wazatherfisherman

That's mad! A Sailfish (it looks like) inside anywhere is rare indeed

Good on you Jim first of many!

Great story, great company, great photo's and some nice fish to tick off the bucket list! Nice pottery also Neil, looks like you guys had a terrific time

Just wanted to add (because I forgot until looking) I bought 3 x 3 piece coarse rods from the UK last year. All make great Blackfish rods, one is a Sportex Mamba- brown glass, singular long cork butt with sliding rings reel seat. Can't reach the other 2 at the moment but all are 12 ft and 3 piece glass joints. Christened the Sportex a couple of months ago and similar action to a 3902. My Sportex were all orange.

Hi Sardine have built 2 piece Sportex 3902's a couple of times also Butterworth 3108's and one BF5144L (sanded finish) this was years ago of course, chromed brass ferrules. Had a light green 5144L for years until it was stolen. Has a giant red and green diamond bound on it if anyone sees it-very distinct. Still have 2 x Butterworth GP3145'S, one with grips and regular winch which also has a bent tip (left the blank bent around purposely after rod was finished) the other has bind-on winch and no grips. Had a couple of 3902's one traded, one stolen with a heap of gear from garage at Carramar. Also have a black un-sanded 3145 cut down to 10ft with grips and regular winch, an old solid glass 3 piece Jarvis Walker "Swansea"- off the rack Blackie rod and one each of 10 and 11 ft Shakespeare limited edition black Blackfish Special which were extremely cheap in the 70's but still going strong after I rebuilt them about 2 years ago. Had also a Ugly Stik 2 piece Blackfish rod (not many made) had glass-to-glass ferrule (one of the first rods made like this here) Butterworth were original makers of GP3145. Jarvis Walker brought out a 2 piece in the "Gold Medal Range" called the Port Hacking- 10 ft 2 piece, glass-to-glass ferrule-you were pushing it to break 4lb mono on it- super noodle. Mick Simmonds also had a 2 piece solid glass noodle that even bent under the cheap winch and low grade cork grips, they were sold in 1976 for $4 built. Max Mulligan used to build Grizzly's while they were available, he also made rock floats and was a club member of the Amateur Fishermen's Association of NSW (AFA was known as-still an active club meeting at Concord weekly). Hank Newman built about 3 different Blackfish rods 1 and 2 piece and he used one himself to catch most of his record fish on 3lb line in the early days of ANSA. I only have the above rods left in collection, but have nice collection of reels from Steelite right up tp G+Y "Purist 2". Also have many custom spool Blackfish reels in Cedar, White Onion-wood, Beefwood etc and decent float collection. Great to see others still collect these classic items.

