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Bennos, I believe the first FAD we went to (don't know the GPS co-ords - as we were in my brother's boat) was the Sydney North FAD. The co-ords of this one was given to me by a mate, and then I re-marked it cause it was a little off. I believe it is the Manly Hydrolics wave rider buoy - although when I look up the co-ords for that MHL the co-ords are different. What ever this thing is called, I marked it with my handheld GPS...

Tiger Shark, the FAD had moved from the co-ordinates that I was given. I marked the FAD at 33.47.168/151.24.706 They do vary in location, depending on current and wind.

Thanks Sammy, I thought their teeth were razor like and the bulls would shred light traces. Seems like they are not too finicky with thickness of trace, one would think the 20lb Jinkai would be enough.

Thanks Offtap. The hide of some people .... sad really.

A question guys, were you using a trace for the dollies? If so, what type? Cheers.

Totally awesome !!! Great report and great results !!! I imagine there was carnage on your boat, would have taken a while to get the blood washed off. Great photos and vids, and good thinking about the switch baiting. Gives me a couple of options next time !!!

Thanks Kelvin, the dollies have got great colour. It was interesting that when I was scaling one of them yesterday, that it seemed some of the colour came off with the scales. Beautiful to eat, although they are not as meaty as the Kings.

Hi all, Went out fishing with the brother (Tim) and his mate (Ben) yesterday. Arrived at Balmoral wharf around 5:30am, and caught around 8 yakkas whilst waiting to be picked up by the bro. Bro arrives around 6:30am and we head off the island to try and source some squid and yakkas. The squid were absent, and we could not see any other boats catching any. There were a few around the island. After around an hour, we gather another 8 or so yakkas and try a couple of other spots for squid. There was a lot of debris around, which made the squidding frustrating. After using up another half hour or so, we give up on the squid and head off shore with the yakkas, pillies and frozen bait shop squid. Tried downrigging north head for zip, Bluefish Pt proved fruitless as well. No bait on the sounder. We head off to the Sydney North FAD, where there are a couple of boats already. After a couple of drifts and berleying, we see no activity. We decide to head to the FAD further out, and again there are a few boats already there. Our first drift I see a dollie come up our berley trail. I reel in my live yakka and throw it out into the middle of a school of dollies. They show interest and nudge the yakka, but the yakka is pretty tired and does not show much activity. I think this inactivity does not excite the dollies and they just swim around it . My brother throws in a cubed pillie in their midst and again they show no interest. Ben has the frozen squid on ganged hooks and he too cannot tempt them. This becomes frustrating. We reset our drift to try to locate the fish again, and we cannot find the same school. We decide to downrigg the yakkas, as well as the frozen squid. Ben has a squid trolled out the back. First pass and Ben hooks up, woohoo, the first dollie comes in at around 45cm. Moments later the downrigged yakka rod gets a bump, I flick the line off the clip and we have another dollie onboard. The dollies are not strong enough to take the line off the clip. We continue to downrigg for the next hour and we eventually boat 6 dollies, caught on yakkas and squid. Towards the end of our session at the fad a boat turns up, and a guy dons a snorkel and mask and jumps in the water, swimming towards the FAD. I ask his buddy what he is doing, to which he replies "he is having a look around". I think this is weird, and a somewhat inconsierate to the other boats around. The guy dives under the FAD and retrieves some tackle people had lost on the FAD. Getting back into his boat they motor away from the FAD start what looks like their drift, fair enough I thought. Then the same guy puts on his full wetsuit jumps in and attaches a underwater underwater fishing fishing buoy to his body. He heads to the FAD, with the buoy trailing !!! I could not believe it !!!! There was another boat flicking softies at the FAD, who cannot do this anymore, any fish that were around would surely be put off the bite !!! Sure enough, we did not get anymore bites and we head off. I wanted to have a few words to the guy on the boat, but he moved away from other boats, cause I think he knew what was coming, so we left the inconsiderate jerks to themselves and head back in. On our way in, we decide to downrigg South Head. We locate a good school of baitfish and Kings. We spend the next hour or so going back and forth over this school. We boat 3 Kings, largest around 65cm. Although they are not large, they are a welcome addition to the days catch, and it is great to have a bitt of a tussles with the little powerhouses. I love the fight these little dynamos put up. We end up using up all of our yakkas and head back in, satisfied with the days fishing. Went home and cooked up the dollie, very nice indeed. Hopefully the dollies will hang around for a little while longer, I will surely be paying them another visit. I am at my MIL's place at the moment, so I will post the pictures up later on.

Nice one riceball, great effort on land. Good to see you onto the squid and Kings.

Nice one Mick !!! Can you confirm the bait used for these two beauties??

