HenryR

Scratchie, thank you very much. That was my attempt at catching drummer. More practice needed !

hey Ivo, i've never fished it but have a friend who lives just up the road and he tells me it does get fished,. Regularly, by people with gear, not just everyday punters. Can't tell you whether that's because it's worth repeat visits or just because it's so convenient that lots of people try it in passing but ..... it's a sign of something .....

'my other boat is a packraft', I bought mine years ago when the exchange rate was good. I did a couple of years of white water rafting before making the move to fishing. You know - I'm sure you do! - if you don't mind a bit of a walk, once you get the hang of them, you don't need to leave the state, you barely need to leave town, to go truly amazing places with them. Love the photos. Looks like totally great country you traveled though. That's one very cool holiday you had!

mainline 3lb, but braid so I suppose - probably breaks at about 6lb. they weren't busting up big time, just and occasional stir on the surface. Enough I had an amazing afternoon on them about this time last year, med size school that was pretty fired up, A couple of times as I was getting towed around by the fish I assume the bait was trying to shelter under my kayak because, I'd be out in the middle of the river all of a sudden the water all round the kayak would go besrek with fish. Really wondeful stuff

Nice! Total awesome sounding trip. Were the packrafts just for that trip or do you do other stuff in them. They are pretty super small water and backcountry fishing vehicles.

BN thanks very for noticing my pics! It was a concerted effort. Not so much hanging on to the rod, that's 3lb braid and very bendy stick, not too much force there. Aiming the camera was the hard but. A nice way to pass the time while waiting for those fish to wear themselves. they really shine in the estuarys I reckon arc. an under celebrated fish.

Is a really good place to start. Nice protected water - as in much less wind than most anywhere else - and the fishing can be good. It is winter though, the colder it gets the more barren it tends to feel down there and fish can be hard to find. The obvious choices right now: hairtail and tailor. The hairtail, of course, are a nighttime thing - cold .... fun if you rug up properly. And, actually, very managable in a kayak. Just be sure to take a big bag so have somewhere you put them that they can't bite you from. For tailor get there early and fish first light, or turn up in the arvo and fish as the light fades is best. If you want to aim for tailor, try the points and backs of bays (often down deep the bottom near the last of the deep water in bays). I would fish lures but am sure unweighted pillies are probably a better way to go. You can troll for tailor too - all over the river will work trolling, any not to big bibbed minnow should do the trick. Summer is easier, but there'll still be bream down there. My first kayak launches were from Apple Tree Bay and what used to work for me was drifting the shore just downstream from Apple Tree Bay. Paddle just past the boats and then start fishing pretty much as you turn the vague point. Drift close to the shore, really close (most of the Hawkesbury, the deeper bits .... all the action is very close to the shore) with your bait of choice (mine used to be pilchard chunks, but there are better options if you're less lazy than me) unweighted or with a very small sinker - 00 ball ... And, when you do get hits, make a note of where you are. You can stop and fish there for a while or drift on and next time, stop at the same spot again to see if it produces again. That's really the way to find the spots. Once you figure out a few, you can, if you like that style, anchor up there and berely. Putting some stink in the water helps plenty. Again, early morning or evening are the best times by miles. Another possibility might be to catch some poddies - get a trap, plenty of poddies in the creek - and drift the points and drop offs at the backs of the bays for flatties and (if you're lucky) small jewies, chuck lures with a second rod and you get to cover two options at once. A good anytime of day option There's an already existing FR thread that mentions a few things as well: http://www.fishraider.com.au/Invision/topic/82229-fishing-at-bobbin/#comment-593720 It hasn't rained in ages but, next time it does, fish right up against all the little creeks running into the system with bait for bream - works great. Especially good in Coal and Candle (Akuna Bay launch) where the hills are steeper and the creeks run more.

A few hours of fruitless bait soaking at the top and bottom of the tide, in the hope of a jewie. Last week in Cowan Creek. I tired with leftover squid and live poddies. All the action it turned out was on the surface and lures. In between the slack tides, I paddled around a lot and had a little bit of good luck. Once I found them, the school these came from kept popping up for about 2 hours. They were often within sight but not reach. It makes for suspenseful fishing. Happily, mine and their paths crossed enough times for me to snag three of them before they moved on. Salmon on light line are so my favourite fish An excellent arvo and a day saved by one of winters blessing.

beautiful write up Derek. The little ones are cute. For some awful reason I tend to catch trout that size. A big hooray for the Moby Dick too ... carrot and stick all in the one fish guaranteed to keep most fishos coming back.

Nice pics janiFin. That is one totally gorgeous looking bit of water!

Resurrecting an old thread because I've got a Caldia that starting feeling a bit stiff the other day. Pulled it apart and, it's totally dry inside. I bought the reel before I had any idea what magseal entailed. I might have thought twice if I'd known, tho .. the reel has been great. It's survived multiple dunkings in fresh water, often in circumstances where it couldn't be properly dried out for days, and a lot of kayak induced saltwater exposure, all without anything other than a rinse when i got home. Anyway, a quick search online throws up some helpful stuff and an Australian supplier of Ferro Tec APG L11, which sounds like a good substitute for Daiwa's oil. Is there anyone here who's done this already? More info would be great.

