GoingFishing

Well done mate persistence pays off and those fillets will taste great

I will have to rely on your advice gentleman ! The start of my flatty drift is the edge of a reefy weedy hump followed by sandy bottom so i guess it makes sense to find one close by. Was a good fat fish had I known they were edible he'd be in the freezer right now !!! =(

I don't think it's a morwong as I've caught red morwong before. It had very very soft puffy lips ?

Gday Raiders So today was the final trip of my holidays - back to work tomorrow =(S I had planned to drift the northern beaches again and it paid off. Got to north head at 6am and the lures hit the water but no takers. The water was very green so i suspect fish moved on to cleaner water ? headed north finding clean water around curl curl beach and a massive school of kings and bonnies feeding on the surface. threw slugs and picked up 4 bonito and also hooked up to a rat king which fell just short at 62cm. drifted the beaches again in 30m of water testing whether or not soft plastics would work on a paternoster rig. Good result bagging out at 10 blue spots just under or around 40cmish with the score being 4 to plastics and 6 to bait. I found that the fish were likely to come back more aggressively for the bait after having got a taste ?? just a thought. none the less soft plastics on a paternoster rig does work and il keep doing from now on. also picked up a nice 33cm pannie. on the way back slow trolled and picked up a lazy salmon which barely put up a fight. whilst drifting i also picked up MR Red - he put up a good fight but i set him free as i have no idea what it is, whether its legal to keep them and whether or not they are good eating. reasonable size at 45cm. can anyone ID this fish please ? thanks for reading

Came across a massive school of Bonnie's and rat kings today inbetween sydney headlands and long reef. I think once the water clears up theyl move into the inland systems

I have to ask - prawning at the entrance - for a feed or for bait ? I'm no expert but iv never seen "eating size" prawns there

Hi guys 95% of my trolling has been deep diving bibbed lures and recently during a visit to my local tackle store - he was had skirts on clearance and as I'm a regular offered me 4 for $10 bucks- I couldn't say no I trolled one last week and hooked up to a legal king which was great- later on I changed the set up to drift for flathead and my line was twisted. Every cast I threw out the line would wrap up on itself. My assumption was that the skirted lure was spinning on the troll ?? How can I avoid this next time , any tips would be appreciated

Nice work Yowie That's a good size whiting !

Gday Raiders First some background to this report. New years day the family headed to the entrance as we were sick of the crowds in Sydney. It was a lovely day and Council even put on some fireworks at 9pm which was great. After lunch a couple of us went down for a walk and came across (Literally) about 100 people fishing the channel where the lakes meets the ocean. It was choas with 4 or 5 people tangling with each other every 5 mins or so, this was made worse by the raging current in that section of the channel. despite the madness, people were catching good numbers of fish. We went down to inspect a little closer and what i saw blew my mind, one bloke was fighting a fish which was giving him some decent stick, as it come to the surface i thought to myself, Salmon? ive never seen one of those caught here, WRONG, it was the biggest fattest whiting i have ever seen. I didnt get to see the measured size of the fish but i would put it easily in the range of 45-50cm. the bloke proceeded to bring out 3 more roughly the same size. I made a note to myself that if the weather got too bad to take the boat out, id have a go land based at this spot someday. Well today i received an unexpected hall pass from the Mrs,it was already 2pm and i was unprepared, it was windy and conditions were bad for boating. Entrance? but it had rained 300mm in some areas of the central coast in the last 48 hours. I had assumed, that the channel would be raging with dirty water full of debri, rubbish and other things easily tangled up in your line. i took the risk and went anyway, stopped at the bait shop on the way and picked up some worms. ended up with 4 whiting the biggest going 37cm, one bream and one flatty. a good result considering it was a last minute plan. I threw back plenty of undersize whiting and even more bream, the undersize bream were in plague numbers and at one point getting the baits past them was impossible. I fished 3 hours before high tide and 3 hours after tho the direction of flow on the channel did not change, it was only going out to the ocean. Most productive time was the 2 hours before the high tide. the water was surprisingly very very clean, come nighttime i could see prawns schooling up in the areas of stillwater. I cant comment on the rest of tuggerah lake as that could be a mess, but the channel was very clean. Now looking forward to the trip for this weekend. Thnks for reading

