wazatherfisherman

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.

Still have some 14's (4540+half Mustad) the "supreme" Yakka and Garfish hooks for the estuary. Occasionally see size 12's in same pattern for sale, but never 14's any more. Got about a dozen or so 16's left and you can catch literally anything you would use for live bait with them. Such a shame you can't find most of the old Mustad's anywhere, they had a pattern for everything and even the "bronze" finish (cheapest version) lasted as long against corrosion as all these "high carbon" hooks of today. I have old cadmium plating, nickel and tinned hooks- particularly hooks for ganging- (tinned finish) that are getting close to 50 years old, still sharp out of the box and no rust. Also, circle hooks have been around for as long as I can remember, used to sell stacks of Mustad "wide gape" pattern to deep-sea fishers for use on paternoster -type rigs, again bronze finish. They were also known as "deep sea Flathead" hooks =half

Great video, don't take any notice of the guy, they always complain in that spot and they know they have no right to.

Hi Berrero it was the environmental ranger who called us over while we were prawning one night in the bay on the western side of Dobroyd Aquatic club. He asked if we had many prawns and wasn't surprised when we said we hadn't even seen one- there were plenty on the eastern side of the club but it got a bit too windy so we moved to the west side of the point. He explained that there had been a tyre "factory" pretty much where Neild Park now sits and the heavy metal concentration in the sediment was so toxic that even the prawns wouldn't bury there, yet there is a large concentration of cockles adjacent the site. That same night 3 Mercedes turned up about 11 pm and a heap of young people waded out in the pitch dark in groups of 3-4 just armed with a "broom handle" and a sack between each group. They all had black clothing on and they went out about thigh deep and appeared to be "shuffling" in the mud. Soon after 2 mini-buses also turned up and the occupants joined the others in the shuffling. Of course this got our curiosity up and we went over to investigate. Nobody would answer us until my mate pulled out his security company card and showed it to the "leader" who tried to tell us they were collecting them for "research" (this was about 15 years ago and I don't think it was illegal to harvest shellfish then, but "defacing the foreshore" laws applied in the old Drummoyne Municipality) but the collectors, all dressed like ninja's were obviously panicked and they headed for the shore. A call from one of the car drivers who were not involved with the collecting and they all piled back in the vehicles and took off. No doubt, the cockles were headed for a restaurant and the "ninja" collectors probably students without fishing licenses, hence taking off. Over the next couple of months we spotted the same group of vehicles//ninja's a couple more times and rang the police each time. I've often wondered where the cockles ended up and if anyone became crook from eating them, but haven't seen the collecting groups for a long time.

ATTENTION DAVEBM!! Don't eat that cockle if it came out of the bay at Iron Cove!! I have fished the area (catch and release ONLY) for nearly 50 years and can detail the pollution if necessary. It could make you seriously ill or worse! Don't eat it mate especially before hospital. If you doubt my advice, contact the environmental ranger at Canada Bay council

Hi again Phil- from memory, the council removed what was left of the "Block" ladder after a young fisherman fell to his death when the ladder broke. They also removed the pegs and cemented in the holes. This has happened at other rock spots where deaths have occurred also, Jolong platform past the pistol range at Malabar even had the chains etc removed, due to multiple fatalities. You're right about the low platforms being safer and picking the days/times to fish them, we used to fish "Greenie" at the Mattens on the run-out tide on flat nights for Bream and it was really low- it was where the most red crabs were and hence the most Bream. Nobody ever got washed off Greenie to my knowledge. Good "procedural" practices like never turning your back on the sea and learning to call/listen for the call of "WATER" are the most important things for rock fishing- far more important than actual fishing. As for "advanced" technology in rods, I don't think any of the new materials would stand up to the harsh environment like fibreglass does. Butterworth, Snyder, Sportex, Fenwick and Conlon blanks made well over 40 years ago are still going strong- put a scratch or score in most graphite blanks and their structural integrity is compromised resulting in breakage- not always, but often. Ugly Stick rods are the one exception and are pretty much indestructible also. I try to encourage new fishers to stick to Alvey's for general rock work- bar spinning and chasing Marlin and Tuna- the "give-no-give" advantages when washing fish up need no explanation. Bruce Alvey told me that due to the advancements in spinning reel technology, most of the younger fishers seem to have gone the spinning reel path, yet many of the older fishers have stayed with their beloved sidecast's, even after trying spinning reels. For beach fishing, regardless of really good care taken of reels, sand/salt gets into pretty much everything at some point and being able to simply dip your reel in the saltwater to remove sand is a great thing while out fishing- can't do that with an eggbeater. I can fully understand why the changes happened, with far better built reels, capable of dealing with large fish, great drag systems and of course the popularity of braid/gel spun etc, which in my opinion are really suitable for these types of reel and can present problems when used with a sidecast type configuration On a side note also- most of my rock rods bar Luderick (which were 12 ft one piece) were around 9 and a half to 10 and a half feet long, offering better leverage but less casting distance, which isn't an issue when you're only using the small "ball-on-the-hook" rigs that are the staple rig of Sydney rock fishing, for most species.

Hi Phil there wasn't a cable across the narrow bit when I was going there! There also weren't many guys there on weekday mornings, usually just a couple at Green Ledge. Being a Mattens fisher, it just didn't compare as a fishing spot, but plenty of good fish came out of there for the regulars. I only fished the Chapel from a boat- it's a well known spot for catching live bait and I went there a few times to catch Yakka's before going out to the Peak, but never bothered going there from the rocks. If it was too rough to fish the Mattens, it wasn't safe to fish any of the low platforms along the Bondi to South Head stretch. There was still a permanent ladder at the "Block" at Diamond Bay also in those days.

Hi Phil fished Rosa a few times with some of the "non-climbing" guys, always at the main platform where the outflow was. The water was always "opaque" rather then the usual colour of the Murks and I actually caught a couple of small reds there, which was fairly uncommon (from my knowledge) to be caught from the brown water. The rope going up was to access another spot, as far as I know there was no other way up than down the gully and up the ladder- I wasn't a fan of getting on/off the ladder, due to it being cut off square to the top, so I took a short piece of rope to "lasso" one of the pegs at the back. Never fished the "Green Ledge" for Blackies either, but they caught plenty there while I was watching. Used to put rock plates on to walk the narrow ledge up high past the Green Ledge on the way to main platform as the few times I went, it was wet and slippery there. Yes Rosa Gully (known as Vaucluse outfall) is still operating, as are both Diamond Bay outfalls (Oceanview Ave and Kimberley St). They are the last three operating in NSW.