Henry- firstly I'm glad you and your companions ended up OK from your incident. There are a couple of things to add. Firstly, I'm not sure if the others close to you were your mates, I take it from reading your post you had companions, but whoever they were, some had long pants/track suit pants on. NEVER wear that sort of clothing on the rocks- shorts only, regardless of the time of year. ALL long pants will be grabbed by any water that comes over any platform and contribute to the water flow in knocking you over. Then if you go in, have you ever tried swimming with long trousers on? They will weigh you down dreadfully, resulting in disaster. In response to your suggestions- 1) Better Signage- regardless of what is on any sign, if an area is regularly fished by you or others and you arrive and read said signage, after arriving keen to go fishing, how much regard are people going to take of the warning/s? Most likely the spot will be fished (as is the fisher's intention in the first place) albeit "possibly" taking into consideration whatever the warning is. There was a warning last week on NSW Recfisher to be wary of "large and powerful swells" Honestly, would you choose not to fish a popular location that others were fishing because a sign warned of possible danger? You just can't rely on signage to determine the "safety/unsafe" access to ANY coastal rocks. The sea is in a continual state of change and the only "constant" being that nothing remains the same. 2) Better Education/ Messaging- Observation of the location by those intending to use it is the best indicator of conditions that as said above, are in constant change. The general rule of watching the location for 15-20 minutes before making the decision to go there must be a better indicator than anything else. As Derek said above, especially when new/newish to a location, it's of great benefit to just go for an extended "look". Gives you a bit of an idea how the place works. No amount of videos will teach you what is happening on different days/seas. ALL ledges are different. When/if water comes over a ledge, look to see where this water can go, as it will flow back off somewhere on the location. Where possible do not fish single level spots with a "wall/step" directly behind you as the water often "doubles up" before pushing back off the area with an often increased velocity, due to it having nowhere else to go other than straight back into the ocean. There was a large amount of swimmers washed off the Figure Eight Pools platform at Burning Palms from this exact occurrence -there were no signs there and they weren't fishing, but the water that covered the platform needed to flow off and took a lot of people out with it. 3) Provide Danger Grading- It's not reasonable to provide a grading system for different locations because on different days/seas/swell direction etc are completely different. It might be "safe" in the morning then a killer in the space of a few hours/tide difference/wind change etc. Where it is safe one day might be deadly the next. Directly after the cessation of Westerly winds is a prime example. The "westerly-rollback" effect usually results in large, thick swells that head towards land and appear within a couple of hours of the wind stopping. Not always, but often and these are the swells that are really thick and push right over the platforms. Some days these come as "sets" of a series of waves, often with long periods of calm between them. ANYWHERE that there are lifebuoys/Angel Rings should be considered dangerous- that's why they have been installed, generally because either lives have been lost or multiple incidents have occurred. Then there is the question of "Liability" from those who erect any hazard signs- does it mean if there are no hazard signs that it's safe to fish there? Authorities can only genuinely "recommend" what to do other than making places completely off limits. If there is no sign, does that indicate whether you can fish in a particular locale? It would mean signposting the entire coast which is impractical to say the least. Anywhere can be dangerous. What if there were no signs or signage removed by vandals or the sea? Authorities can't become "liable" or negligent for either not erecting signs or failing to indicate any changes to the constantly changing coastal environment. The question of personal safety really comes down to the individual. I don't subscribe to the occurrence of "rogue" swells/waves, there are swells continually inward bound towards land and the ever changing height of the sea determines the height/width/size- even on days of little or no swell, waves/swell will at times come over the rocks at varying heights/power. When you fish the rocks you have to expect this to happen and choose your location wisely. A pre fishing "just-in-case" plan should be discussed, it's better to know what you will do if either yourself or a companion should get into difficulty. This plan should be discussed EVERY trip- it only takes a few minutes while you are observing the location prior to fishing. Escape routes also change with both tide and sea condition. Always try to have an alternate escape plan. Often, there will be a couple of spots that are better to attempt getting back in from should you get washed in. From in the water looking back at the rocks, you may not be able to identify these spots, so take note of the landform directly behind any exact "escape" spots- no good swimming towards the wrong area. More often though, it is a better idea to not attempt getting back in, but rather swim out away from the rocks- you have a lifejacket on so will stay afloat. Others can call 000 and often a rescue will be effected by either boat or helicopter. Take your own safety line with you. You might arrive at a location that usually has an Angel Ring installed and it isn't there- used or stolen. We used to have a cork cricket ball with a hole drilled through it and about 15 meters of venetian blind cord attached. This was tied to a heavier gauge rope. The lighter venetian blind cord enabled those on the rocks to throw the ball to the person in the water accurately and the swimmer could then pull the heavier gauge rope out to hang on to. Paint the ball orange as it's hard to see much in foamy or washy water from water level. I hope you find this useful, I'm not trying to be negative towards your ideas, just realistic. The onus is on the individual in regards to safety. Few people if any can stay upright in green water that races over rock platforms, so all safety concerns should be talked about. I have been washed in and I've participated in rescues and sadly a fatality. The swell was really large the day of the fatality (8 meters+), but the surviving fisherman said to me "why is like this?" -"never like this before, come here many times" he just didn't understand at all and it was really distressing. If it's even slightly dangerous have a plan "B" and go somewhere different, you only get one life. Take care Henry and safe fishing

Great you got out fishing Andrew and good to catch a few fish! Nice pictures also and thumbs up for the wind for once!