I'm really excited to give this a shot this weekend. I usually drift with 3 rods so il try three different plastics to see which styles/colors produce best. Interestingly I also just came across this on YouTube https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wCjAukQeq0Q

Thanks guys for the feedback - Reese I look forward to your trial and feedback. I guess the question then becomes- do I make the line to hook longer to allow the plastic to bounce around a little more naturally ?

This could be a silly question but has anyone tried soft plastics on a paternoster rig for flathead in 20-40m of water ? Obviously there's benefits in not having to rebait and obviously cost of bait. Just worried about pickers chewing apart the plastics

Thanks fellas It was hard work most days but patience pays off I guess ! Farvos your absolutely right I've seen so many people keeping rats especially in Botany it's quite sad

Gday Raiders Happy new year to all ! I hope everyone has been getting some fishing hours logged the last week or so. Ive had the pleasure of taking out 3 friends who i had promised i would make the time for on the holidays on 3 different trips. Ive combined the three trips into one report to save the hassle of writing up 3 reports. Il try to keep it as short and sweet as possible Trip 1 Botany Collected live bait early, had some Bonito from last trip which i kept for strip baits. Kings were in plague proportions at Molinx Point but very hard to get the livies down to the bigguns before they were swollowed by the rats. managed two just legal fish and went for a troll afterwards picking up 2 bonito for bait next trip. Kings were taking live baits and bonito strips ( even hooked up on a prawn ). closed the day at wooloware bay for a nice big 62cm flatty followed big a 40cmish one. Trip 2 - Sydney Trip out to the FAD - Donut - Trolled the cliffs - Donut Drifted the northern beaches in 30m of water for 4 blue spots and a 33cm Pannie. Water temp at the fad 20.4 - water blue Trip 3 - Sydney Trip out to the FAD - Donut - Continued out to the Manly hydraulics buoy found water at 22.2 and electric blue - dolly hook up on the first past but spat the hook, did 6 more passes for zero. decided to burley up and could see a couple of small dollies lingering about but very shy.gave up and gunned it back to north head and trolled lures for 2 bonito and 1 just legal king. closed the day by drifting norther beaches again only this time finding the flatties in plague proportions. threw back just as many as we kept. also picked up another nice flounder at 38cm All in all fantastic fishing happening around Sydney at the moment, get out there if you havent already. cheers Sam

Nice fish mate Botany has been producing some big flatties lately, the spot your in is notorious for good flatties too ! If u dnt mind me asking was this on bait or plastics

The flesh looks nice and white , never eaten mullet before ! I've cought mullet on chicken breast at the entrance lake !

Gday Raiders Well two lovely days this weekend, after going out for a fish yesterday,last night the mrs said "do you mind if i go to the beach with my friends? you can go fishing". In an act that could have won me a golden globe, i expressed my "disappointment" and "reluctantly" agreed. Dad decided to come along too, we headed east from Sydney Harbour and drifted for blue spots, we ended up with 3 and then suddenly my rod takes off screaming....WAT THE? after a 20 minute battle bringing up what felt like 100 sacks of potatoes a 2m mako came to the surface, " get the phone dad" one tail shake and it was gone before we had a chance to take a photo. Was an interesting sight none the less. Moved on to shallower water and picked up another 3 blue spots, then a big bend in the rod, no head shakes. bring it up from the depth i see a circular shape " bloody stingrays". Get it to the surface and its a HORSE flounder at 43cm and a new PB!!, i didnt even know they get that big. Now i dont particularly like to eat flounder and given the size of this fish I had wanted to release her, but she was foul hooked straight through the eye and had made a real mess. the picture will give you some context of how big she is, the largest blue spot was 46cm. even more upsetting when i found her full of roe later. it was a lovely day to be out, navy still doing training operations off north head. thanks for reading

