bbenny

Dream holiday!! Very jealous

Chopper, Love the pics Last time I was up in Forster I fished the same little spot as you with the blackfish and caught a thumping 40cm+ bream on un weighted peeled prawn. I got another 35cm model right after! couldnt believe it! I was just mucking around with a few friends as it was too windy to fish anywhere else.

Hi Guys! Im just probing for any advice or thoughts on fishing the Whitsundays either in a rented tinnie or just landbased? Im off to the Whitsundays this week for a few days in Airlie Beach. Of course Im going to be packing my rod armed with a wide range of soft plastics, metals and popers! Unfortunately I wont be going on any guided trips, as they are just a little expensive, but I love exploring and throwing a lure around wherever I can. So I was hoping someone may have done something similar and could throw some ideas or areas my way. (I will have a car to get around the place) Thanks in advance! Ben.

Not sure exactly how the peternosta works... but it was pretty simple. just had a swivel and tied the sinker with 1.5m of trace to the bottom loop and the trace to hook on the same top loop as the mainline... hope that made sense ill try draw it in text: main line l l l l l Swivel 8------------------------J hook l l l l l l l l l 0 Sinker

haha it was that easy this time... but there were about 6 other kingfishless sessions before it! Busting to get out again. Spanker - I always position the hook through the back of the neck. I find they swim better as i usually have the yakka out weightless and floatless. But this time I sank it down with the yakka about 1.5m above the sinker. Ben.

Went out to a new spot today in the harbour after having a few quiet sessions the last couple of weeks. I decided to stick to a plan and it all worked out! Burleyed up some cubed pillies and bread which brought in loads of little yakkas. Got a few very quickly and decided to send one out live with the heavier gear in the hope for a kingy. Meanwhile i flicked out some SP's in the hope to hook up one of the patroling frigates... couldnt get them to hit anything, but was good to see them there! Just as the peak of high tide came and sun appeared from behind the clouds, my livey decided to go on a little run. I let it run for a few seconds before clicking into gear and striking! Bugger this was dead weight... I thought a ray or flatty for sure... i start winding it up when all of a sudden it goes ballistic! wooohooo I kept the drag pretty light, as i find the harder i pull the more likely they cut me off on the rocks. But after a few good runs I landed this little Kingy! Would have been around the 65cm mark but i chucked him back to live another day after a quick snap! Cant wait to get back out there! Ben. I put my foot in to guage size, im a US 12...

Hey Guys, Went out yesterday for a quick flick before work in the harbour at a new spot. Burley'd up some chopped pillies hoping to attract some kingies or salmon. Sent out a little live yakka and after about 5 min my rod buckled over and screamed line! woohoo I picked up the rod, wound up the drag and brought this guy in... Not exactly sure on it. Is it a trevally? it was alot bigger than any trevs ive caught and had distinct golden blotches on it. Golden trevally or sampson fish? It was about 55-60cm and super fat! put up a great fight on light gear. I took a quick pic and chucked him back in. Can anyone confirm this fish? Ben.

Great thanks! Yeah hiring out a tinny sounds like a good plan! Cant wait

Nice one guys! well done on the SP bream Rob! thats sweet! i still havent managed one on a HB or SP yet... Havent seen you out and about, but Chris and I have had some luck with kings on the plastics in the last few weeks, but that water looks sooo dirty ill wait a while before heading out! What colours did you have success with in the coffee?? Ben.

Hi Guys, It looks like my brother and I have run into some luck, in the way of a friend working up there and offering us some free accomodation for a week! and considering flights arent too bad we are off! Anyway Ive never been there and of course its going to be all about the beach and fishing! We will probably organise a charter trip, but being on a tight budget would love to spend some time spinning landbase for whatever we can! Has anyone been and done something similar? If so what species should we be aiming for and what gear to take? Any advice or ideas is much appreciated! Cheers, Ben.

Nice fish! good to see your hooking up some decent ones. I'd love to come and watch some time! Ben.

Hi Sparkles, Yeah it is something i take into consideration, I fish for fun and throw all my catches back. So i always use those high-carbon hooks that are meant to rust out in 2-3 days if they bust off in the fish's lip. Ben.

