huntman

My friend has a bass and I've wanted to do this for ages. When I get enough space I will. 40cm is a bit too big for me though, and then there's the problem of I have no idea about freshwater fishing It's cool how hard they smash the insects though hey. I would definately sacrifice any pesky spiders who invade the house to the bass!

good work on the kings! I hope you bought shares in jig manufacturing companies before posting

I dunno how you guys do it on those rough days up on the bridge fo so long! Looking forward to getting out with you guys again soon though!

very nice fish ya got thar. Hope you got a few better photos than that

you weren't at CG were you? we stopped off there right before the storm hit :|

botany bay will be a bit choppy because it is shallow, and depending on the direction the swell is coming from there could be a bit washing through the heads into the bay. If you have a decent boat you should be able to get out? The rivers will probably be better.

might fish monday instead.

they taste horrible but I've heard you can eat them in soup. I wouldn't though

Thanks that was a good read. We've been talking about this kind of thing at uni, but not in as much detail. Certainly we may very well see the end of commercially available wild seafood within my lifetime if current trends continue.

sounds like a top morning. Well done on landing a king sans the top half of your rod.

kings definately shrink at least 1-2cm when they die as their tail and skin shrivel up a bit when they dry out. You see this happen with frigates and bonito as well. If you are going to keep a fish in the range of 65-67cm then you should keep it alive or if that is not possible keep the whole fish in water until you are back at the ramp. I personally know of one person who was fined for keeping "undersized fish" that were legal at the time of capture, and now he keeps his kings alive in the live bait tank until he is back at the ramp if they go close. I would hate to see someone get busted when doing the right thing especially when you read reports on here all the time when people are releasing anything even millimeteres under the set size. It would be very unjust. The fisheries officers can't really be held responsible because they just measure the fish, so the only thing you can do is be aware and keep the fish from drying out.

I'll be out. I have yo number.

there's also roseville which is good for northerners

top post, I don't have kids but when I do this sort of info will be very handy.

Thanks guys, it was definately a good start to the day. I am told Basil is optomistic about his chances of making it to the social so fingers crossed

I'm really looking forward to sunday. Seems like it will be a great day! I hope the fish cooperate accordingly.

Yes! I forgot to mention the island is like a magnet for rain, so you will need wt weather gear and a cheerful persona for the days when it's dry as a bone 2km inland but pooring around the island

I think unfortunately it comes down to common sense and curtosy. If I approach an area and a boat is anchored I have to steer clear of their lines and anchor ropes, although approaching close on the sides where no lines go I think is ok as long as it isn't dangerous. If I approach an area to anchor and there is a boat downrigging there, I wont anchor up in a spot that restricts his movement too much. For example, if he is downrigging a marker I wont anchor up too close to it to give some breathing space. As the fishing spots get more and more crowded I think people need to get a bit more tolerant too, since the population of sydney is growing, but the amount of fishing spots stays the same. If I had to formalise it I would say to give curtosy to whoever was there first, but everyone should allow everyone else a chance to fish in a good spot, and certainly no one has exclusive rights to a particular spot. Usually, if there are a lot of boats around we just don't downrig, it's too hard. We just pull up and anchor. I also think it is easy for people who don't fish with downriggers to get pissed at those who do because they haven't experienced life on the other side of the fence. I've heard people say we scare their fish away?!?!! If that was the case then downriggers wouldn't even work because we'd be constantly scaring our own fish away!

