Keflapod

Mate, What a great catch. I love to see kids enjoying it so much. Love the line "We'll be back". I see a lot of myself in your son. I was the same as a youngster. I'm now 43 and fishing has become a lifelong passion for me. It has shaped my life into the wonderful thing it is today. I hope it does the same for your son and the bonding it creates for you two is priceless. As dogtooth said - I can see a big kingie in his arms sometime soon, as well as a jewie, a tuna, a reddie, etc, etc, etc. and then a trophy or two. Just don't introduce him to women until he's 30 !

Only problem is where to put the TV ! One half of me reckons you're nuts and another half of me reckons you're a genius and another half is undecided and the final half of me is still doing accounting 101..... I'm not game to look for any more halves - I'ts quite crowded in my head already! But seriously, where does the tackle box go? You may have to get a mate on another chair, strap some wooden planks between you and turn it into a cat. Then you can use the plank between you to put gear on....Hey you started a good idea - let's expand on it!

Hey Mr Rosebay, 8 fish of that size is a very respectable catch. A good eating size as well. I take it by your name that you fish the harbour or did I get it wrong?

Scrubbie, You see what happens, when you take someone fishing with you? They're not interested in catching fish for a feed - they just wanna kick your butt so they can BRAG! The fish are soon eaten and gone but the bragging can last for years - LOL His lifelong obsession, er, I mean dream was to outfish you ! Does one of his eyes squint uncontrollably when he talks about you ? Kind of like Inspector clouseau's boss ? (Pink panther movie) Only kidding guys. Well done on a top catch of fish - especially them elbow slappers. Don't put them near your face (hey wait - there's an idea....) I didn't think anyone got excited of stingrays though... So how DID you guys see in the dark? Actually I nearly run into a 40 foot riviera parked on a private jetty while I was running down the river - it was certainly dark. I was the idiot for not leaving my forward spottie on..... Anyways a quick story about snoozing fishing buddies. Some years ago a mate took me jewie fishing in the harbour. What was supposed to be a nice trip turned out me being his slave for anchor duties, baiting, get me this, get me that, etc. By midnight, he fell asleep and ordered me to manage the rods, through a tide change, tangles, etc while he slept. His 15kg rod goes off with a livie as the bait. I pulled in a nice 10kg jew and he still didn't wake. By 6:00am he woke to see a nice jewie on the deck so I told him I caught it on MY gear. I went home with a nice fish - he got to keep the bait - a nice prize for all MY hard work. Needless to say I haven't gone out with THAT mate again but I learnt the spot and a few interesting bits of info on jewie fishing.

Hey Mr breambo, I always anchor although occasionally I might drift while in experimental mode. I often conduct little experiments to see what would happen if..... Only when I can't seem to find a fish and I see the squidgie guys getting fish, then I might drift and toss a SP around until the tide changes or I get fed up with life. I also seem to think that some spots hold fish at certain times. Eg off silver beach, I never stay later than 9:30 as the fishing slows down too much, while other spots I can usually get them at any time. I think that the bream_snapper_jew team did better, although curiously no whiting. Night can be a good time if you haven't got 20 knots of northeasterly hurricane blowing....

Hey BSJ, Excellent effort. It seems the night is a bit better than the daytime. Why? I bet it's the boat traffic factor. My results on Saturday morning were slow on the bream/whiting, but as soon as the big NW started and boats left, the fish came on. So what water depth do you fish in? Also, is there patches of weed/sand or mainly weed or mainly sand? I don't fish at night bcos the wife doesn't like me being away from home at night with 2 young kids for her to look after. I'm just curious to see where the fish go at night on a high tide on a new moon, when prawns would be their main quarry. Also, what bait did you use, if you don't mind me asking?