Hey Guys, Thought id post up a little report after my successful little fish thismorning. Unfortunately my brother and fishing partner hasnt been well lately so i havent been getting out much. But today I had a quick 1hour window before heading out on the bike. So I packed my gear into the car and headed for somewhere new, but nice and close! With a small pack off pillies i decided to cube them out while flicking some light sp's for bream (I still havent caught bream on lures yet - so its something im trying for) with my light lined spool i managed to hook up a few medium taylor near some structure. when all of a sudden a bloody kingy smashes a peice of pillie on the surface right under my nose! So i quickly tie on a hook and flick out an un-weighted peice, its floating infront of me and the king comes up and circles a few times before grabbing it! woohooo! my rod buckles and the line just snaps insantly! no drag, nothing! turns out my line had somehow looped around the body of the reel. bugger. Anyway off comes the light stuff and on goes the 15lb braid... I managed two more kingy hook ups right under my nose, one busts be off on the structure close by, and the other spat the hook! All the kingies were only rats about 60cm or so. But i did manage to land my biggest bream ever! put up a great fight too. I threw her back to make babies, but it would have be around 40+cm. Unfortunately I didnt get any pics as i was fishing alone and couldnt be bothered setting up a shot! But i was stolked with the 1 hour session and love playing with kings even if i dont land any! Cant wait to get back to the new spot and land some kingies! Ben.

Nice one Kingsrule! Good to see your still hooking into them! Ben.

Nice work Kingsrule! I managed to catch nothing! but i still cant beleive that Pike i threw back that got smashed by a nice rat right infront of us! ...Next time for sure! Much action after i left? Ben.

Yeah i might be actually... I work from home tue and wed, so im usually down for an early one. you?

Thats and awesome LB King! well done!

Went down early this morning and landed one of those rats! Woohoo my first kingy!

Saw you down there Kingsrule, Had pretty much the same result from my spot. Did some heavy burly and had some rats come in and just sniff everything infront of them only to turn up their noses! I did manage to have one really short but strong run from something (probably one of those rats) with a dead yakka (seems to be the best down there at the moment) but it spat the hook and i had to leave for work at 8:30. so nothing at my end either. I thought for sure you would have got smashed with those little squid. We tried everything but... Ben.

weird! I can see them on my computer... anyone else?

Hey guys, I havent done a report in a while because i have been too busy to get out fishing. But today with the rains clearing my brother and I headed to our favourite rock for a quick fish. We popped open the freezer and luckily found a a few old frozen pillies... Thats all we needed! So we headed down to our local spot a little late at 11:30am. Chopped up some pilly and threw it in to stir up some yakkas! once the frenzy started we popped in the live bait rig and had about 10 little yakkas in about 10 minutes. Meanwhile my brother Chris was throwing some SP's around to see if anything would take, I grabbed my rod which already had a big shad SP from a flattie session a while ago... so what the heck, we throw then around for about 30min and nothing. So its time to burly up some of those pillies and see what comes... we chop up most of the pillies and throw out a few livies... another 30min goes by and nothing! the yakkas were just pleasantly swimming around with their mates! All of a sudden they all scatter! I thought for sure something was hunting, so i held my rod firmly waiting for a big tug or run... but again a big fat nothing. Then chris yells out "Holly Mullet!" I turn and look beside our rock and saw something I havent seen before! A MASSIVE school of big mullet! Tons of the bloody things and each one looked around 50cm + (see pic below!) Being the usuall stupid mullet they wouldnt touch anything, lures, bait etc and we had no bread. We even tried foul hooking them but to no avail... After they dissapeared I decided to use another yakka but this time dead. So I cast it out unweighted. I got a few little pecks and then it went dead... I thought some little pickers had cut it to pieces and pulled it from the hook, when all of a sudden WAM! and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz my rod buckled right over and fish started diving straight down! I thought "yes kingie!" as i still havent popped that cherry, but then is started heading out and i could feel headshakes, so i thought maybe not... Jewfish maybe! there were alot of mullet around and jewfish love them... again another fish i havent caught before. then it started heading back for the rock and i gained some line before it busted out of the water and gave a big jump... Salmon! i was happy, but dissapointed at the same time. It gave a great fight but i was hoping for something else! anyway chris did a brilliant net job and we landed a very nice fat sambo. We burlied the rest of the pillies we had and decided that dead yakkas were the go now... so out went a few more. I managed two flatties, so i started winding the baits in after that to keep them off the bottom. Chris gave up on the bait and went to a nice flick bait SP and2nd cast saw a nice fish chase it right to the rock... maybe a bonito or frigate, we couldnt really see. So i threw out my dead yakka and saw it circle the bait right on the surface... Com'on! eat it! it kept swimming around my bait but wouldnt make a move, it lost interest in chris' plastic so he switched to bait. I wound mine in and cast out a little further this time. within a sec the bait was slammed and the fish was powering! it only took a few seconds and it was in with a mate chasing. chris drops his bait in front of it and bang! its on then all of a sudden its off and the bait and hook comes flying out of the water and almost hits me in the face! haha anyway i landed the fish and I think its a Watsons leaping bonito? Pics below. sorry for the long post i got excited again! I love fishing Ben. Got this one last time i was here.

