fragmeister

Congrats!, Aren't they a great fish to catch. I am sure this will be the first of many.

Hi Raiders , Fished Sydney harbour today pretty much all over the place. Beautiful 26 degree day with scarcely a breeze but unfortunately scarcely a fish either. Got some action when a school of salmon appeared close to my boat off north head. Good fish of around 2 kilo ( no pics sorry) but I didn't want to up anchor and follow them. Its very cool to see three or four of them competing for the lure in the clear harbour water. Caught a few keeper bream but kept only one. .. motored over to clifton gardens where I fried him up on my portable gas stove in a mixture of garlic, chilli, ginger, palm sugar , lime and coriander I prepared earlier …lol Sat back and took in the view of the harbour while I ate the fish and sipped a cold (ginger) beer…. magic! Some days its more about enjoying the harbour than catching the fish. Cheers Jim

Get up at 5:00am to go fishing... only if I sleep through my 3am alarm!

Great view. You must be one happy man. Savour it! Cheers Jim

A few feet to the side and that would have impaled the guy in the game chair.

That' the way...start 'em young and you'll have a fishing mate for life. Cheers Jim

That's impressive. No, it's actually more than impressive it's quite astounding. I had a stint as the GM of an engineering company who provided contract welders to the Sydney Olympic Stadium Project. We put the applicants through some pretty rigorous freehand testing. These were gun welders and none of them came close to this. I wish I had a welding project for you! Cheers Jim

Hey Crossfire, I am interested in where the bull sharks are. Not from a fishing perspective but more related to my post regarding swimming in the harbour and bays. I camp at Bonnievale once every month or so and swim all year round. Been doing that for 30 years or more. The increase in Bull sharks is starting to alarm me. If you could PM me and let me know the specific area at Bundeena I would appreciate (and avoid ) it Cheers Jim

At least with some of the Yak fisherman holed up for the winter those of us with boats wont be out-fished so often! ..and well done to the young fellas for their commitment...

You made it sound easy... First timer, scrapes bait off the rocks, go to where he saw them caught, asks a few questions and gets a bagfull! Well done!

Good job buddy. Obviously you are one happy fisherman and rightly so. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Hi Fishraiders, After reading a post about unusual fishing techniques it reminded me of a story concerning one of my brothers. I wonder if any other readers have any unlikely stories to contribute. My brother George was not a good fisherman. He was enthusiastic and used to attend all of the fishing trips my father used to take us on as children and eventually young adults but he was the epitome of impatience. It's not that didn't catch fish but certainly when he wasn't catching fish the very worst in him would come out. He would curse and swear and blame every other factor for his lack of success except himself. I remember once fishing the ferry wharf at Bundeena in Port hacking. George was convinced that the best approach on this particular day was to fish with metal lures for salmon and tailor. He pulled out a very large chrome metal lure shaped very much like coffin appropriately entitled the "Iron Undertaker". He attached this lure to the snap swivel on his already rigged Beach Rod and proceeded to cast out as far as humanly possible. George's cast must have been over 100 m and after not more than 20 m of retrieve at a cracking pace soon found him snagged on some unyielding object. COBBLERS! he yelled at the top of his voice (our parents were pommies) and after tugging at the line he used that all-too-familiar method of breaking your line off and he walked backwards with the rod parallel to the ground and the drag done up to maximum and bust his line off. George was a little unapproachable for the next hour or two convinced that he had been robbed the opportunity of a good haul of salmon and Tailor by the untimely loss of his somewhat sinister sounding lure. The night ended with a few bream in the bag none of which were caught by my impatient and irritable brother. Some months later we went back to that wharf and once again George, with renewed confidence, was armed with a replacement Iron Undertaker Lure which he proceeded to cast out as far as humanly possible towards the other side of Port hacking. Again, after only 20 meters of retrieve he again latched on to an immovable object. COBBLERS! be screamed, as the rest of us in the Fishing party rolled our eyes in collective disbelief that George would even try the same strategy twice in a row and not have any inkling that the result would be the same. However, as George desperately tried to break his line it suddenly came free and based on Georges exclamation of Hoo-Effin-Ray! we figured the lure had come free also. Sitting on the other side of the wharf the rest of us were listening to the series of events rather than watching and was surprised to hear George suddenly burst out laughing saying "What are the chances of that? We all turned around to see George holding up not just one Iron undertake lure but also the iron undertaker lure that he had lost two months before caught through the swivel? Can you believe his luck! Cheer Jim

Thats when they are mostly fished for. I suspect this is part of their ambush strategy. Cheers Jim

Great fishing report. Nice to see a few good reddies about.