Have to agree with Dan, the cheeks are awesome, so is the meat above the head - where it joins to the spine. When we have fish head soup, the cheeks are always the first to go, followed by the eyeball and fish brains !!! Sounds grouse, but us asians eat everything !!!! Waste not, want not.

Great report Ross, shame about the big blue. It would have been an awesome site... A lesson to be learned for everyone, every bit of your tackle needs to be in good shape, when tested by a beast. Good to see some YFT showing up, I think everyone is hanging for the season to start up again.

Nice one BF, I like the photo in the end. Nice bottle of Sav Blanc to go with the freshly caught crabs, can't beat it.

Nice report Shadow, congrats on the Jewie !!! Great by-catch... It's just the way with live bait, you have a tank full and you don't use them. Only have a few and you get onto a hot bite.... A successful day for you, well done.

Well done Steve, a top day of fishing. A ripper of a King and congratulations on popping your Dolly cherry.

Nice one Netic, only the hard core fishos go out in this weather. Well done on the bag of arrows and Kings. I am getting the picture that it is wet and miserable down there in Sydney. I am still up her in warmer conditions at the Gold Coast. Just finished another round of golf this morning and heading back to Sydney tomorrow, with a hope of a quick fish on Monday morning.... Hopefully the conditions pick up, cause I am not hard core enough to go out in those conditions, especially in the centre console...

Good going Tony, your alertness and thinking has produced the goods. I would never have thought about the rice thing, I knew that cat/dog food was good for burley. Maybe the yakkas originated from Asia

Nice report and great pictures Dicko. Days like this make you glad you have a nice cabin to hide in.

Nice report Pete, there is nothing worse then sitting in a boat, fully drenched and feeling very cold. You did well to bag the Samson, better luck next time on the fishing and weather front.

Nice one Penguin, a good feed indeed.

Thanks for your responses guys, it was a shame about the Wahoo, but as you all very well know, that is fishing for you. As Kelvin said, they will be there again next time. Nice one CFD, bagging out on Snapper would be awesome. From all accounts they are an awesome fighting fish and to boot they are fantastic to eat.. The people from Fish The Deep were great. We tried a number of spots, the skipper and deckie were knowledgeable, very accommodating and made everyone feel welcome. I am very keen to come back in Winter to have a crack at some bigger fish. G'day Kelvin, a holiday needs to have some sort of compromise. A bit of what the missus wants to do, and a bit of what I want to do. Fishing and golf is always up there somewhere, especially when the FIL and BIL like golf too. I had to endure 4 hours of shopping at an outlet the other day, not so bad really when I actually bought more then she did... I am lucky and have a missus that allows me time to pursue my passions most of the time. My bro told me that he saw you out there, and that it was tough going. I thought he would at least bag a King, given that he had live squid. The change of weather must be shutting down the Kings for the moment, no sweat though, you know the bigger Winter Kings are just around the corner... Hope you got your trailer sorted out already, you are soooooo lucky you did not damage the Noble and the loose wheels did not cause any accidents. Absolutely agree Whitecaps, nothing worse then dodgie charter operators. I was pretty confident that this one would be good, as Stewy pointed me in their direction (Cheers Stewy) and their website has good information and pictures. Nice play on words Roberta. Apparently they Wahoos are meant to be great to eat, according to the deckie - who apparently works on a lot of game boats. You are one cheeky bugger Pagemeister. Sounds like you had a ball at SWR, shame I couldn't make the trip up there with you, definitely next time. We still need to plan our trip to WA, although I have been reading about the Hoodlums in SA and my mind is wandering how I can fit make all these fishing trips happens without going through a divorce