Jeez Darkhorse - you got me worried now You know I have had a few people do the "follow that boat" on me but there are quite a few little fine details in this sort of fishing that can make a real difference. I once went on a mate's boat - each had 3 rods. I caught 19 bream and he caught 4. Another time I went out with someone else - I caught 12 he caught 1. There are signs you have to read - where to cast, when to check your bait, when a fish picks up the bait and runs, are you going to strike or let the reel sing for a while? Which way is he going? With the tide or across it to get to a certain area? Did that slight rod tip movement 5 minutes ago mean a small fish stole your bait? If so, that rod is sitting there with no chance of a hookup. Are all your baits being stolen with no fish to show for it? MOVE SPOTS! Did you try a few deeper water spots for not much? GO SHALLOW. Has the tide just changed? REPEAT YOUR SPOTS - they may fire on the opposite tide... There's a lot of "on-the-fly" thinking and strategy involved. I don't always have the answers though - fishing is an inexact science - unless we can do a vulcan mind-meld with fish, we will never really know....

Hey raiders, Time for Botany Bay report. Went out early Saturday morning to get away from the crowds. Funny when you're driving down the river and can't quite see where you're going. Nearly run into a 42 riviera parked on a private jetty - no lights anywhere, but how I managed to get anywhere near it is a mystery. I should have kept the forward spotlight on for just a bit longer than I did... Very important lesson learnt right there.... Anyway, anchored on my favourite early morning possie, saw a couple of fish hit the deck, as well as a disoriented whitebait that beached itself on the transom step - the transom light must have startled it. Surprisingly there were no ooglies to take the bait, no stingrays, banjos, eels or catfish... At sunrise, moved to spot B and caught a few more fish, then at about 6:45am, this little blue speedboat cat thing ran around at 40 knots, buzzing my whole area, as well as most of the bay. The noise was incredible and it's amazing how one person can ruin the fishing for 30 others....He kept this up for 1.5 hours before he decided that he has killed enough of the prime fishing time for us fishos.... Needless to say I had to move to get away. Then at 8:30 I moved back to my first spot and by about 9:30 the NW wind kicked in, sending most boats back to the ramp. I was pretty happy about that - peace at last, just have to hang onto a jostling boat. Then the fish came on the bite nicely and I finished up with 15 bream, 8 whiting and a trevally. One little lesson - I lost a thumper of a bream at the boat when the trace parted. How did this happen? Well, you find that little bits of bait will work loose from the hook and work their way up the trace until they reach the swivel, or some little scratch in the line where it will catch. When the bit of bait goes all the way to the swivel, they are not so obvious to see because the trace is so long, but the little toad fish, leatherjackets and other toothies pick at it and chomp away at the line as well. I always check my traces for such damage but in this instance the damage was a long way up the very long trace and I didn't think to check that far. Oh well, the fish was 40'ish cm and probably a big breeding female - not to worry - I caught enough fish. I even let about 6 fish go that were 26cm so the fish were really on. I'm sure that boat noise has heaps to do with it so I stayed until I ran out of bait. Often, I find people are friendly and like to come up to me, do a lap of honour around my boat to check me out and say a friendly G'day - that's nice, but what they don't realise is that they have systematically driven over all 4 of my baits and usually catch one of my lines in their outboard propeller. To say HI thay end up wrecking your chances of catching a fish for maybe half an hour, or more. What do you do? That's why I'm sure the fish came on after the main traffic had left. Anyways, a couple of pics for the record.

Hi Jewgaffer, Few people possess the knowledge you have regarding jewfish fishing. I'm trying to take a note of the info you pass onto us jewie apprentices. I don't suppose you have any photos of the hook positions in a live bait as well as when in a butterflied bait? I was looking at targetting some George's river jewies, and while I have a reasonable idea of where to fish, possibly even when to fish, but I'm not overly confident I have the right b/s of trace line matched to the main line, single versus two hook rigs and hook size. I think I will prefer two hooks for livies but working out the distance between the hooks is tricky. Then you mention turning the barb one way, barbs facing eachother - barbs at 40 paces - it adds quite a few variables to the equation - hence the photos ...then they can be posted into the reference area here....

