Brew

Hi All, Travelled out to Sydney North FAD today. Lots of rat kings but no Dolphinfish. Best king went 60cm so no keepers unfortunately. Went north to the Terrigal FAD pushing skirts along the way. No hits and Terrigal FAD was the same. Only rat kings. Headed to shore and trolled lures around East Reef for more rat kings and one bonito that came home for sashimi. On the water at 5.30am with water temp around mid 23s. On the way out I did troll past Lion Island and got a salmon in less than a minute so I'm assuming there is a few there. I was only curious to see if they were there so we put it back and pushed on to the FAD. Great day but looking forward to the Dolphinfish showing up. Brew

It was about 10am

I was just there for 5 days with the family. Didn't fish the rocks but they are there just not in great numbers. Went there 3 times for a look. 2 of the times it was pretty rough so not many fishing the other time there were about 5 caught with a sixth caught off the point by a guy spinning.

On each post there is a word in blue "report post" Hi Donna, On my iPhone it is a little blue flag next to the time of the post if anyone is looking for it. I was on the site at the time - well done in deleting the post so quickly.

Off the rocks is best next to the pole marker. Try early before the boat traffic gets too busy.

G'day Rafo, Are you in a boat? If so, try West Head in front of the bunkers. Tailor are at Flint and Steel or around Lion Island. If not in a boat you can walk down the track to Flint and Steel however it takes about 40 mins and you need to pay a park entry. Good luck

Hi Kiwicraig, The school at Box Head were probably tailor. I was trolling at that time around Lion Island and about 1km out and was getting tailor between 25-40cm. I was using a small metal lure about 5cm and a bibbed lure (white with red head) of about 10cm. They hit both. Try that next time. Great report btw.

PM sent on a spot close by. Prawns or pillies will get you a flathead or bream. Good luck.

Harold, the stubby coolers will be awesome. Nothing worse than getting a frozen hand holding a beer!

Hi Krause, You can put traps in from the seaward side of the entrance to Jerusalem Bay all the way up to Pittwater but not in J-Bay or further upstream to Bobbin Head.

Apple Tree Bay or Akuna Bay are both good however you need to pay National Park fees.

G'day camo1808, Did you go on a charter in Thailand? I'm going to Phuket in a couple of weeks so interested in how you went. If the charter was good can you PM the details. Anyone else been recently? Most of the info on Fishraider is from a few years ago now so any recent reports would be great. Thanks Clinton.

G'day Raiders, I decided to go out and give it a go yesterday even though the swell was forecast to be around 3 metres. I figured that if it was too bad I could always find a bay or go up the Hawkesbury River. I set off around midday and headed to West Head to get some yakkas. The swell was definitely up however it seemed reasonably smooth and West Head was ok except there was higher than predicted winds. The gust were quite strong which made it a little uncomfortable at anchor. As mentioned in my last post there are heaps of yakkas at West Head at the moment. Last time it was a little frustrating getting them so I changed my rig to a simple rig of a small hook at the bottom, another hook off a three way swivel, up to another swivel and sinker. The real difference was the hook size as I bought some really small hooks similar to the ones you get on the live bait rigs. This did the trick and with plenty of bread in the water and squid on the hooks I had ten yakkas on board in just under an hour. Now I needed to decide where to go. I headed out to Barrenjoey Head to see if there was any protection however the swell or wind was ruling that out as an option. I then headed over to Box Head thinking I could get close and find some protection however when I got there all I could see was foam so I assumed at some stage a big wave was going to break there. I kept an eye on it for 15 minutes and no waves broke, even the larger ones, however I wasn't going to take a risk and moved on. I headed back to Lion Island and tucked into the northern side where there was some protection. The waves were breaking around the eastern tip however it was good where I anchored. So time to fish. I put the first yakka in, bridled, and under a float. It lasted about two minutes but no hook up. It came back as a head with a clean cut just behind the gills. Put another out and after about 5 minutes the same thing! Ok, two can play this game. I sent the next one out with the hook above the lateral line just behind the dorsal fin. 10 minutes out and bang! But no hookup! It came back as just the tail. Seriously whoever is taking the fish can't be that smart, just lucky. Fourth yakka went out with the hook just behind the head and after about half an hour, bang and finally on! After a short fight with plenty of aerials in came a salmon. I kept it for slab baits later. At this stage low tide was getting closer and the ocean starting doing things I hadn't seen before. There were breaking waves in places that I have never seen waves before. That was enough for me, time to change spots. I headed back into Broken Bay heading in the direction of Juno Point when I saw fish breaking the surface and surprisingly the water was a lot calmer here even though it was pretty exposed. Dropped another yakka in but no luck however I did catch a legal flounder on a bottom bait while I was waiting. One of my dad's favourite to eat so I put it into the live bait tank to deal with later. No luck on the school breaking the surface and left soon after after throwing some metal at them for no result. I then anchored up at Juno Point where the swell and wind was ok. Put out another yakka and soon had it come back half eaten. With my last 4 yakkas I managed another two salmon and two that came back after being taken but spat out which was interesting. So no live yakkas left and with a live salmon and a couple of slabs of salmon what is a fisherman to do? 1. Bridle up the live salmon and send it out to play with the big jewies? 2. Send out a big slab of salmon? 3. Send out a fillet of yakka? You guessed it - all three! I had heard of some seriously big jews taking whole live salmon so I thought as the tide was changing soon it was worth a go. Soon I had a fish on and it had a decent run. Which one you ask? The fillet of yakka of course. This was on my bream outfit so the fight took quite a while and avoiding the other lines and netting solely had its challenges. Finally up came a jewie but only a small one at 47cm. After that on the same rod I got a 32cm bream but the big slab and live salmon didn't get touched. The live salmon must of covered a football field of distance over the hour it was out so I guess it would have had to pass a big jewie at some stage. Thanks for reading and here are the photos. Ps. the salmon eventually swam away happy that his night was finally over.