Hi Guys, I have recently been catching some squid and would like to send one out live on a float (Landbased) in an attempt to catch a decent kingy. I have tried searching without any luck. Can anyone tell me the correct way of setting up one of the two hook rigs? I am not sure of the best way to connect the second hook to my rig. Thanks, Ben.

lets just hope Balmoral doesnt get the Tailor infestation like Clontarf had. They came in by the truckload following the bait fish and everything else went dead! no bonnies or kingies for at least 3 weeks... I havent been down since, so hopefully they are giving the other fish a go Ben.

Hi Guys, Unfortunately I dont have any fish to display this report, but I couldnt help but share my excitement after this mornings session down at little manly point! My brother Chris and I both went down to little manly for another session, hopefully to land some bonito, frigates and kingies. We got down at about 7am and managed to score our favourite rock as there wasnt another fisherman in sight! We burlyed up hard with pillies and bread, and not alot was happening at all! usually we get alot of little bream, blackfish and yakkas going nuts which tends to bring in the odd salmon or bonnie for a look... but today nothing, and after an hour we were loosing hope as none of our sp's were being touched or even chased... we did notice a school of what we thought were tailor within the burly trail but they werent interested in anything but the bread... so it clicked, they were mullet out there! a quick change to some small unweighted hooks and bread for bait landed two good looking mullet which were quickly filleted and thrown out to see what else might be lurking about.... another hour and nothing! So we were out of burly, bait was useless and we had lost all hope... well almost. Chris wanted to go home, but i insisted we go over to the pool and flick some sp's for bream around the pylons... again nothing. But we noticed some insanely big bait fish flying high in the air as something was going absolutely nuts after them. We bailed from the pool and ran around to the western side of the point (facing towards manly warf) so we packed up and bolted around the head, threw on our biggest soft plastics, as the bait we saw from the pool was pretty big and started casting. but it looked like we missed it. they had settled and nothing was going for the sp's or the popper... We both sat on the wall pretty unhappy with our morning of fishing, I was pretty burnt as i left my shirt in the car and we were both fantasizing about owning a boat and going to the markers for some kings... when all of a sudden i saw something amazing! A school of huge, and i mean BIG kings swam right by our feet! literally 30cm from the wall. There was about 10 in total and they were at least 1.2m each and very fat! I couldnt beleive it! I knew that none of our tackle would have a chance against one of these monsters, and even if it did we had to lift it 3m up the wall we were fishing from... Frantically we cast our lures right in front of their noses... my heart had stopped beating for at least about 5 seconds and breathing wasnt an option ...a couple turned and followed my plastic but wouldnt take it! the frustration was unbearable. we managed to get a few casts right infront but they werent taking... off they swam back into the deep. After about 5 minutes of casting nothing was to be seen. Then all of a sudden one comes right up close and wacks my 145mm flickbait! but in all the excitement i struck too soon!! arrgghhh nothing on the end of my line! All i wanted was to feel the pull of a huge kingie! i knew i couldnt land it, but i wanted the experience! then all of a sudden they came by our feet again! 10 massive hoodlums. we cast frantically but nothing again... they look, follow but wouldnt take it... By now its about 12:30 and im well and truely toasted, but dont want to risk the walk back to the car incase i miss some action... After not seeing anything for a while we decided to head over the otherside of the point and try there. After a few casts still nothing, but i had a bunch of squid going nuts for my little shad. So on goes the squid jig and we pull up a few squid straight away! Its back on for sure! we have squid (first time ive actually caught them). "According to everyone on raiders we are pretty much guaranteed a kingy now" I said to chris... Well i must have jinxed us, because we didnt get a thing after throwing out the head and strips unweighted.... So we called it a day... So much excitement and not one decent fish was caught! But the fact we know they are there is more than enough to motivate us to keep trying! Out of curiosity what is the best way to rid live squid for some shore based action? Cheers, Ben.

Thanks guys KingsRule: I have read a few of your kingie sessions and am dying to land one! I have managed to hook up on about 5 down at clontarf by the pool, but havent landed one! they bust me off everytime on a grill at the bottom! My goal is to land a kingie soon, big or small! Ben.