Hey BSJ, That area you fish in front of the Kurnell baths is all pretty good, all the way to the boat ramp. I find that it works well in the morning up to about 9:00am on baits, and I've seen the squidgie brigade catch fish up to maybe midday and beyond. I never burley there as it brings all the toadfish, banjos and stingrays around. I'm sure it brings in bream and trevally as well, but if they don't find the bait in 5 minutes a sting ray or banjo will.... I find that there are a fair few fish there but most are 24 to 30cm with the occasional fish going 35-40cm. For the last several weeks, the brown algal weed has made fishing there impossible so if you got 9 legal bream, you did well. Fishing evenings in the summer is a pain in the bay bcos the wind gets to 20 knots all the time and you're completely exposed....That's why I prefer morning and look for the spots that produce during this time. By the way, how much chicken breast do you take with you for a 5 hour trip to feed 4 rods? I'm just thinking about backup baits if the bloodworms never return or if I run out of bait just as the fish start biting....

Two barbeques at once? Mate, you must have had EVERY single relo you got over, to "help you eat" the fish. Do you find there is ribbon weed on the seabed at your spots or is it just clean sand? Did you catch any stingrays/banjo sharks as well?

Go Kalymnos! I bet the relos already knew that you had some fish coming home. Mine certainly do. The greek grapevine has a way of transcending even the internet! So was it the pillies that did the damage or the nippers? What was the water depth you were in? Did you get much current pushing by you? I won't ask too many questions....just those......

Hey Dawg, My brother and I usually catch blue swimmers in port hacking using handlines in about 5m of water. We fish for them in Gunamatta bay. Where abouts did you find the muddie? You can get them by putting some fish heads in a net (the type you buy your oranges in) and tossing it in. When the line feels tight, slowly pull it in. You will need a wide opening net and arnold schwartzenegger to wrestle it and tie it up. Where abouts are the muddies in the hacking?

Hey Jewdreamer, don't feel bad about not turning a reel. From memory, the water quality around new year at Botany heads was not good. I believe it was 19 degrees and green. Not very inviting. That kind of water has a much lower probability that there will be fish in it. If yakkas come up the trail and don't seem too panicky for a while, chances are the kings are not there to make them nervous. If kings are there, you will see them come up the trail for a looksee and the livies will scatter, then re-group. I think the water quality was the problem for the lack of fish - that's why no bites. If, however you had confirmation the fish were there and no bites - then that's a different story. Then you look at your approach and try to work out what is wrong or missing. Then you can decide, bait, tackle or something else. I'm surprised that no salmon, trevally or tailor showed up though... Just to give you an example, a few days after that, I went out cape banks in 35m of water - green sloppy 2m water - put pilchard cubes on the bottom and hardly had a bait taken....when pillies come back unmolested from the reef bottom - something is drastically wrong.... Wait until that water turns a nice blue in close and try again.....

Thanks for the feedback guys. Hey Baggin_out, I would hate to think that if scrubworm and I DID get together we would be jousting rods at 5 paces. We would look a fine example to fisheries if they came to inspect our catch - knee deep in fish.... Fisheries: "What the hell are you guys doing?" Fishraiders: "We're just having a little competition...." Fisheries: "How many have you got there?" Fishraiders: "Well scrubworm has one more whiting than me, but I've got one bream over him" Jim Bream - I think you left the "r" out of your surname there. Do you want to come breammin with me and scrubworm? We might sink the boat ! OK OK only kidding - me and scrubbie can sink the boat on our own! Actually I'm not out there killing them all the time but for those occasions when I do go out and manage to put a few together - hey, I do like to brag a little...but at least it gives us all an indication of when the fish are around... Hey Salmon_hunter, nothing gives me more joy than to watch a kid enjoy catching their first decent fish. To them, the fish are larger than life. It puts the most brilliant smile on their face that you can never wipe off. Pity my seven year old boy is only interested in fishing on his x-box ! As for live bait in the bay - there's quite a few places, but when you strike out in a few places, it means you ain't gonna get any. Try close to the wall at molineux but be very careful of wind and tug-waves. Start at the brotherson dock end and sound out all the way to mol point - if no good, try the suction (where the breakwall meets the yarra bay beach) - again be careful near the storm water outlet - 1m rocks at low tide. If that fails, there's watts reef or the drums - there are other spots but by the time you check em all and get bait - mol point is full....what do you do? catch 22.... Jewgaffer, Thanks for the feedback - I watch you posts as well - your knowledge on weather and how it affects fishing (mainly jewies) is something I hold in great awe. I have never studied the weather and it's effect on fish behaviour - I just go whenever time allows and apply what I have learnt to the hand of cards dealt on the day. If fishraider ever has some get-together - it would be a pleasure to meet some of you guys...