Hi Nelson, I used to pick up a decent feed around any of the break walls ( I think they call them groynes). Cast out away from the groynes with as light a sinker ( none if possible) and let your bait drift back towards them. Good way to pick up bream. Chicken gut is an excellent bream bait particularly at night. Cheers

Great catch, Isn't it just typical when you catch the most squid the live baiting goes cold!

Great post. Some interesting stories here. When I was a little tacker my father, my brothers and I used to fish from the old stone wharf at Ulladulla inside the harbour. The tailor would come in regular as clockwork just after dawn and my father and older brother would out fish me every time simply because they could cast the unweighted baits further and reach the main part of the school. I soon learned that if I let the seagulls pick the bait up in close and fly away with it I could yank it back out of their mouths when they flew out back over the school. Using this method I could "cast" to the school even when it was out of their casting range. Eventually they sussed out what I was doing but for a time I was king of the catch! Cheers Jim

I get the "researching" thing. Its good now and then to focus on a fish or a strategy and really get into the technique. Looks like it worked for you!

Getting a little work done of the boat… Might go and toss some soft plastics around from the shore.

Thanks Yowie, All good information. I have watched enough David Attenborough documentaries to know that all creatures have a survival strategy that has allowed the to survive and thrive through millions of years of evolution. John Dory may look a little slow but no doubt they have a very effective if not specialised hunting method. That compressed body, extendable mouth and stealthy approach obviously works for them. I will let you all know how I go. Thanks again for your tips. Cheers Jim

Thanks all, All fits in with what I have read. Interesting observations that the JD's have trouble catching a live bait. I know they are ambush predators and they shoot out that extendable mouth to capture food… perhaps out in the open the live bait can easily out pace them. Given how slow they are I wonder how often a livey is taken when its all tuckered out. I like the idea of clipping the tail fin to slow them down.

Hi Fishraiders, With winter species starting to infiltrate Sydney Harbour I am keen to target a fish I have never caught so John Dory are on my list. Many years ago targeting Hairtail off Clifton Gardens I saw a number of these caught by some old Italian guys who eventually became fishing mates even though they barely spoke a word of english. Its amazing how much we all understood after a few glasses of their home made vino (read rocket fuel). Sadly, they have been gone for some time now and well before they passed the required fishing knowledge on to me! Any fishraiders with any experience in catching these fish? I would love to hear any suggestions that may improve my chances of catching one of these critters. Cheers Jim

I wouldn't be concerned about any electronic regulator draining power. These solid state devices draw insignificant power when in Idle mode. As far as using an mppt this would be a nice touch as it would ensure that you got the best out of the cells in all conditions but it may not be necessary depending on the capacity of the the solar cells you use and how long the boat sits idle. From memory your objective was to keep a maintenance charge going on the boat which is parked on the street using solar panels. It would seem all you really need is system which replaces the battery discharge which will happen if any boat electrics are still connected with the ignition off and the battery switch turned off and also because batteries "self discharge" at an average rate of about 5% per month although this can be a lot more in older batteries. Based on 5% per month or roughly 1 percent per week if you had a Dual 50 ampere hour battery setup for a total of 100 ampere hours you would only have to charge at 200 milli-amps to top those batteries up in a 5 hour session. Basically a 5W solar float charging system should handle this without any trouble. I will keep you posted on my testing of the US Product. Cheers

I strongly suggest you do your own research on this but I am an electrical engineer and in my opinion chocolate was just unlucky. It is easy to be turned off a solution by a bad experience but that doesn't mean the product is not the best option. If you are going to have an unattended charging system you are better off with a Float Charger. As far as the VSR goes it draws a very very wall amount of current ( something in the order of 20 milliamps) so battery drain is not a consideration. Yes the product I mentioned is a US product. I ordered one on Ebay for delivery in a week as for testing one of my remote hardware solutions so if you wait a while I will give you a report. Cheers JIm

I don't deny your experience but I suspect that you were unlucky. I used to supply Weather Stations for remote locations had they had to be reliable. We always fitted Solar Panels with float chargers. The only difference really between the two is that a Float charger is a regulated device and this is always best for an unattended charging system. Cheers Jim