GoingFishing

try this link below, the guys post updates sometimes in the gamefishing grapevine but if your looking for regular updates you can subscribe to the FADS update, there is a link on the website below. http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/fisheries/recreational/saltwater/fads/map

i havent been out yet but i am really looking forward to go, the last two weekends have been terrible weather so i would imagine if the weather this weekend is good you will find a car park at the FAD as i imagine im not the only one looking forward to have a go. my advice - get there as early as possible, troll some lures, throw in some live baits or even pillies. dollies arent picky they will take almost anything even soft plastics. Also keep in mind that the fish on most days are AROUND the FAD, not directly beneath it, so you dont need to pass by within 5 meters, anywhere in close proximity will put you in striking distance. if your drifting with baits or livies make note of which direction the current is flowing, position yourself about 100m infront/upstream of the FAD and drift to about 100m past it and repeat. also watch out for divers they're around sometimes too. thats my 2c worth cheers

Your living the dream mate you certainly picked the right place to call home Great feed there too

G'day Raiders Went to the local tackle store to buy some new line and found a box of stuff on clearance. Came across the above mentioned lure with no price, I asked the owner if it's a suitable trolling lure off a boat ( he had just bought the business and apparently knows little about lure fishing) He said " sorry I don't know, but it's on the house" AWESOME- but my question is still unanswered to some extent- I've spent some time looking at the Rapala website and it says it's suitable for casting or trolling for depth of 4-6feet Has anyone used this lure before ? Is it suitable to troll for species such as bonito Mahi etc Cheers

Mate well done on your first legal fish but to be honest I'm more impressed with the 57cm trevally that is a serious fish. Do u have a foto of the trev ?

Sounds like I might hold off ten fads for a whole Tomorrow is starting to look half decent but I don't know if my boat would like a trip out to the fads in 15 knot winds I might stay in the harbor

I saw u guys out there on the weekend your absolutely right there were some monsters amongst them one bloke boated a king which must have been at least 1.2m I had no such luck

That's a nice mixed bag mate well done

Did anyone try the FADS (any) this weekend ? Anything about? This weekend looks like a writeoff but am keen to get out next week if the weather permits

Now that ive got your attention the real question.(I'm full of questions this week) DOES SIZE MATTER - when comparing eating quality of fish? For example, i realised that some of the just legal flatties cooked for lunch today (caught yesterday), were not as good eating as the slightly larger 40cm+ specimens, and whilst legal there wasn't a good quantity of flesh coming from them. So from now on il only be keeping flatties inbetween the 40cm to 60cm range. Ive also heard that XXL fish don't taste as good as their younger relatives. So that got me thinking, what is the optimum eating size of each fish species? Now remember, everyone has different taste so some species that taste like A*$ to some are very tasty to others. - flathead -snapper -bream -trevs -kings? others? cheers

ive lost 2 anchors in botany bay !!!! there must be a million dollars worth of metal at the bottom of the water there haha good on you scoring a feed in tough conditions

Thanks all for your comments farvos - I'm no expert about long reef as ive only been there a couple of times, but I can tell you that there is a very small peninsula that is long reef beach. water depth around this area north south and east of the peninsula is generally 10-15m for about 600-700m in all directions from the peninsula eventually dropping off quite steeply to about 20-25m. most people are fishing the ledge between 10-20m and when you get there you cant miss it, the boats will all be congregated around this area . theres still plenty of fish in the reefy areas in the 10-15m depth. just have to find them. sorry if i haven't been much help. lures were xrap magnum in pilchard and XMAS tree

I think Krispy nailed it on the head in my (limited) experience when fishing for kings they're on the bite early and then gone by early morning I'm sure they're still around somewhere but if ur looking for a window of increased opportunity then the earlier the better

Awesome mate youve really got the kings figured out. Sashimi sorted for the next week !! great result

