sydangler

Ive dumped old pillies in the water a few times and very quickly had schools squid turn up. Maybe a burly bucket full of pillies tied off might bring them in.

Yep yellowtail and its a bream. You rarely cant hoodlums (kingfish) at night more aussie salmon, big tailor or possibly jewfish. The smaller yellowtail make great live bait drop them to the bottom on 30lb+ for jews. Or the big ones butterfly them and drop them down. Another tip any pelagic fish (ie tailor, salmon, kings) should be bled straight after capture but cutting from the underside of the gills up to the spine. As for the bait the "white servo pillies" are possibly white bait? But sounds like you had a great night keep it up and the fish will keep coming.

We have been finding big schools of stripe tuna under big flocks of mutton birds lately

Forgot to mention we will probably be around the southern canyons or browns

Fellow member bruce b who I started mentoring about a year ago has upgraded his 4.9m stacer to a 615 bar crusher and we are now trying to get into some game fishing. We plan to spend most of the weekend on the water and happy to call in fish if we find them anyone else keen to get in and see if we can all get some fish. We will be on chanel 21 call sign circus 4. Cheers ollie

For the overhead my pick of rods is a wilson live fiber 24kg at 9 foot (I think) absolute beast of a rod it will stop just about anything. But if your price range is 800 go get a nice custom rod if you pm me ill send you a rod builder I knows details. He is a big lbg fisherman with kings up to 30kg off the stones under his belt and makes beautiful rods. Maybe be worth getting one of his popping sticks as well as a spin rod

Im sure this is probably to late but hopefully will help people in the future. A mate of mine snapped around 150mm off his brand new black lable and I took it down to a rod builder friend of mine who managed to find a sutible section rod section to sleave the rod and put the 2 pieces back together. It feels almost exactly the same as it did originally just a tiny bit stiffer in the tip.

Gday all been a long time between post (mainly due to a slow winters fishing). Im after some advise on game fishing gear. About a year ago I took on fellow member bruce b as he was looking for a mentor and since then we have become good mates fishing most weekend out of his 490 stacer. And most times talking about how nice it would be to go wider and chase some big fish jigging the outta reefs and trolling/drifting for tuna and marlin. Then at the boat show bruce decided it was time and has boight him self a 615 bar crusher which he will soon be picking up. NOw my question for you all is what gear are we going to need to chase marlin and tuna out of sydney? Coming into its mostly the marlin gear im asking about. I have a tld50 and a handful of jigging combos for pitching live baits at them but the trolling gear is where we are falling short. We are thinking tlds dont wanna spend on tiagras just yet so for a spread of 4 lure what would you guys be running? I was thinking 2 tld50s spooled with 24kg and 2 tld25s spooled with 15kg probably matched with backbones. Are the 25s going to be enough to handle sydney marlin? Or are we better off just running 50s with 24kg? Also any tips on what skirts to run would be appreciated. Cheers ollie.

wind onleadersin my opinion are a huge waste of money. learn to tie the FG knot which will connect you braid to your mono and you can choose you length easily. then your $15 will get you 50m of leader rather then 7m (roughly 20 feet).

I rate pillies as a top jew bait. The only problem is everyrhing eats it big or small. I cleaned up on pillies get 5 jews in one night and a 6th on a livie. If there arent many small bream and other pickers about pillies are gun bait.

most of sydney harbour (at least most of it) is an intertidal marine zone, meaning you cant take anything that lives between the high and low tide point, including octopus. but you can take them from out side the harbour, as far as killing them goes you need a razor shape knife get the occy to stick to the rocks grad its head pull up and in one quick movement slice its head off below the eyes. or try the greek/italian way of bite it between the eyes, personally i prefer the knife. as for bait i have fished it quite alot as i thought it would be gold and i have had a few run by possible jews but havent landed one on it, i usually use a tentical from a bigger occy or if its a small one throw it out whole. talking to a guy a few months back on a brreakwall up north and he puts them out live under a float and has got a few good jews on them and he said the bigger the better.

i have 2 set ups for targeting big kings off the stones for throwing big poppers i have an 18000 stella with 80lb braid (but the saragosa is a good cheaper option) on an 8 foot XT popping rod. when fishing that heavy i dont like anything longer then about 8 foot because its to to much to handle with heavy drag running through a longer rod. and ballooning live bonito, frigates and mack tuna i had a TLD50 (doubles as a game reel but a TLD25 o 30 would do the job) matched with a wilson live fiber 9'6 LBG stick. both combos are cabible of stopping any king with a bit of luck but i have still been smoked on both combos.