If you want to see some really big Blue Groper go to Middle Head down the chain to the ledges there and go as far left as you can. It's up about 15-20ft off the water so a bit high to fish exactly at the end but a nice spot to take photo's and around high tide some giant Blues come in really close. Easy to see but too cool to fish for (too big also!) You also see them at Dobroyd at high tide and there are plenty of Browns throughout the lower harbour. A few years ago the police caught a bloke who speared one at the old Gasworks (little Manly). He was dobbed in by residents and was caught red-handed with the Groper wrapped up in a blanket to hide it.

Hi Bob fishing the Sow and Pigs was fantastic in those years- you just can't accurately describe how many fish were there of a night. The rougher it was outside, the better the Pig's fished and all manner of species. Reckon there were almost as many Trevally as Tailor some nights. Never got more than a few Hairtail there each "burst" probably just as they moved through and nothing like some of the other spots in the Harbour for them. Mostly caught them on the old 3 x 6/0 gangs with no wire while Tailor fishing. Biggest ones I ever saw came from the yellow blinker at Neilsen Park- they were genuine monsters

During the 70's they were really common in both Sydney Harbour and Botany Bay. Clifton deep hole was the reliable spot, but of a night when the schools are roaming around they were caught all over the Harbour and North Harbour. The appeal of Clifton deep hole was that they were caught during the day, other spots like the Green Wedding Cake, Sow and Pigs and the Yellow blinker off Neilsen Park were just some of the spots they turned up regularly of a night. High tide at night they would come right in to the wharf at Clifton Gardens and we fished for them from the back of the swimming pool using small live Yellowtail set about 8-9 ft under a small bobby cork. It was vital to catch really small "daytime" Yellowtail well before dark, the "night-time" Yellowtail are larger and the Hairtail would usually muck around with them.

Great work on the Jack and good on you for releasing it as they are top shelf eating fish as well. Biggest one I've heard of being caught in Sydney

Great work Scratchie!

Hi Rebel just run your prawn net through some of that lake weed and collect some of those tiny shrimps. Put one or two on your Blackfish hook and fish as you would with weed. They even take them when they are "off" weed. They do take peas sometimes. Squirt worms are good also but fished on the bottom rather than under the float. The disadvantage of using shrimps is that just about everything likes them, but they will take Blackfish most of the time and it's pretty easy to get plenty in any of the weed beds in just a couple of minutes.