Gday Raiders Report from todays trip, the plan was to fish long reef for kings and snapper but only managed to tangle with the kings. Conditions seemed good as i rounded north head around 7am, passed by 3 schools of sambos on the surface and had to battle the urge to throw a lure in. Arrived at long reef shortly after and threw out two Rapala deep divers, first pass resulted in a double hook up of rat kings approx 40cm and 50cm, Did a couple of more passes for another single rat king around 50cm. No legal ones for me today but i did see a couple of blokes hooked up to what were surely legal kings including one poor fella on a kayak who was battling it out for almost 15 mins. looks like hard work from a kayak especially with some chop around. The weather quickly deteriorated and i barely had any time to choose my next location, swell and chop was rolling in and some were about 2.5m high. I had to tuck tail n run and fast, slow uncomfortable ride back to sydney harbour i stopped on the southern end of curl curl beach on the way where there was a little shelter from the wind. Rigged up for flathead, first half an hour nothing then suddenly both rods start bouncing and bring up two flatties ( not sure of the species as this is first time i catch this color, im guessing blue spot?). marked the spot and stayed another hour drifting over it hoping and waiting for the conditions to ease a little. Ended up with 7 flatties going from just legal to around 45cm.Also released about half a dozen not legals. All fish caught on pillies. The conditions eased up a little and i made my way back in around 1230. The flatties will be turned into some nice fillets for lunch tomorrow yum cant wait Thanks for reading and hope everyone had a good day

Thanks to all who offered advice and their time i look forward to learning the art of squidding

After hearing some wise words of wisdom, I've convinced myself that the only way il get any chance of catching squid is to spend a whole session learning and practising the technique. I currently couldn't catch a squid if my life depended on it. I'm wondering if any experienced squid master would be willing to spend a session showing me the technique and possibly some locations. Also a good chance to meet another raider. I am willing to make it worth your while possibly by purchasing a squid jig of your choice Looking to preferably fish botany or sydney harbour and would be on my boat, il provide lunch too.! PM me if this sounds like something you would be interested in. Cheers fellas

That is a really fat healthy looking dusky Well done on the new PB

Thanks all for your comments , I'm glad it made it for an entertaining read and hopefully everyone can get Into some more salmon this weekend ! The information share on this site is priceless, and that kmart beginners kit has been sitting there untouched since last Xmas haha ! I honestly would never have thought to use a plastic like that without having prior read Eds report I have to add it wasn't easy to get close to casting range as I could only get a 6-8m cast as the jig head was so small and light, made for some tricky fishing trying not to send the salmon down deep

Gday Raiders A late report as ive been a little busy. Me & Dad planned to fish Saturday and were on the water by 7am heading out from Rose Bay. The plan was to troll some lures from North head sounding out the bottom along the way for any good marks. As i suspected trolling yielded no fruit but on the way back into sydney harbour we came across a football field size boil of salmon swimming shoulder to shoulder mouth open. From what i read most raiders would not invest too much time chasing the salmon but i really find them to be good sport, especially on very light gear. Over the course of the next hour i threw every lure i had in the box without a touch. very frustrated i was beginning to give up hope. I had a brief flash back to a report that Teflon put up last weekend about the salmon feeding on transparent microbait. I also had echoes of "match the hatch". But how the hell do i match a tiny transparent microbait. I decided to give up and move on, as i was putting the lure box away i had to move a beginners kmart tackle kit out of the way which i received last XMAS from someone at work. Inside i saw a tiny plastic, it was clear and small, smaller than anything i had..................hmm ? worth a shot? tied on the tiny lure ( the plastic wouldnt even slide over the jighead haha). First cast dad hooked up while i was tying on mine and for the next hour we landed 10 salmon and kept only 6. Not the best eating fish but we ended up having a heap of fun on the light gear. I guess sometimes price and quality doesnt always score you the fish. lesson learnt.! hope everyone had a good weekend thanks for reading

Mate that is a real beast of a bream, great catch. I wonder how old it must be it's probably older than me.

Some very interesting feedback gentlemen. Evidently it's a very complex question ! My experience is that bigger baits do consistently produce bigger fish, looking back most of my PB fish are from larger baits or lures. But not all I agree with some comments above that what the fish are feeding on, local food source makes a big difference. What I am also interested to hear about is whether or not specific species respond better to bait vs lures as they get larger ?

At the ramp this weekend I met a lovely old fella who said to me "you want bigger fish you gotta use bigger baits or lures" That got me thinking, generally I'm just happy to avoid a donut, but in the event that many many decades from now if I have garnered some sort of knowledge about fishing, would I go about spending a full day specifically targeting the BIGGER fish AND if so, is old fellas advice useful. Obviously common sense would apply- ie one would not target a marlin with a prawn and that's not to say that big fish have been caught on small baits- we could all agree that's not the norm. So enough jibber jabber from me- in your experience do bigger baits/lures consistently produce bigger fish more often than not ?

I've been hearing reports of Bonito being caught the last couple of days what u saw could have been bonito. Given the climate conditions I wouldn't be surprised if the frigates were about there's tonnes of baitfish around

The one I'm talking about used to be adjacent to Nielsen Park? Is that the same one !?