and take the day off.

Yesterday looked really crowded around the fads.

[Sydney offshore - 22-4-2014]

a few more pics

[Sydney offshore - 22-4-2014]

mor epics

[Sydney offshore - 22-4-2014]

hey raiders, we got out there today, boats everywhere which is good to see, the conditions where great

we put the lures in close and trolled our way to the bait station, didn't bother going anywhere near the fads we saw there were about 8 boats sitting on each fad, so we left it to the bait guys

there was temp break about 2NM out around 23 degrees, another about 8NM out and one massive current line right on the bait station which was around 24.5 in places, it looked like rapids along the edge, it was a really nice current line with a few tuna birds along it

We boated around 12 dollies and a few striped tuna. 5 dollies over 80cm and rest were around 50 to 70cm. We were hooking up all the way out and all way back. We got quite a few dollies along the massive current line along the bait station as well.

We were using smaller lures mixed a couple of larger lures to begin with to boat a few dollies, then after about 2hrs once we had a few fish for dinner we had nothing out under 10 inches, the dollies still hit them. We dropped quite a few dollies on the bigger lures as well.

Didn't see or hook any Marlin, but it was great water for them. Still a great day and good fun. There will be some Marlin out there somewhere while this warm water hangs around.

Peter

www.scentblazer.com

[Good Friday - Offshore Sydney]

for sure striped tuna would be beat a kingie but not by much

[Good Friday - Offshore Sydney]

We stuck it out and wind dropped right off at the hydraulic. Kept four each up to 80 on unweighted baits, only small fish hitting lures. Had two yakkas and they lasted about 5 seconds. Also hooked a few rats to 63 that put up a good fight, bit of a wake up after the dollies, reckon they could pull one backwards!

Happy easter.

good stuff, all our fish were all on lures and all small, one was tiny maybe 30cm. Yeah kings are definitely a better fight. Dollies are good on light soft rods, they're good fun on spin gear. I reckon pound for pound striped tuna are a really good fight.

[Good Friday - Offshore Sydney]

_{I'll be taking my son and his mate out as well. Thinking of heading towards the Hacking FAD depending on the weather but if it blows up early might just stay close for a flathead fish. Will be on 21 boat name Chowster.}

_{Yep next week for me , if all goes well, the fads for me.}

_{Tuesday for me will be heading for the sydney fad}

_{Hey how did yous all go today? And how was the weather, might be going out sunday if the swell eases.}

Sam

_{I didn't make the FADs. Had a late start and need to be in early but jagged one off some weed on the way out. Only small but water was good and heard a few on the FADS getting them. Where are you going from?}

_{I couldn't get wide but I know there were fish on the Hacking FAD at least. Check your PMs.}

_{got out there today, I took my son, dan and my mate dingo. My poor kid got sea sick, he threw up twice, but he was a trooper and hung in there for the whole day.}

_{Lots of swell and a reasonably strong westerly out wider. We went NE past the fads. Manly Hydraulics had about 6 boats around it, we didn't see anyone hook up and we didn't want to hassle the boats on it so we just trolled past it going towards the shelf. We got to about 10nm out and it started getting a fair bit rougher so we headed back in closer where there was less chop. Didn't see any other boats out wider. All we got was 4 small dollies just anywhere and 1 small stripped tuna. We did get a knock down on 12 inch lure which could have been a bigger fish, but we also caught some pretty small dollies on 12 inch lures recently, so who knows. 1 dollie was caught on the MH fad on the way back, so the fads are still holding fish.}

_{Water temp straight out of the heads is 23 plus and it was like that all the way out, really blue water, but it seemed that fish were a little shut down today for some reason, maybe because of the westerly.}

So the water is still really warm and there are definitely smaller fish there, so there is no reason there wouldn't be marlin and bigger fish amongst them. I would say Sunday, Monday, Tuesday look like better days with the wind and swell dropping,

_{If you get out there let us know how you go?}

[Good Friday - Offshore Sydney]

Hey, heading out Good Friday, we probably won't go a long way out due to the westerly. I am taking out one of my kids out so we stay in closer where its not too rough. Maybe go out about 8-10 NM or just inside the shelf then head back before the wind picks up in the afternoon.

We be listening and broadcasting on 22 if there is anyone heading out, our call sign is Happy Hooker.

we'll let you know how we go

[Unexpected catch trolling - Sydney Offshore]

good stuff Sorro, yeah they have some teeth on them, back hook was in the corner of its mouth so we were pretty lucky