For the last two weeks I have been away at JB on holidays, during which time I managed to have a fish with robbie and basil. We had a good time, but in the back of our minds we were really missing the sydney kings that we had been getting stuck into, so a pre-work fish for today was organised and locked in, we were looking forward to getting the usual crew back together, since we'd been fine tuning our kingfishing a lot over the last month and were seeing some great days. Basil the wonderdog unfortunately would not be party to this particular adventure, as he was suffering a war wound (see picture below) sustained due to the misplacement of a glass pane. He is recouperating and focusing on a return for sunday morning, and was said to be devestated at 4am when robbie packed up the trailer and boat. I met robbie at 4:30 and he was looking particularly tired and surly compared to usual, so I told him he'd wake up and cheer up once he was on the other end of a kingfish, and also gleefully tossing yakkas back into the water from our livewell. We picked up toby and launched with relative ease, robbie slowed down at the spit and we thought for a split second we were going to try for some squid, but the captain was just taking a stickybeak at who was out and we roared on to yakka central. Got a tank full in no time and had the first one out unweighted for stray kings. I think we were too early, no hits so we moved on to try some kingy spots. We went to spot x, we dropped the yakka back in on the DR and had him swimming out the back in about 20 seconds flat while we got the other rigger sorted out. I told robbie he was on strike. Anyway a kingy hit the rod before we could even set the second rigger up and since everyone had their hands full I reluctantly landed the fish which gave a good account for itself and at 66cm went straight into the eski. We reset the riggers and had another hit on my rod, robbie graciously turned over strike to toby and in doing so handed him a good fish. It headed straight for structure and toby did very well to get it out. The fish was easily pulling 6kg of drag off and after a short but tense struggle, and some poor netting we managed to get the fish into the boat 74cm and a new PB for toby. He was thrilled. The riggers were being reset and toby was thinking that maybe his new tactic of white coloured cable ties instead of black was a mistake, but before he could write a thesis about it his rod went off and since it was a new combo he had the honours of landing a nice fish which went 66.something and into the eski. There was fish all over the place, and blood too, basil would have been having a field day With 3 legal fish in the bag the rest were just for fun, and we managed a double hookup on downriggers, as well as another 72cm fish for robbie. We did a few more passes and no good so we moved on to other areas. Tried a couple of places, and there were lots of fish on the sounder, but not taking our bait. The water police came towards us to check licences as we were downrigging and just as we put the boat into idle my rod went off and I got to land another 66cm king with an audience. They said we were the only ones catching kings today but I saw a few other boats landing some. They seemed to be very on and off. Saw some boils at the surface around one of the markers and toby managed a salmon from it on a metal lure. It was a pretty fat and stong fish, which was fun, and he went back to eat more baitfish. We packed it up about half an hour later than we planned and rushed back to get to work. A top day out by all standards, and nice to have a fish with the crew again, but missing basil and hopefully he'll be back in action this weekend.

you missed a very nice morning

Is the island classic for tailor? Or is it any species? My dad lives on the water at hervey bay he can see the island from his house A lot of tailor are taken from the fraser island beach (seaward side) but he said in winter if you troll you can get them in the great sandy straight, which is the inside of fraser island. Beach fishing is your best bet though for tailor around the wreck of that boat I can't remmeber the name of As for other species, a smaller boat is probably better for flatties and bream as you can get into the little creek drainage areas coming off the island, which all hold good fish. If you have the bigger boat though you will be able to cover more ground which is a lot better for finding the fish because there is a lot of water up there. Try kingfisher bay wharf for all sorts of crazy species, or the reefs for snapper and other reef species. One of the real drawcards in fishing terms of fraser island though is the whiting. Drift the western side of fraser and cast into the shallows for some really big whiting. Watch out for the weird fish you catch that look like whiting but have big teeth though. I'm not sure yet if they are edible or not, but if you're not aware they could give you a bad bite. let me know how you go!

I was thinking about trying to go out but the report looks dodgey and I have something on at 10am. Might flick some plastics from a wharf instead hahahahah

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, go out on a charter, you will learn everything in a few hours that you need to know to catch kings. It will also save you hours of frustration which will be worth more than the cost of the charter. There are lots of experienced charter operators who can show you what to do. Aside from that, you just need to look, look, look for the kings as they move around. It doesn't take long to get good at catching kingies, some days they just eat anything... we seriously have seen them take baits that a toadfish would almost turn its nose up at

hehe I've sussed it out in the harbour, and we've caught our fair share... I just can't imagine getting sick of them. Very fun fish to catch! Especially the larger models. In winter time by the way you could also try for big tailor and salmon on fly in the bay and in the harbour. A big salmon will give you some value for money, and they jump out of the water sometimes

Roosterboat has come a long way. I'll miss the back to backs Nah... the swivel chairs look way good!