G’day Guys, It has been a long time since I have written a report, so I thought I should contribute to the forum with a report. I am on annual leave at the moment, which normally would include some fishing in the harbour chasing my normal quarry the much written about Seriola Lalandi. Unfortunately during this break I may not have time to fish on the harbour, as I have been coaxed up to the Gold Coast for a holiday with the Father-In-Law (FIL) and wife’s sisters family. The fortunate thing is I still get to do some fishing and golfing, and I actually like spending time with the FIL and wife’s family. How can you not like the FIL, when he allows you to keep your boat in his garage, shouts you to rounds of golf and pays for the accommodation when on holidays I just need to keep the fish coming in and feed him a round of fresh fish every now and then. Anyway, back to the real reason why you are reading this report. I managed to convince the FIL and Brother-In-Law (by marriage) to come out fishing yesterday on a charter called Fish The Deep. We were picked up at 5:20am from our apartments and driven a pontoon near Sea World, where we boarded the 10 metre Catamaran. After the normal safety spiel on life jackets, rafts and safety procedures, we head off to reef number one, which is roughly around 2klms offshore from Jupiters Casino. Only undersized reef fish are caught and we move onto another spot further south. Whilst heading down to the other spot, the skipper trolls a couple of chrome slices, and we pick up a couple of small bonitos. They are kept for strip bait. Anchoring up on the second spot, more reef fish (can’t remember what they are called, but they looked like sweet lips) being caught on Penn Senator overhead rod and reels, using the paternoster rig. The bait was frozen baby squid and half pillies. I was getting bored of the small reef fish and decided to join the skipper in bagging yakkas for further offshore fishing. I brought my own tackle, including a reel, and the skipper handed me a spin rod to bring in the yakkas. So there I am happily trying to stock up on the yakkas, and there is commotion around the FIL, I turn around to see him struggling with something larger then the reef fish that were being caught. After a brief tussle, we see colour and the School Mackeral was boated, a little over 60cm. I think this is his biggest fish, and he is happy. After this excitement, there are hopes of other fish being caught, but this doesn’t eventuate. After loading up on sufficient yakkas, we head off to a reef about 40klms offshore. The swell was decent, around 2metres, which made for a bumpy ride out to the grounds. It was surprising that only one guy started berleying over the side of the boat. Upon arriving at the reef, the deckie gives a demo on how to bait the flesh baits that have been cut up and drops the bait down. He immediately hooks up and hands the rod over to a fisho, who brings up a nice King of around 60cm (apparently the size limit up in QLD is 50cm). This gets everyone excited and everyone drops their bait with anticipation and high hopes. I felt a little energized and thought I might have a jig. I ask the skipper if I can borrow a rod, as I had my Tyrnos 30 with me. He kindly hands me over his Wilson Live Fibre 15kg rod, fitted with a Tyrnos 30 and 50lb braid. I throw on a 230g knife jig, that I have yet to catch anything on in 4 other outings, and start the jigging ritual. The combo is rather heavy and rod too soft for my liking, making jigging tougher then it normally is, but I have to make do with what is on offer. After about 6 drops and a couple of drifts, I have no luck and wonder how long how can continue jigging with the combo. After another drift, I decide to change to my “Aussie” knife jig, which is a Juro 280g green and gold jig. I modify my stroke to be shorter and don’t lift past horizontal. First drop with the jig, 5 winds and I come up solid. A cry of “Yeah” goes up and everyone on the boat is interested. The fish has weight behind it, and it feels like a King. We are in 80 metres of water so it is going to be a little while till I bring it up. The fish has a few good bursts and takes line off the reel, the skipper taunts me and tells me it had better be a big one for the time that I am taking. I can feel the fish near the surface, and it takes off horizontally away from me and starts coming to the surface, I now know it is not a King and see colour. The deckie cries out “Wahoo” and is excited as he has not seen a Wahoo caught on a Jig before. This is a biggen and looks well over a metre to me. This fish was not finished, as it makes another burst sideways and heads towards the engine (I am up the front of the boat). The fish is very quick and powerful, and the force of the run sweeps my left foot from under me and I nearly fall over. The deckie and skipper are yelling at me to keep it away from the engine, I manage to force it away from the engine and it makes another horizontal burst away from the boat. It shakes it’s head, and there is slack line …. silence … despair. The bugger had won it’s freedom, it was a great fight though. The deckie estimates it to be around 1.2 metres, and around 12-15kgs. Bugger. After the disappointment, I continue jigging for no further success. We move around to some other spots, where we boat Pearl Perch, Pig Fish, and Trag Jews. All up, the boat brings in a good haul of fish. We got onto a patch of Trag Jews which ate up the yakkas on the last drift of the day, so that was a nice way to finish it of. My only haul of the day is plenty of reef fish, and a Pig fish, which tasted very much like Coral Trout, it was delicious indeed. Unfortunately I did not get to bag the big fish I was hoping for up here, but I had a good day, and so did the FIL and BIL. The people from Fish The Deep and the crew were a pleasure to deal with, and I would go back on this boat again, next time I am up here. Apparently the best time to go fishing up here is around the August period, where there are big Kings hanging around, so I will have to coax the missus up here for a holiday then. I will attend to my other obsession today, golf at Brookwater Golf Course, so hopefully I will have a slightly more successful day out.

Bad luck with the trailer Kelvin, things could have been worse, lucky you saw the missing tyres. It sounds like the last couple of days have been tough out on the water, but you always seem to come up with the goods.

Mate, I have a Haines 445F and the gunwale is too thin for my Scotty 1050 base. I actually got a base plate made from king board and mounted it as close to the stern as possible. It works fine. Having experienced and see different ways of mounting the downriggers, I would use the gimbal mount on my next boat. They are portable and quite stable, you just need to install another SS rod holder for the mount. The guys are right, do not use the rod holder on the downrigger, trust me

My thoughts exactly, I wouldn't be in a helicopter in the middle of a cyclone. There is some serious rocking on that boat, I hope the people in the boat had helmets on..