GoingFishing

Mate that is an impressive haul of fish !!!! Well done and a cracking mahi too. Good on you for taking out two blokes for some fun and fish

Nice write up KC. On a day like today with 0.5m waves and 4 knot winds you should have ventured outside !!! Personally i cant recommend fishing Botany Bay unless you had to !! Alott more fish outside than in, that i can say with certainty. PS whats a skute??

Nice bag there Yowie...Mantis shrimp ! Cant say ive seen one off Sydney.

Gday Raiders Another long time coming report. Zoran (@zmk1962) and i have been chatting and attempting to plan a meet for quite some time now, and we finally managed to get the plan together. We had been touching base throughout the holidays and agreed Sunday the 10th would be best given the weather forecast and availability. Zoran generously offered to take me out on the Barrycuda and the plan was to do some offshore trolling for dollies/marlin and stop at Browns for a deep drop. We met at 5am and started our journey up the Parramatta River, and what a fine ship is the Barrycuda. Every detail and corner of this rig has been meticulously thought out and planned by Zoran. A smooth and comfortable ride powered by the Merc Pro XS. Some of you may recall there was some discussion on this forum when Zoran repowered the Barrycuda from a 200HP 2 stroke to the 4 stroke 150HP Merc XS with a lot of the discussion centered around "will there be sufficient power." Not that i ever questioned Zoran's meticulous analysis regarding his upgrade i can report first hand that this motor is a perfect fit for the Barrycuda. Amazing holeshot, great fuel economy and responsive punchy torque at all stages of RPM. Great job Z on the repower. Now to the fishing, conditions were very good in the morning, and got even better by the time we were out wide. A quick attempt to stop at the artificial for livies there were possibly 15 boats floating around and not much happening so we powered on so as not to waste time. Approaching the shelf we swung past the 12 mile to do some jigging for Kings. A few drops with not much action happening despite an enormous bait ball on the sounder, no other boats were getting any action so again made the decision to power on. As we approached the shelf line just west of browns we dropped the lures in and started trolling for marlin. About 1 mile east of Browns we had a marlin rise up behind the short rigger, took a few swipes and then fell back. About 1 minute later he rose up against behind the long corner to have a go at the JB Dingo, a short run then he dropped the hook. We stayed in the area for another hour or so but couldnt raise any more fish so we packed it up and headed over to Browns to do some deep dropping, my first time. Zoran set up the tanacoms and i observed in awe in what is best described as, a paternoster rig with 2kg of lead weight or as i described it, "bottom bashing on steroids" ! Zoran explained how to use the tanacom and we proceeded to drift a few marks. I struggled initially with the dropping ( not an experience i usually encounter) but with 2kg lead plus bait and gear pulling down it is very easy to get a birds nest and i didnt want to ruin Zorans nice gear ! The first few drops produced a gemfish, we then moved over to another mark in deeper water with Z explaining that thats where the big fish are. He didnt have to wait long before there was a nice bend in his rod, what was definately a nice fish was on its way up and it didnt dissappoint! Up comes a 20kg + blue eye trevalla. A quality table fish and Z smashing his previous PB of (now sounding measly) 4kg. As you can tell by the smile on his face, he was very happy with that ! Meanwhile i was so gobsmacked by the girth of this fish (and recording it on my phone) that i absolutely cocked up the gaffing of Zorans price blue eye ! Z ended up gaffing this fish nicely and into the boat she came. A nice high 5 and Z cracks open a beer to celebrate. Nice fish Z. That concluded the bottom bashing on steriods and we trolled along the shelf and then west hoping to raise another Marlin but they werent about. All in all a very successful trip, perfect conditions, raised a marlin and a fat chunky blue eye. We had plenty of time to chat and Zoran i enjoyed your company mate, an absolute gentleman. The next trip will be aboard the Black Yellowfin with me hopefully to get you onto some Bellambi Reds ! Thanks for reading

