GreasePit

Thanks for your reply mate, great info in there. No sweep in my system, but could definitely be some really tiny baitfish. Ill have to try the split screen when i hit the water next, hopefully be able to sound up some bigger bait schools and get into some quality fish with a little help from modern technology. Cheers again

Yeah i'm slowly getting the hang of it, hopefully my hookups become more frequent as i go. Didn't measure them, but i'll take a guess around 1.3-1.5m I actually caught them on a running live bait jewy rig. 1m trace, to a swivel, with another sinker running freely on the mainline with 5cm's of line to a star sinker.

If I can't get a fix out of FR, I may do Thanks mate

I'm putting it in gear

Yeah the fuel tank vent is open Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I might add, the usual top speed is 20 knots, it currently gets to a max of 6.5. I've taken it out on a few trips and it hasn't changed at all, each time i thought i may have done something to fix the problem, i put it in the water and same go.

The livey had dead for quite some time i believe, for whatever reason, everytime i send a livey down at that particular spot compared to others i fish, my livies die very very quickly, usually 10 minutes, the other spots having heavier currents, when i pin them through the nose they last at least an hour. Quite close to some mangroves and in a deeper section of water in berowra, that's actually the 2nd i've pulled out of there in the last week on rod and reel, the fam has been loving the chilli mudcrab

Hey raiders, Just want to get some opinions on what the heck i'm actually seeing on my sounder. It's sonar imaging (Lowrance Elite 5), with the sensitivity sitting on 75% at a stand still position on 200khz. (I now know i should probably be running 83khz when anchored up). For a bit of context, this is what the sounder for the most part usually looks like. As well as that, the two flat lines around 25ft being my bait jig, with two small pieces of bait around the same size as a finger nail on some tiny size 8 hooks. Now, every now and again, this would pop up on the sounder, sometimes being even thicker than as pictured. I dropped baits to that depth, small and big, different varieties to see what it could be but no takers. Now given the colouration of the bait jig being solid green, and the baits not being touched indicates that these are not actually fish. I initially thought they may have been big schools of mullet rolling through but i think they would have come up as more of a solid colour given the appearance of the relatively small bait on the sounder. Can anyone shed any light on this? On top of this, i know the sounder sends a sonar pulse straight down, but how wide does it send that pulse to the port and starboard, as well as how long? Or in other words, what is the physical area that the sonar projects onto the screen? Thanks in advance.

Hi Raiders, Over the last year or so, i have been on a mission, solely hunting for the elusive silver ghost or jewfish as they are known. Recently the boat has been back in action and i've had a bit of spare time in between semesters. I've started to target them around a tide change in deep water a few days before and after the full and new moons. So far I've been largely unsuccessful at landing a decent one, but have nonetheless been enjoying the journey, learning as i go and only making the inevitable to be more rewarding. On my most recent outing, i pulled up to a deep section of water on the corner of a bend before a big bay, sent my bait jigs down for livies, to my surprise coming up with a few horse 40cm yakkas, fat as all hell, never really seen them in berowra before. Stripped one up, and sent one out as a big fat livey and on another rod sent out a strip of chicken breast After about an hour of squat, the rod baited with chicken goes for a small run and then stops, very suspicious of a flathead. Let it sit for a minute, picked the rod up, wound the slack up and bang on for a flathead. After an easy tussle, get it up and in the net, before i could even get it out i see the same happen to the rod with a strip of yakka, and come up for the same result. Both flathead going around 45cm and kept for the table. The flathead around winter seem to be very lethargic with little to no fight in them comparatively to the usual summer lizards. Some more time passes by, and i start to see the livey start to very slowly straighten up. Winding it in felt like a big dead weight, dead giveaway for a big dirty muddy. Got her up and suspicions confirmed, netted her and into the esky she went. All turned into a good feed of fish and chips with chilli mudcrab on the side. Later on in that same night, a short while after the tide change, i had sent out a line with a red glowie, striped chicken on ganged hooks and no weight in case any hairies were around. Got a solid run on the 2-4kg outfit, and after a little fight, up comes a wee slab of silver going 53cm, producing a big fat smile on my numb face. Few pics and back she went. My quest for jewies has led me to some strange discoveries in berowra which i had never seen before such as the big yakkas and some land based hairies whilst the boat was out of action. On another separate land based session, caught about 10 of these little guys. Wish i could have a massive aquarium, and study their growth and behaviour. My best size landbased jew coming from the same landbased spot went 65cm, she took a relatively small livey and i had to drag her over some rocky territory unfortunately, causing a few scales to come off, i did swim her and she kicked away slowly into the distance. ​At the same spot on a different occasion, i lost my no doubt biggest jew after a fairly long fight as my braid just nicked the same rocks, started using a 15m mono leader after that.