live bait hooks are just a heavy gauge J hook, im sure if you look around you will find some heavy gauge circle hooks maybe made for tuna or marlin. my king fish rig off the rocks is dead simple 40-80lb braid or 50lb mono on my TLD/LBG combo with at least 5m of mono trace attached with an FG knot straight to my hook then tie on a balloon. nothing to catch in the reef and very few points that can fail. match the hooks to the fish you are chasing as well as the bait. ive lost good kings to the same problem and once i upgrading my hook size i stopped pulling them. maybe try running a mono leader rather then a FC (save a few bucks too) that will give you more stretch.

what bait are you using?? but if you are pulling hooks try swtiching to a heavier gauge live bait hook and maybe bigger sizes, i run between 5/0 and 12/0 for kings and unless im just having fun on light line i always use live bait hooks. hope that helps.

shame you didnt get to see them mate, there has been some solid kings in the harbour. best knot for connecting braid to mono (in my opinion) is the fg knot, bit harder to tie and takes time but its worth its weight in gold you can easily wind your leader onto your spool and still get a decent cast as it is very slim and doesnt catch the guides. one thing i will suggest if you want to target big kings land based is upgrade your gear i fish 50lb braid and 80lb leaders and get dusted regularly even fishing 80lb braid and 100lb+ leader you wont stop some fish.

good drag setting and wait out the fight and you can land bonnies and macks on anything unlike kings and snapper they wont run for the reef they will just charge off high in the water. in the harbour ive fished 2lb of bonnies and frigates landbased you loose a few fish but so much fun when they scream off.

its not common but they do come in. few years ago the was a spanish mackrel caught of north whale and i heard of a good few spotties coming out of the harbour

me and a mate are planning on getting up to stockton break wall chasing some big jews. we are taking up some big live mullet for live bait and we will get some live yellow tail up there. just wondering if anyones been fishing there recently or heard any reports? also if anyone has any tips it would be great. only fished it once over a weekend and lost 5 good fish on serious tackle. hoping to get some revenge this time round.

ive caught jews, bream, flatties, bass and eps on plastics in pitch black on plastics i usually slow it down abit though

mate he means cutting the tail off as using the rest of the fish. i run big live mullet and tailor as a preferd live bait for jews. i recently read an old artical writen by craige magill in which he spoke about catching a 52lb jew followed by a 60cm king which went into the jews mouth with out touching the sides so that should give you an idea of how big a jews mouth is. with the same idea i have caught 70cm jews on live yakkas over 20cm so dont be afraid of using big baits. if your landbased dont push your gear to much only cast what you can as i have seen rod tips snapped by people trying to throw big baits and sinkers on the wrong rod. i use a wilson FSU5120 which is a 10 foot solid beach rod capable of casting huge amounts of weight a long way. also think or look what bait is around where you fish. it there is small yakkas and choppers you will be less likely to hook one on a big live mullet. by far my favorite bait for jews of any size is live squid, small jews will smash solid squid but big jews will still take a strip of squid. learn to catch fresh squid, i will squid for a couple of nights leading up to a big weekend for fishing for jews but the best squid is the ones on location or just before going. as per your question about catching bigger jews in the same spots as the soapies, as a rule no you wont but it does happen. big fish hang out in deeper water, usually with high tidal flow (but feed on the slack water) so if you want to chase big jews look for promiant points leading into deep water with holes, reefs or other structure to form eddies (some you will see others you wont) but if your after big jews also be prepared to say good by to decent sleep, time with loved ones, and possibly even your sanity it is alot of hard work but the rewardsm are worth it (to some of us). ive been fishing for big jews for 2 years now but only seriously for the past 6 months (more time now im single) i havent landed one yet but lots of decent fish upto 88cm as well as huge flatties, nice kings and small sharks. good luck hope that helps (and makes sence)

for that rating the 2500 should be heaps. and kingfisher later this year the biggest reel size on the market will go up from 20000 to 30000 with the new stella coming out

na mate i have a tcurve on my 18000 saragosa, on my stella i have an azusa great rod but its way to stiff to jig with you have to work really hard better suited to live baiting or trolling. im going to get a tcurve for my stella

go get your self a tcruve great rods for the price, really comfortable to jig with to.

mate i pin one hook through the nose i usually use a heavy gauge live bait hook such as a mustard hoodlum as i usually need a big cast in the spots i fish so this stops the hook pulling through on the cast, then i have my second hook 1/2 to 3/4 of the way down the fish just bellow the dorsal fin barely in the flesh this hook i use a octopus style hook for the thinner gauge.

Big kings would be your most likely taker apart from sharks. I've been dusted quite a few times doing it. I run a TLD50 on a 24kg Wilson LBG rod for it these days. My mate does well with them he hams landed 2 10kg plus kings on live bonnies I've just been smoked in the reef.