Just about everybody who fishes should relate to this. Over the course of your fishing life, how many times have you caught a fish on a rod not "manned" by you?- Either someone you know or perhaps a complete stranger's - has it happened the other way around, someone getting a fish on your set-up? I caught my first Kingfish off the rocks on one of the other regular's rod's. He had put a live Yellowtail out under a cork and then joined me fishing for Luderick about 50 mtr's away. The sea was really flat and it was a really stinking hot day. Murray- the rod's owner- lived just above the cliffs we were under, decided to go back up the cliff and get some cold drink for us both. As he left, he said to keep an eye on the rod, which was in a really solid rod holder. About twenty minutes after he'd left, I was carrying a Luderick to put in my keep net and walked past his rod and everything seemed OK. On the way back to my rod, his Alvey ratchet made a noise and I walked over to have a look. Couldn't see the cork anywhere and the line was fairly tight and down, so I picked the rod up, not expecting anything to be on it. The heavy line usually pulls the cork under after being left unattended for any amount of time, so I thought it had just sunk. Surprise, surprise- there was a decent weight on the line, so I just reeled it in, absolutely no fight whatsoever and into view comes a Kingfish about 6 kg. The cork float had a match stick wedged into the hole to act as a stopper, but it hadn't come out as it was supposed to, leaving about ten feet of line between fish and float. That made lifting the fish too difficult on the rod, which was roughly as long as the depth of the rig and since the sea was so flat, I decided to walk the fish about 100 mtrs south to where the minimal swell was just barely coming onto the lowest ledges. I nervously walked the fish to the wash-up spot and got in a good position to wait for a wave, after a couple of minutes a big enough swell (I thought) came in and I attempted to wash/drag the fish up onto the lower ledge. The swell just wasn't quite big enough and the fish only barely made it to ledge level before tumbling back off. All hell broke loose then, as soon as that fish fell back into the water, it took off, nearly pulling the rod out of my hand. I hadn't been worried about the line breaking- it was super thick mono (Murray said later it was 70 lb) but the fish which had done absolutely no fighting or showing any resistance just "came to life" and the battle was on for a couple of minutes. I got the fish back in to the same spot and all of a sudden a voice behind me said "move back and lower the rod tip"- it was of course Murray back again- so I did as he asked and he just dragged the Kingie up by hand and onto the rocks. It was the first Kingie he'd ever got, so he wanted to take it home, it was his rod and he caught the Yellowtail and put it out, so I couldn't argue. However, I did get it in and got to feel the power of a Kingfish, regardless of the heavy line and broom-stick heavy rod, which was an old surf rod with about a foot or so cut off the tip. Over the years, plenty of other fish have met their doom via mate's rods, another time was at the same spot, with two other mates Fraser and Rob. Fraser had bought a super heavy live-baiting set-up, with a big deep spooled Alvey and a rod he got built purposely for Kingfish- a Butterworth 9144 that was cut down from 12 ft to about 10 ft 6, line was 44 lb Tortue mono. It's a serious rod for big fish and has accounted now for heaps of Kingfish and Mulloway up to 18.5kg.- Sadly not for Fraser though! The first couple of Kingfish he hooked on it were monsters and busted him off after brief but hectic battles and the rod was on it's third trip on the rocks. After slow spinning some baits for Kings with no takers, he re-rigged it with a set of ganged hooks and cast a Pilchard around for a while, but due to the outfit weighing so much, decided to have a breather and go up to our cave to make a cuppa. Rob and I were fishing for Luderick nearby and when Fraser announced he was going to get a billy boiling, Rob cheekily said "watch me catch a big fish on Fraser's rod"- we had a laugh and Fraser left us saying "just don't get snagged and lose my hooks" Rob picked up the rod, which still had Pilchard on the flight of ganged hooks and cast out, but not being used to the thick line and heavy set-up, the bait only went out about 15 mtrs from the ledge. He said "that'll do" and we again shared a laugh. Well about a minute later, Rob was on! The fish came in pretty quickly on the heavy gear, a nice little Mulloway about 4kg. We both laughed as it flapped around on the ledge and the hooks came out easily. Rob then grabbed another one of Fraser's Pilchards and cast out again, this time not as far as the previous cast, due to the line being slightly "buried" in the big sidecast's spool. I put my Luderick rod down and grabbed the Mulloway to put it up safely on the higher part of the ledge and turned round to Rob's cry of "I've got another one!" the second fish was about 6.5 kg and put up a decent albeit brief fight on the heavy gear. With that we decided to go up for a cuppa and left both fish secure on the high part of the ledge. I took my Luderick rod up with me as I wanted to grab my heavier gear to come back after the cuppa and try for a Mulloway also. When we got up to the cave- which is about 150 mtrs from where we were- and told Fraser that Rob had just caught two Mulloway on his new rod, because it had happened so quickly after Fraser had left us, there was no convincing him that it had happened- he thought we were just stirring him and retorted with plenty of light-hearted replies and insults. Imagine the look on his face when we went back out for the next session! He couldn't believe it! I later down the track became owner of that same rod, when Fraser sold all his fishing gear to trek Nepal with a girl he was really keen on. Caught heaps of big fish on it and I still have it to this day. I've also been on the receiving end of the "mate's rod effect"- while fishing at White Rock near Bradleys Head one day. We had gone to Taronga Wharf and caught about a dozen small live Yellowtail and carried them down the bush track and out to the "Rock" We each put out a live bait on the bottom in hope, of some nice Flathead and sat back to monitor the rods. Mate Frank suggested that he'd watch the live baits while I rigged my Luderick rod up. No action on the Yellowtail, so I went over to the Luderick gutter and started drifting my float. There were plenty of Luderick that day and I started getting into them. Frank was content to stay with the livey's. When you fish the gutter, you have your back turned to the live bait spot, and with Frank manning the rods there, I just concentrated on Luderick. A shout a bit later revealing he had landed a good sized Flathead, which he carried to our keep net, telling me he'd come over shortly for a couple of go's on my Luderick rod. Another shout and he again was walking to the bag with another good Flattie. As time wore on, he got another good Flathead, I was happy catching Luderick, but wondered why my rod hadn't gone off. About six months later after one too many beers (how many is that?) Frank blabbed the truth about the Flathead- he'd got 3 of the 5 on MY rod and quietly wound them in- yes 5 Flathead, he'd put 2 straight in his backpack to hide them! Never let him near my rod again the cheeky bugger. There are plenty more "mates rod effect" incidents, certainly plenty on extended fishing trips on houseboats, where we introduced the rule of "any unattended rod is fair game" - the exceptions being using the toilet or cooking for the crew- but those first three really stick out to me, be interested to hear of others "mates rod" tales.