Mate, how many fish did you get? Was the fishing real slow or was there are few around? That fish is a top fish - did he nearly run you under the timber?

Hey Raiders, I went out to Botany bay on saturday for a bream, whiting (anyfin really). 5:30 saw me at the hot water outlet. Lots of rat kingies there with lures flying all over the place. I saw some being caught but resisted the temptation. Why bother if they are rats? But with boats driving all over my head, crossing my bream lines, I decided I was intruding on someone elses turf. I fished silver beach - that dreaded brown algal weed was still there, but this time there were some bream around. The squidgie boys were catching more fish than me (mostly undersized) but there were some decent fish being kept. I gave it a go but could not get a bite as that weed kept fouling the lure. It seems the squidgie boys didn't have that problem. I would like to know what they were doing... Can anyone give me some pointers? To cut a long story short, I fished quite a number of spots and finished up with 9 bream and 9 whiting. All the mature fish were in spawning condition. It's shame to take spawning fish, but if I was to buy my fish during the spawning month(s), then they too would be spawning, right? So there's no way of escaping it... Best bream went only 32cm and the best whiting was a nice elbow slapping 42cm (thank's to scrubworm for that phrase!). At least I can post a pic or two this time. Hey Jim Bream, how about an email from you for your last trip into the bay? How did you go?

The diary is essential. You need to identify all variables that you think are important. Ask people like Jewgaffer, Zenman, Pacemode just to name a few for what they consider are the variables to record. There was a post a few months ago where people put forward their thoughts on what they considered important information. Find the post. Create the spreadsheet with these variables and start writing up your data. I have done this for botany bay for the last 5 years. From this a pattern will emerge as well as all sorts of speculation. It makes the whole process really interesting and fun, and when you get results, you won't be able to stop talking about them and the feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment, as well as the boost to your self confidence will be amazing. Once you learn a few things and catch fish regularly, then you will suddenly stop talking about it...it's all too secret to tell anyone !

OK Jimmy - my email is: saratoga02@optusnet.com.au

Hey Jimmy, Thanks for that. I don't suppose we can swap email addresses. I just wanted to run some statistics past you. A couple of months ago, I was getting fish around quibray bay in VERY shallow water. Then they went quiet there, so I tried another spot and got them there nicely for a few weeks, then quiet there. as well. Then I found them on silver beach - now they're quiet there too. I also move around and do a lot of very specific little tricks - I just want to see your opinion based on your experience... I have kept data in a spreadsheet for the last 4 years at least. Anyway, I hope you're interested in swapping some thoughts.... Tony

Hey Jimmy, No bream at all. I fished in 3.5m of water wide of silver beach. Last week there were some fish there and not in any of my other spots I visited so I went there on Friday 26th. There was so much weed there, it was getting caught on many different points in the mainline, not just the sinker and hook. Over 5kg of it every time. It drifts with the current at all levels of the water column. It quickly covers the bait and the fish can't find it. I resorted to squidgie lure fishing but it too accumulated weed on every cast. I went hunting around for areas free of this weed. The entrance to Quibray bay had nearly none - that's where I caught the flatties, but no bream. Do you find the nippers disappear from the hook very quickly? Also, you can't cast them very far. Do you get many bream on the tube worms? I find them too soft and they disappear way too fast. So were you fishing mainly in the river mouth or actual Botany Bay? Did the fish bite early in one big wave then stop suddenly?