Gday Raiders Happy new year, i hope everyone has had a relaxing and enjoyable Christmas break. (As best we can given the circumstances i guess ! back to 1 case a day today which is good news for NSW). I have been on extended holidays from 18th Dec to 11th Jan - back to work on Monday unfortunately 😔 Have been making the most of the time off with family activities and kids, but did manage to squeeze in two trips, another down to Bellambi and one to the Entrance with the young boys. Bellambi Report Snapper hard to find, but the ones we did find had some decent size to them, most around 40cm. Slimey mack EVERYWHERE, very thick and hard to get a bait past them in some instances which is great when you want some fillets for bait, but annoying when you want them to efff off and leave the bait alone for the reddies 🤣. Flatties however turned it on, which is unusual because for the two dozen times ive fished Bellambi in 2020, we barely caught any flatties at all. Bait used was whole pillies and fresh slimey mack. All fish caught between 30 and 40 metres depth. The Entrance Report We had booked a holiday with the family up to Avoca Beach for a week with some friends, the young boys were keen on a fish so we drove the 25 mins and purchased some live tube worms and headed to The Entrance channel. Interestingly when i got there we were met with 3 or 4 boats setting up what appeared to be nets in the channel, i initially thought something terrible had happened and they were looking for a body of a drowned swimmer, but was relieved when they explained they were setting up prawn nets for the prawn run that night. This instantly got my blood pumping as now had high expectations that the whiting would be on the chew......and they were. We managed a dozen or so nice fish with one nudging 38cm, caught by my young boy Adam on 6lb line ! I was very proud of him as he played the fish like a champ with me helping him hold the rod steady. Highlight of that trip was Adam taking a whiting from the esky "to wash the sand off it" only to release it infront of my eyes and watch it swim away 🤣🤣🤣 The young fellas had a blast, and whilst ive taken my young fella fishing more than once, this was the first time he caught a fish of any real quality on a trip dedicated only to fishing. I just cant wait to take him out more and more and watch him get his sea legs. Thats it for the bread and butter species for now, i now start my mission to get a marlin in the boat in 2021 !! wish me luck. Thanks for reading

Awesome vid mate and cracking fish!

Thanks for the heads up Noel

Delicioussssss....... great bag of flatties mate

Gday raiders Headed out today with old mate Ralph chasing reds. Conditions were perfect for the entirety of the session with a slight breeze to keep us moving but no need of the sea anchor. It was so good to have a session where that painful sea anchor didn't have to come in every time we restart a drift. We fished whole pillies initially but after a few slimies came onboard fresh flesh baits became the preferred. I soon had a blistering take but very quickly noticed the tail and headshakes were not "snappery" and were most definately Bonito. My suspicions confirmed when a circa 50cm bonito came onboard. We quickly dispatched it and used it for bait. The fish were spread out today and very patchy, we boated a few every hour but by the end of the session we had a nice mixed bag with the reds going up to 45cm. A few flatties and pigfish thrown in too. Overall a very pleasant day on the water. Had some snapper fillets for dinner tonight and dropped off a few at mums. I only have a few more summer bottom bash sessions planned the next few weeks before i dedicate 100% of my fishing time to boating a marlin this year. That is the first and only item on my 2021 fishing bucket list. Whats everyones 2021 fishing ambition?? Thanks for reading. Sam

What a great report !!!! A cracking mixed bag there. Love the "operation sticky beak"......very accurate !!

You might catch more than just a fish with that....be careful 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Awesome stuff ! Congrats Jon

@papafish Simple rig Papafish...... 6 pound main line...smallest sinker you can get away with then swivel.....attach 1 Metre of 6 pound trace to a size 6 long shank. Red color hook. If the current is runnin hard thats ok...the fish will find it eventually but the difficulty is tangles with other fishos and that bloody sea grass. When the current started running hard we packed up and moved to a spot which had an obvious eddy (still water, or water moving slower)...we found more fish there.

Thanks fellas for the comments. Today we had a really good feed of whiting fillets, hot chips and an eggplant with garlic dip.......delicious!! Between 5 people with my share of the catch there was nothing left to go in the freezer.

Gday Raiders Had an afternoon free yesterday after a busy few days. Old mate Ralph rang and said hes bored. So we packed the car and did a last minute trip down to the entrance. Arrive at 7pm and the whiting were on. It was good fishing between 7 and 930 when the current started to reallly run hard. But we fished on till midnight bagging a few more legals. Plenty of seagrass in the water too which was quite a pain in the arse. We managed a nice bag between us two using tube worms as bait on a size 6 long shank. Fish ranged between 35 and legal size. Fisheries came through around 10pm checking fish. They were very pleasant but it sad to report alot of people got caught with undersize fish. Good on them for getting out there and enforcing whats right. Interesting observation. The red long shanks outfished the black long shanks by far. Anyone else encounter this with whiting ? Overall, very pleasant conditions. Fishing off the sand is so relaxing and the entrance in general is a lovely spot. Thanks for reading.

Awesome bag of.fish Yowie that's a really good reddie to boot. 300 feet !!!! Thats only 60m. What size gear were you using

Cracking fish Jeff...... you would have been stoked with that string puller !!!! So at this size do you consider the battle with Whiskers over !!??

Welcome back FAB - glad to hear things are improving for you.

Welcome aboard and great video mate. Love the drone footage

Awesome catch Yowie. Ud be happy with that bag by 630am !! The whiting are on the chew at th moment

Nice bag mate. An afternoon session on th sand is so relaxing.

Awesome catch. One of the best eating fish around for sure

Thanks fellas for all the replies. Port Stephens really is a special place. Enjoyed every minute up here and now sunburnt to a crisp. Heading back to Sydney tomorrow. Hopefully back in February or March to wet a line with @Scratchie