Bain of the Luderick fishers they are known as "Cockie's or Birds"- because they look like parrot's mouths, they usually feed right along the edge of the rocks and often will "surf" a wave up on the edge to grab cabbage or weed. Similar teeth and diet to Luderick. It's a little known fact that they are very good bait for Mulloway- to catch one, you hold your float right in close to where water runs off and use either weed or a small cabbage bait and Luderick style gear and fish about 3 meters deep under the float. Is it a coincidence that most baits that Mulloway like have a really strong odour? Pike, Yellowtail, Cockies, Luderick etc

Hi Mike not much of an epic tale, we had been catching heaps of small Kings trolling around Jibbon Bombie. They'd been on the surface every day for a few weeks and we'd been catching them by trolling either white feathers or tiny coloured octopus skirts around 2 inches long. Most would have been undersize these days but in 1980 (I think it was then!) there was neither a size or bag limit and as it was two days before Christmas and everybody had rello's coming for Christmas we decided to go get some more to give to family etc. When you troll for them with smaller lures especially skirts, they quite often go "off" a colour like someone has turned the off button- they usually respond to another colour though, so the night before we left I made my own "daisy-chain" of about 5 different coloured 2 inch occies with a small white feather jig on the end (for a bit of weight!) The lures were only about 1 ft apart from each other on the "chain". To make it fun with the small fish, I put a small baitcaster on the old Bernie De Luxe with 12 lb line and the next morning we started trolling as soon as we were rounding the point of Jibbon. Birds everywhere, just as it had been for the last few weeks, but instead of the mass schools of small Kings, the fish the birds were on were really small Stripey's only around 2-3 lb, not a Kingfish in sight. We started getting them straight away and after getting a few, decided I'd try the daisy chain to see if I could get a couple at once. Hadn't gone more than about 100 mtr's after tying on the chain and the reel starts screaming and a really small Black Marlin starts tail-walking. Had it on for about 3 minutes before it jumped off. Then we see 2 more Marlin free jumping, so the old rod gets put away and the 20 lb outfits come out with bigger feather lures- that's all we had with us, hadn't expected to see anything like a Marlin only a couple of hundred meters out from Port Hacking entrance. To cut a long story short, I hooked and lost 4 more Marlin, including one that was only hooked for a couple of seconds, before following the lure almost right to the back of the boat and taking it a second time right in front of us. Again it jumped off- in hindsight we realised we were going too slow to get an effective hook-up. We then decided to put a Stripey out live and had a couple slashed before we could get them in, until finally getting one in intact. A hasty rigging of about 8 ft of 100lb line behind a swivel and a 9/0 hook on Bernie W's Jig King trolling rod and the Stripey was hooked through the top jaw and sent back over. Only took about a minute of trolling and a Marlin was dancing on the surface. That fish towed us almost out of sight of land and we had it close to the boat plenty of times, but finally lost it after nearly 4 hours, when Bernie who'd been on the rod without a harness decided to do the drag up just that bit more in a last ditch attempt to get it close enough to gaff and the line parted with the fish basically just sinking away. Inexperience by us all on the day lost the fish, plus the fact that the leader was far too short and we just couldn't reach it to drag the Marlin over that last bit. Felt sad that it was probably too exhausted to survive as it had gone a real brown colour towards the end. Top effort by Bernie though on 20 lb line, but he was asleep on the floor within about 2 minutes after losing the fish. Have never seen so many Marlin as we saw that day and so close in. Went back out the next day and the big schools of Stripeys were gone, the water not as blue and the rat Kings were abundant again.