Hi raiders, Been having a bit of trouble with my motor recently, and i'm currently on uni break so i want to try fix it asap to make the best use of my free time. When i start the motor at home on dry land, she runs completely fine, when i hit wide open throttle, it hits 7k revs no worries. As soon as i launch the boat in the river, it reaches a maximum of 3.5k revs, and often fluctuates by about 0.5k revs and sounds like its bogging out. Every now and again it will just drop out and stall on me. Motor sounds like it may have a slight rattle. I put in a new tank of fuel as previous to this she was not being used, she is spitting water perfectly, the prop is showing for some very very minor bends. Any ideas or tips would be greatly appreciated. Cheers

You can also buy glow in the dark tape from office works

Strong wind is not your friend when beach worming from my experience.

In case you haven't already purchased anything, with your budget, you could easily pick up 2 combos for bait and lure fishing. I live bait regularly for jews in my local system in which the current runs quiet softly comparatively to many other systems. This allows the jews plenty of time to inspect the bait, usually grabbing it side on, going for a run, pausing, turning it around before swallowing... If they feel any resistance they will just drop the bait. Not sure how they act in your system, but with jews it's always good to be patient and give them time to swallow. For this reason i recommend a Shimano Baitrunner D series in around an 8000 size, (I run a 12000, probably a bit overkill). The two drag system will allow the fish to take the bait with no resistance, and when ready you can flick the baitrunner over and set the hook without having to fiddle with the drag settings. Pair it up with an ugly stik 8-15kgs with 30-50lb braid depending on the structure you fish around, i use 50lb as there's a bit of structure where i fish and i need to turn the jews head. I pair it with 60lb leader, do take note though, i am land based for the most part so i do have a fair few obstacles. This combo should quite easily work on your kingies as well. Cost should be around $300 not including line. I don't use lures too much myself, but any graphite rods around 7-9ft, with weight ratings around the 4-8kg mark paired with a 4000 size reel matched with 15-20lb braid and a 20lb leader would work well for the estuaries, as well as giving you the option to spin for tailor, bonnies and salmon in the surf or off the stones. In terms of rigs for jewies, snelled size 4/0 or 5/0 hoodlum hooks depending on what bait you use, (i use either live garfish or 20 odd cm live mullet), on about 50-60cm's of leader to a swivel. I tie about 10cms of line to a star sinker and another swivel, which i let run freely above the swivel tied to the leader to allow the jew to take the bait without resistance. Hope this helped mate Best of luck

Mate, thats about a 10kg salmon... Wouldn't be surprised if that was an Australia record of some sort Any pictures?

If you're using bait, don't go past the ugly stik gold series. Cheap, solid rods, and bloody hard to break. More than fit for your purpose

Once hooked a little flatty off Narrabeen on a surf popper right under the spines The joys of fishing

You're a beast on the kingies mate, good stuff

Try filling a bucket with water and a good splash of dishwashing liquid or detergent, find a nice soft patch of soil, pour and let the worms come to you. You'll usually get 15 odd worms come out of the ground doing this. As a kid i used to use them as bait for koi carp in my dam.

Brown in colour and very ugly, could have even been Old Gregg from the Mighty Boosh.

I don't go deep enough into the water for falling over to be an issue, only really go ankle deep at most. Off the stones i can see them being a big problem if you go in though. Appreciate the advise though mate

Glad i'm not in this alone haha Cheers fellas Only reason i really wear the waders is to keep sand from getting all up in my business, much easier to wash off a plastic boot and chuck her in the car compared to my hairy legs which just want to retain as much sand as possible. Also good to stay dry when trying to catch beach worms

Yeah don't worry about that, i'm not giving up on it, just taking a much needed break I'll get that Jew off the beach even if it kills me!