BN, Tuross is way out of reach for me - I just wanted to say good on you! Having water taken out of the local system must be like not being able to wake form a bad dream - unless you travel. Way to go and happy fishing!

Hi Derek, Many, many thanks! You so saved our day. I grab squid occasionally when i run across them but this was actually the first time I've set out to catch them and the first time I've caught any big enough to be faced with a dinner or bait dilema. It's a tough one! Ate some, froze some, I did. However .... if it hadn't taken us half a day to get to the squid stage of things, they've have been bait, bait, bait and nothing but bait! Would be really awesome to line up a Pittwater day sometime. It's one of those places I always think I should go and never do.

nice fishin'

Two nice sized marine creatures each, or - better sounding I think - a few really tasty meals is definitely not a doughnut but, if when you get to the end of the day the biggest edible critter in the bag came from the bait ground and was the target species there, that sure ain't a plan A style success. Our plan A was launch at Long Reef. On arrival there the SE swell was throwing up a nasty little shore dump. It pretty much guaranteed getting very wet. In summer that might be fine but we decided to give it a miss. We hastily made up a plan B. We kept heading north to Pittwater. Less hopeful than Long Reef but we figured, even though we had no idea where to find them, we might still get lucky and run across some winter kings. We loaded the kayaks up and paddled out into the unknown waters. It was still dark. While the sun slowly rose we prospected blindly for squid and yakkas. When the fresh, live bait bit of plan B failed we switched to plan C. Frozen bait. A cuttlefish picked up on a previous trip and good old plastic. Krause paddled off into the distance towing his lines through the ranks of moored boats. I picked out a point with a bit of a drop off and waited to see if any fish would find me. Neither strategy worked. Plan D wasn't really ours. Thanks and credit for the little success we had goes to fellow fishraider, Derek who answered the call for help. He filled Krause in on a few things to try. It still took us a while to find what we were looking for but when we did we had a squid almost instantly. An hour and a bit later we had two more squid (over 5 hours since launch time, bait, finally sorted!) and a flattie. With the wind picking up we figured enough was enough and quit just a little bit ahead. For reference: the flattie in the pic went 49cm.

ha-ha, gimme a lecture next time we go fishing !

excellent! Cold and smell aside (does it really smell?) aside, sounds like a pretty okay morning

seasponge, it was awkward. There was no way I was going to try and bring that flattie aboard. That would very probably have caused unreasonable harm to both the fish and myself! Paddle in one hand rod in the other, with the fish taking occasional runs and threatening to start thrashing its head, I anxiously punted myself, yak, and fish to the nearest 'beach'. The notable irony of it all was - I did reflect on this at the time: motivated by a previous oversize fish encounter, I had a gaff with me but was now tied to a fish I wanted set free unharmed as much as catch. The punting t took quite a while but - yay! - ended well I'm thinking about buying a bigger net, just not sure how to carry it on a kayak.

far out!

fg over double uni any day but .... see this thread: improved Albright ain't bad either

savit, you have an eye for details! yep, was a looong day. It being a try-to-catch-Mulloway-day, and not being able to chase the slack the way boats can, we both waited out bottom and top the tide, Really, a half day is pretty normal. Then, at least if you have to travel back south from most Hawkesbury launches it's either slug it out with school and then peak hour traffic or fish past that bottle neck and make it a looong day!

yep! pretty sure somewhere in the fine print it said, all who signed up to this one also signed up for Cold Night Out II. And totally yep! on the paddling back in the still of the night One of the times Kaykas really do come in to their own: slipping along in silence with a luminous green bow wave. Love it ! Great to meet you Dynabolt and friend (forgot her name, soz), and jtp. Very nice to meet people in actual person.

I've just had a similar problem. Not anti reverse slippage. My anti-reverse stopped working while fishing - wouldn't switch back on. After stripping the whole reel down. I had enough parts off to see the problem - the little lever that switches anti-reverse on and off had cracked. A hairline crack but enough to let it slip on its spindle. If I'd known to look hard enough, this could have been diagnosed and been temporarily fixed in the field and without any disassembly. I've turned the anti-reveres back on with a pair of pliers so I can fish today. So, just in case anyone else winds up here with a similar problem. Check the lever is still good and then start pulling the reel apart or send it off for repair if still needed!

Thanks Donna, so long as someone remembered to pm the hairtails, it's all looking very good at this point ! Dyanbolt, if you have 30m or more of cord (even brickies sting or equivalent would probably do), it might be worth bringing. That and a few bricks or a rock in a bag might well take the edge off trying to holds still for a few hours. Better, I've never tried it but have read of people using flat barbell weights. I believe they make pretty good sand / mud anchors. Very likely mud on the bottom of most of Waratah Bay. I'll be there 12:30/1ish. Little green - see profile pic - and white yak with a little bluey-green plastic basket strapped to the back.