Great day. Thanks Donna and Stu and everyone else that helped. I'm looking forward to catching up again at the Hairtail social.

Send me a PM also as I drift there regularly.

My dad bought me an ugly stick when I was 12. I'm now 45 and still use it. Great rods.

G'day Big Neil, Yes, I've got lights on the boat. I have trim lights that stay on the whole time so you can see the rods. When we get a fish on we put on a spotlight that shines up the whole back. I haven't seen any squid yet but you do get lots of small fish and the occasional baby blue swimmer for some reason. When I'm fishing on land I'll use the bells. Nothing better than hearing those bells go off. I've only had this boat for a year so I really don't know yet if the lights affect the fishing - hopefully not! Clinton

Hi All, A bit late however I got out with a mate again last Friday night at Juno Point. My mate was only going to make it late afternoon so I thought I would first drag a few lures around and headed out of Broken Bay towards Boultons Reef. Water was 20.2 degrees and there were no birds or anything breaking the water except a large pod of dolphins around Barrenjoey Head. The conditions were flat and very comfortable. Got to love this weather. After Boultons headed north past a couple of wrecks and then up to Kilcare wide then back to Broken Bay via East and West Reef. Unfortunately not too much around. Once back in Broken Bay went over to West Head to get some yakkas for the fish later that night. There is a heap there at the moment but quite small and not that easy to catch. Didn't help that a moron on his jetski came up at about 60km an hour and stopped about 2 metres away from my boat asking for directions to Mooney Mooney! Seriously, some of those guys have no idea. I should have told him there was a short cut up Patonga Creek. Anyway, got 7 yakkas in about 45 mins, picked up my mate and headed to Juno Point. We anchored up and put out two yakkas at dusk and waited. Tide was going out with about 2 hours to go. After about half an hour one yakka came back without a body. It was cleanly bitten off just below the hook. Damn! We also had a couple of rods out with prawns and pilchards however over the next couple of hours all we got were those eels we all hate but nothing much else. Finally at around 9pm one of the yakkas went off and after two runs and a bit of a tussle we had a small jewie on board. It went 42cm. Not the one we were after but I'll be back for sure to give it another go. Thanks for reading. Clinton.

G'day Pete, How much aniseed do you put in. I'm probably going out in Broken Bay tomorrow night and might get give it a go. Clinton

Yes, I thought the same when I was looking across from Juno last week. I thought at first it was lights from Palm Beach then realised it was about 15 boats!

I know Juno has a great reputation and I get a few flatties around there however I haven't heard of any good stories of a big jew there for a long time. Any raiders got a story?

So Friday's session wasn't long enough so went again Saturday night with my brother. Heaps of boats at Juno Point and Flint and Steel so I'm surprised there have been no other reports from Fishraiders on Broken Bay/Hawkesbury. Did the drift again around Juno Point for four flatties ranging from just legal to 47cm. Mid tide again. It went really quiet around high tide with only catfish caught after that. Two fish for Sunday dinner so happy with that!