Great, easy to understand post- thanks Pickles for taking the time to put it up for everyone, explains it all so well.

I have the predecessor 500 size, it's a Shakespeare 2499. I bought several of the same range starting with the "Blue" series then red series, then green. Fantastic reels bought in 1978-79, still work as good as new. The 2499 is my favourite reel of the collection I have. Still have a Jarvis Walker "Burnie De Luxe" solid glass Bream rod that I fought a Marlin on for about 3 minutes- it's a 5 ft 2 piece rod that joins just above the butt. Occasionally gets a run, but more of a "loaner" these days for heavy handed friends! Still using the same 600A5 Alvey I originally bought in 1975- have to be my most used reel of all and still works great, just a little faded

Great fish on fly especially land based

Great bags of fish and excellent report- great smiles on the boys too! Hope you enjoy the eating/eaten!

Good on you Koalaboi hopefully the bloke learned something

Nice bag there Sam! My fishing ambition for the year is simply to get out fishing again after a couple of years off with injury and illness. Any fish will be a bonus Regards Waza

Thanks Pete! You too mate- glad you enjoyed the stories

Merry Christmas everyone, thanks to all the Fishraider team for keeping things afloat through difficult times. Hope everyone catches plenty of fish and manages a PB or two throughout the summer and new year

Hi Idan and welcome, you can't camp anywhere in Kuringai Chase National Park other than at the "Basin" camp ground on the other of Cowan. We took a fly to keep the dew off one night when Hairtail Fishing from the shore in Jerusalem Bay and got in strife with the ranger who arrived by boat, only the fact that we had a rubbish container which had cigarette butts and used matches in it (he scoured the area even for butts) stopped us getting fined. The argument we put forward was we weren't camping, only fishing and had no sleeping bags, stove etc and also hadn't had a fire (illegal anywhere in the park) was simply put down by his official definition of "it is considered camping if any sort of shelter is erected" -which included placing a fly over any gear (we had used the fly to sit under during the night while it rained, so we were therefore guilty) so there is no defence if you take any "covering"- the ranger had no objection to us fishing there, just check the park rules. There are often people camped in tents at the end of the bay adjacent the sand flats, but the ranger said rangers on foot regularly fine them, so it isn't a good idea. As Scotty said, the fishing is really good, just remember if you wade the sandflat to access the Pinta Bay side, it's too deep from half tide onwards to get back. There are a couple of really comfortable rocks at the mouth of Pinta Bay and there are Bream all along the shoreline (you can see them). There are also prawns on the sandbank at night but beware of sharks as there are plenty up in Jerusalem Bay, mostly small Whalers and Hammerheads, but you never know. Waratah Bay accessed from Berowra station is a marginally harder walk out and the track goes above the water all the way back up Cowan towards Appletree Bay. Good fishing on the lower part of the tides, when you can fish the sandflat, but not many decent spots for shore based fishing as the tide rises. Lake Eckersley used to have a few Bass and Silver Perch when I was a teenager,(40+years ago) but haven't heard of anyone fishing there for a long time, check Heathcote National Park for regulations.