Awesome fish As others have commented - great colors on that fish

G'day Raiders A quick report, ventured out today with perfect conditions this morning. First out to the FAD was a fail with water temp sitting at 19.5 I don't recommend anyone waste the time/fuel until the warmer water pushes in. Off to long reef plenty of bait around and saw kings boated ranging from rats to 1m, of course all my efforts were fruitless as I expected !! Frustrated I moved on.... Headed back to sydney harbour and the boys in green stopped me in my tracks - army/Air Force practising off the shore with parachutes dropping every 30 mins or so, they had set up a no entry zone so Headed out to 40m and boated 5 blue spots from 37cm to 42cm which I kept for the table. On the way in saw about 15 boats sitting in tight formation at north head, literally every boat was hooked up there was a massive school of kings and salmon and they weren't being picky, soft plastics, pilchards, micro jigs, knife jigs it was all happening. I boated 5 kings and 2 salmon all kings undersized so they went back to fight another day. Whilst no legals, I think it's a positive sign that Sydney Harbour is about to fire up and looks like this summer season could be a cracker! Sorry no pics as the phone battery had died. Was a good day despite my target species (Mahi) being a donut. Have a good weekend and goodluck to those heading out tomorrow

Hey farvos I troll deep diving bibbed lures though I know many on this forum also troll skirts. Given it's early season I would suggest the smaller lures will work best this time of year between 3 or 4" size. Troll past the fad anywhere within 50-100m proximity is good but don't get too close you could lose all your lures and keep an eye out for divers they're around sometimes too.

Flathead aren't the best fighting fish but they sure are great on the table ! Well done Yowie Is this the calm before the storm ?

thanks fellas lindenn did you find warm water ?

Gday Raiders Headed out from Botany yesterday with the plan to fish the Botany Wide FAD. After having so much fun last year i was really looking forward to this years FAD season. Launched the boat at 5am and with the sun starting to peak its head over the horizon i was on my way out. Check out the sunrise, with a view like that i honestly didn’t care if i caught any fish, i was revitalized! (Ok im lying i would have cared) Conditions were a little sloppy but not uncomfortable, a steady speed of between 10-12 knots and i was passing within stones throw distance of the Sydney East FAD, so i thought what the hell might as well, put out the lures and do a couple of passes. I was the first boat to arrive (unless someone even more excited than me was night fishing there) and on the first pass a double hook up, one undersize dolly which went back and a nice legal dolly, a couple more passes and mostly undersize dollies and rat kings up to 30cm. The boats were starting to appear in the distance, i decided to venture out to the Botany Wide. The temperature at the Sydney East FAD was 22.5 degrees, and according to the charts i looked at Saturday night, the wide FAD was sitting in 23.3 degrees of water, so i was really surprised to see the temperature dropping as i went further out. I arrived at the wide FAD and it was 20.2 degrees? WAT THE ^%^$ ??? Now there is a strong ( if not certain ) possibility that i misread the charts available on fish-track, so if someone else can correct me please do, but i was absolutely gobsmacked to see a 2 degree drop, i was expecting the water to get warmer. With such cold water on the botany wide FAD, I was not surprise that i didn’t get a single touch for a full hour and a half i was there, trolled lures, downed a live bait, unweighted pillies. Disappointed, i turned around and slow trolled all the way back to Botany, on the way i picked up the two small tunas which i kept for baits, and then outside botany stopped and picked up the 3 blue spot flathead and lonely salmon. Whilst i am very grateful to get to go home with a feed ( and 1 of my target species) i was kicking myself for misreading the charts. Hope everyone else had a good weekend out.

Congratulations on your first jewwy mate Certainly a good pay off for all the hard work !

Hahahaha I use BoM and seabreeze but this weekends looking hard to figure out