[Birthday boy]

10 minutes for 1 good sized kingy, fantastic! What a great birthday memory.

[Botany Bay Saturday]

I (finally) had a live bait tank installed Friday 😁, so decided to blood it Saturday.

Was a bad start, unfortunately. The inlet was leaking & stupidly I didn’t bring the correct tools, so we had to run the bildge much of the day.

 

Stopped off just around the corner of Molli point & got some yakkas reasonably quickly. It was a bit windy, so stayed in the bay heading just around the corner to join a bunch of boats just near the point. Nothing there. Dropped one fish on bait, the livie swam around happily & caused a tangle!

 

Wind died down so headed to the far side of Bare island for a few drifts. Took a while, but we hit a patch of squid. Unfortunately we dropped several, and only ended with two! Not sure why. don’t usually have that much trouble?!

 

One of the livies was mutilated by, I assume, squid or octopus, as its brain area had been slowly chomped. No hits on the others all day.

 

It was fairly ordinary trip, but it was a great day to be on the water & we gave the tank a good christening, decorated with blood & ink! No more on the spot decisions on what to do with squid: dispatch & ice for dinner, or (live) bait.

 

Cheers

[Smoked By Kingfish Chasing Bream]

Great video. Always heart pumping stuff.

Shame as it looked like you had him after initially you seemed to have no hope!

I couldn’t quite make it out but looks like it was the leader that was cut, how far off the lure? Was it damaged by rubbing or did it just break with the pressure?

[Chasing snapper]

Nothing wrong with your story telling Ahmed, great report. Although you didn’t get your target, you stuck at it & got a few as well as some dinner. Well done.

[Bottom Bashing Off Sydney - What works for me]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge, much appreciated.

The distance bw my droppers is about half what you use. Will try a longer length as suggested, thanks.

[Landbased Yarra Bay ripper]

Great report. Cracking snapper for inside the bay!

[Botany tailor]

Those big ones would have put up quite a fight.. We’ll done.

[Annual Crazy kayak trip]

Amazing. Sounds like a fantastic experience. Thanks for sharing.

[Quick flick in the Sunday rain]

Well done getting out despite the awful conditions. Your name says it all really  

Nice bream too.

[Port Stephens- Pre fish]

Awesome! 

How big was that 2nd monster? It looks enormous!

[Crazy Hook Up On Salmon]

Well done. Nice video as usual.

[Botany Bay Green Eye Squid]

Persistence paid off. Great work. 

[Port Stephens reds.]

Great report. Thanks for sharing.

[Botany Bay Sunday]

Headed out Sunday with my son & his friend. Given the talk of snapper lately, and glorious conditions, we decided to head to the rocky ground just south past the heads to try our luck.

The boys fished bait, while I tried casting a plastic (following Scratchies advice as well as I could).

Not long in, my son yells ‘I’m snagged’ quickly followed by ‘its a fish’. A couple of minutes later, he pulls up the largest Eastern red scorpion fish we’d see . Although it & it’s poisonous spines went back, my son was over the moon with one of his heaviest catches ever.

Unfortunately not much happened after that.

 

The boys pulled up a couple of wrasse & a single snapper, which was the same size as the ones we get inside the bay

 

My casting yielded nothing but a couple of very small bumps just the once, and also what I’m sure was the distinct pull from squid or cuttlefish a few times. I resisted the urge to change to a squid jig & kept at it though.

 

The most exciting part of the morning came after we released one of the wrasse. It took a little time to revive & floated near the surface for a bit. While I was considering driving back to net it, up swims a large school of distinct yellow / green shapes, Kingfish, I assume to investigate the struggling wrasse? Not the bait, nor the plastic could tempt them though as they lazily swam away. The wrasse had revived & disappeared too

 

We gave up on the reef after this & headed back into the bay. After trying a few spots for zilch, we ended up near the Kurnell wharf where we encountered a hoard of small snapper which kept the kids entertained for a while. At one stage we must have drifted over a school of jackets because finally the SP saw some action, being completely shredded in an instant 😩 One of our rigs was also cut at the braid (the green braid & not the colour change?), so we changed to wire to try & salvage something. But we’d drifted a bit by then & couldn’t find anything but hungry snapper.

 

So, although we ended up with nothing but ice in the bag, it was a great day to be out & the boys caught a few fish.

 

Thanks.

[26kg longtail off Nelson Bay Breakwall]

What a catch! Congrats.

[Brisbane water 2nd June]

Ah, yes. Thanks.

[Maroubra beach 1/6/2019]

Great effort & especially a snapper off the beach, well done!

[Brisbane water 2nd June]

Great catch & feed. Why downsize jigheads?

[Landbased Rat King Whilst Chasing Bream Parramatta River]

Great work & video.

[Botany Bay jackets revenge]

Yes  Lightly dusted in salt / pepper, capers, Italian herbs fried in butter. Squeeze of lemon.

[Botany Bay jackets revenge]

Thanks for the replies & ideas.

11 hours ago, Ah Me Ting said:

What is that cooler bag?

Google search ‘chiller fish bag’. Can get them in various sizes. I’ve got  the micro, 80cm.

21 hours ago, Welster said:

How do you find the cooler bag?

Great. Good quality & slides nicely under my back seat freeing up valuable space.

5 hours ago, Captain Spanner said:

I would use at least a 6oz sinker so it would sink fast and the jackets would get hooked by the sinker as they tried to eat the bait on it's way down

Great idea! We were unweighted & found it difficult to hook em.

2 hours ago, hookerbruce said:

I found pieces of jacket skin was a good tough bait for them.

Thanks, kid’s’ll be happy to keep the extra gummies

[Botany Bay jackets revenge]

First time out on the bay in a while on Saturday. Took my 10 year old & his friend. Unfortunately I forgot the bait! So with the wind a bit blustery, & casting inexperience, we struggled.

After a fruitless hour, we hid behind Bare island, then Molli point to escape the wind, but still nothing.

About 10:30, wind died down, so headed to the yellow market near Watts, where we sounded some fish. Unfortunately they turned out to be mostly jackets.

I’ve lost a lot of lures to them these last couple of months, & again within a few mins.. So taking advice from raiders (thanks), put on some wire trace and, not having any bait, a small plastic.

I couldnt beleive how quickly that plastic lasted - they were like piranhas, stripping it in seconds, but we managed to hook one, then used the guts to bait up the kids lines.

Kids struggled to hook them as they were small, so downsized hooks &, in a stroke of brilliance, as we were running out of guts, we cut up some sour patch gummies which worked a treat!

Kids were happy to finally catch something, I got revenge on the jackets and enjoyed a tasty meal for dinner.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

[ARTICLE - SNAPPER- Fishing with soft plastics by Scratchie]

Thanks Scratchie. I’ll certainly use the info this winter & beyond. Your efforts are much appreciated.

[Crabs for mother’s day]

Excellent catch under (no) pressure., we’ll done.

[Waterproof Phone Case]

I’ve used lifeproof & can also recommend them.