Hey Jim, I too was in the bay looking for a bream. I found only tons of that brown algae weed. Each chuck brought back about 5kg of the stuff. I ended up putting the bait away and I spun up a couple of nice 55cm flatties on squidgies. I'm not really am SP man but I resort to them when baiting is quiet... Did you get that brown weed infestation where you were fishing? Also were you using tube worms or beach worms? I understand bloodworms are no longer available. Can I ask what depth were you in? Tony

Hey numbnuts, were any of the fish in spawning condition? I'm only asking because the bream in Botany bay are scarce on bait, but some are being caught on squidgies. I'm thinking that the reason they are not biting on bait is because they are breeding and that the main reason they are striking at lures (if striking at all) is that maybe it's out or some sort of breeding induced territorialism - I'm just curious. I was bait fishing and only caught one with a nice 35cm whiting, but I noticed some of the lure chuckers were getting some fish. Not to be outdone, (ie monky see, monkey do), I did the same and managed a nice 35cm bream on a squidgie. My first ever, but I'm trying to work out when to use the plastic, and when to use bait. By the way, them fish are all beauties - well done. May I make a suggestion for cooking? When the fish hit 40cm +, the skin gets rubbery and tough. The skin also doesn't taste any good at that size in my opinion. Before you grill the fish, skin it as you would a blackfish. Baste it with olive oil and add your fave herbs/spices - whatever you like. If you leave the skin on, the skin will contract during cooking, bending and contorting the fish very badly. It will look awful and the flesh underneath will not taste so good as it didn't get the basting / herbs. Score the fish 4 or 5 times per side to get even cooking. I love my seafood - I fish exclusively for the table and you have a smorgasboard of seafood delights right there. Bon apetit....

Hey Daniel, Mate I'm as peeved off as you are but the difficult thing we face is that if we lose our mind and riot, then the rest of the world will think that all fishos are a violent bunch of nutcases prepared to address issues with fists. While we want to do that, we can't - we have to be smart. It's a big mindgame. Only those of us who take a step back, think about a clever way to counterattack the threat and expose their science for the crap that it is, only then can we beat them. Look at what Red did with that phone call. That was sheer brilliance. A super sleuth and reporter rolled into one. We need to do our research. For those of us who are knowledgeable and well networked in the relevant areas, these people could provide some leadership and direction to the rest of us who don't really know what to do. If these leaders suggested who to email, call or meet, or put forward some sort of game plan to gather info and use it where it's most effective, then that might work. Preferably, if we can indicate to pollies that this is going to prove one hell of a community-dividing fight, then they will think twice as to whether or not to support this park because the votes will be divided too. We need to get big names involved to put revenue loss figures together which will ruin the relevant economies and tie politician names in with that. I believe that names must be named to get their attention. Indicate how much money will be lost in each industry and that the local pollies will be blamed - equate the marine park introduction with lost pollie votes and they will listen. Can we put an article in each of our local papers with info we have gathered? Can we make some worthwhile points for people to read that suggest a fair compromise between marine lockout and wipeout? We need to inform the community at large of both sides of the debate - show the pollies that voters are wised up based on our research...that's how to change the world - not by beating them up with bare knuckles- we gotta beat them up with words - a good poker game - the pen is mightier than the sword, so we'll whack them with a pen...in the paper where people can read it at home, on a train, bus, ferry, online or on the toilet !

G'day Red I am old enough. About 14 years ago, while strolling through Silver Beach at Kurnell with my fioncee at the time, camera in hand taking romantic summer sunset photos of her, I noticed a multitude of mounds 2m wide by 2m high. The pro netters were dragging in their nets. I stood there with my camera and they gave me the look of death. The amount of uprooted seagrass was present by the tonne. It was this banning of netting that saved the bay, not the closure of Quibray bay - exactly as you say.