I have recently picked up beach fishing as of about 4-5 months ago and in the 10 or so outings i have been, i have discovered a few peculiar little occurrences which arise. So about 1 month ago, i decided to try give it a go even though there was a big swell going on. I had a little drive to a few headlands to see if i could suss out any gutters, but the surf just covered everything in whitewash, making it a bit too hard for my inexperienced eyes to spot the gutters. After a while of searching i decided to just throw a quick line in at Narrabeen, but the current was ridiculous. Was running a heavy star sinker and still couldn't have my line in the water without being washed up to shore in under 2 minutes or so. In the end i decided to just find the most sheltered southerly corner that i could, with the smallest surf possible. So i set-up shop at Collaroy. The current was still fairly strong there, but the waves there were all breaking within 10 or so meters from the shore, with the bank being really steep. Now for those of you who know Collaroy well, that southerly corner is particularly Kelpy. Just on dusk, one of my two rods started going off, i let it have a little line and 'set the hook'. After a 10 minute fight and 150 meters up the beach, i finally got it close to the shore, i could feel it come closer as waves came over it and pull drag again as the waves receded. I thought it might have been a big ray just wallowing around in the waves, not really giving two sh*ts about the hook in its mouth, but i didn't have my head torch on me at the time so i couldn't really see to much of what was going on. Now I'm not a big bloke, and a 15 odd minute fight on a 12 foot rod while wearing about 4 layers of clothes on the top, and 3 layers on the bottom, including a pair of wading overalls had me pretty buggered. At this point I tried to tighten my drag up a little so that i could stop it from taking line as the waves receded, and yeah you guessed it, snap... all over red rover. Now during the fight, in my head i thought it could have been one of two things, a ray, or a jewfish which was my target species. So i walked back up to the rest of my gear, tired, shaking from the thrill of the fight, sweatier than a sparky's 'coin purse' and a little bit pissed i didn't get to see the fish, admittedly yelling more than my fair share of obscenities. By this point it had gone dark, so i reeled in my other rod with the heavier gear to check it and it hadn't had a touch. Feeling pretty done with the trip i decided not to redo my small rod which had just been busted off, so i threw out the heavy one for that 'last cast' tradition while i packed up all my stuff. About 5 minutes later, the big rod starts going off, along with my adrenaline levels, but before i get to the rod i chuck on my head-torch so this time i can maybe get a glimpse at the big tucker. After another draining fight which consisted of the same style as the previous, but with the bigger line i get it in with a wave onto the bank just enough to see what it is. It was big, probably the biggest thing i've hooked onto ever. A monstrous mother ball of friggin kelp. That's right folks, the hardest fighting fish i've hooked onto in my life so far is this massive bundle of kelp which had been all wrapped up in my line, i reckon it probably weighed at least 10kg, paired with the really strong current, and a really steep bank makes for a tough fight. I mean it was pulling drag off a 12000 Shimano reel with 20 odd kilo mono. Anyway, after all that effort for absolute donuts, lost gear, and general disappointment i learnt that 6ft surf+Sh*t tons of kelp= F*&% that, never again. Since that, i haven't been back to the beach for a fish since as it is quite a big effort, fitting all my gear into my little coupe, doing the hour long drive from the sticks to the ocean, and probably not going to for a couple weeks more. But hey, that's fishing, another lesson learned, and another story to tell other fisho's.

Gday raiders, first report, and coming as a result of info learnt through fishraiders users. Had the day off today and the old man recently snapped a spring on the boat trailer so i decided to go give another crack at the beach. This was my 3rd attempt off Narrabeen with my previous two being busts. Was mostly trying to go for something more sizeable than the usual bream and flathead caught in Berowra. Arrived at 1:30 odd planning to fish till the top of the tide at 8. Couldn't see any gutters today at the north end of narrabeen and being lazy i just i plopped myself in front of a sandbank where the deeper water was within casting range, and the car close for when pack up time comes. Was fishing two rods, one with a light line set up with a paternoster with two 2/0 hooks about 20cm from the sinker and another at 40. This rod was baited throughout the day with my favorite all rounder bait, diced chicken breast covered in cheap Parmesan cheese. The other rod was for the bigger fish, rigged paternoster with ganged pillies 30cms from the sinker and a surf popper around 60cms up. After a good while, with no bites, losing a pair of beach worming pliers and the only thing to get the heart pumping was a hippie looking lady whose dog i had to keep shooing away from my chicken after each time casting my line. I finally get my first bit of excitement. Get a little run on the small rod and pull in a sand whiting, which at the time i thought was undersized so i threw him back. When i got home i measured to a notch i made on a bucket and the whiting would have gone 27cms. As the sun faded behind me i had another run on the little rod, this time peeling a little line and giving a little curry, winding in for a stocky little 33cm bream. Before i have a chance to unhook the bream, i hear the line peeling off of the big rod in the background. I let her take a bit of line, flick the baitrunner off and set the hook. After a couple minutes and a fun little fight i come up trumps with a 63cm salmon caught on the surf popper, the first time i've ever used it! After that it went quiet until about 7 when i get another run on the little rod, coming up with a 34.5cm trevally to top off the night. Cold, wet and sick of discovering new places in which sand can cause chaffing, i happily end the night before the top of the tide and retire to the warmth of the indoors.

Cheers mate, i thought it was a salmon at first and the brown markings threw me off, thought it was a baby queenie for a bit as well