wazatherfisherman

If the water is decent quality, some years they stay in the estuaries. We have seen really big ones right up the end of Smiths Creek a few times, along with stray Frigates during August, but not something you'd really target with any confidence at that time of year

Hi James you never know where Hairtail are going to turn up. Back in the 60's and 70's they turned up in both Botany Bay and the Harbour pretty much every year and there were plenty of genuinely huge ones amongst them, In 1978 they were all over Sydney Harbour and we caught them at all the following places: Clifton Gardens- both the deep hole and the wharf, Sow and Pigs, both the "Green Wedding Cake" and Red one, hole at east side of Shark Island, Yellow blinker off Neilsen Park, Fort Denison, Walsh Bay, Zoo wharf, Kurraba wharf, Athol Bay and even up at Drummoyne and Iron Cove wharves. North Harbour sees them sporadically- they were there last year. Other years they've turned up at Port Kembla and Coffs Harbour- where they were in absolute plagues one year. Newcastle Harbour gets them annually also, as does Box Head and Flint and Steel sees the big migrating schools travel past and it's become a reliable spot when they are on the move. Closer to your uncle's place was another good spot called the "Pittwater Targets"- a series of Naval fixtures where the torpedo's were "aligned" during world war two. Many good fish including Hairtail and John Dory were caught in the vicinity of these structures as they became "natural" fish attracting structure. The targets are long gone, but the fish had to be in the area to be attracted to the structure in the first place. So there's no reason you couldn't get one, especially if the water is clean and 4-5 metres deep. Add a food source for them to be hunting and you could be in business. In those sort of areas, a small live bait under a bobby cork is what I'd try if fishing for them

Thanks GoingFishing, as a young bloke these were the first "independently organised" trips where we caught a great bag of fish and had a heap of fun on light line I was using 5 lb Shakespeare "Noryl" mono and a Blackfish rod on the trip we got 63. Used to get them in both Botany and the Harbour during the daylight hours as well.

Hi Frank like everything you make, they look great. Maybe make a couple of hand-line spools, I'm sure they'd turn out great and there's always a demand for them too

Got a "next" part to this one to come!

Hi Pete they are one of the coolest looking living creatures you're likely to see

Hi Jim I went up 3 weeks ago to that very spot, but no takers on live Yakka's or pillies. Did you ever fish the land based spot down the steep track in Akuna Bay itself? Caught a few there and spent a few nights under the high ledge out of the rain. National Parks have blocked the parking there now by placing a "boulder barrier" in the entrance to the only available spots

Frank I really hope you are with us for many more years yet mate and you get into the Hairies again when this current situation is finally over. Those Botany Hairies were some of the biggest there ever were Regards Waza

Hi Neil they are addictive and sometimes do the weirdest things, it's exciting watching the lightstick too

Back in the mid seventies, one of the fishing ambitions was to catch a Hairtail, we'd had them on while fishing Sydney Harbour quite a few times without managing to land one, so up to Coal and Candle Creek- one of the big tributaries of the larger Cowan Creek system- we went and hired a boat from the now long gone Illawong Bay marina. 14 ft aluminium boats, with 2 oars and an anchor, if you were lucky and got a "good" boat, the anchor would have 2 feet of chain (some had none though) and the boat would have some sort of plastic bottle fashioned to be a "bailer". Nothing fancy, but they got us on the water and were pretty cheap to hire. About a mile and a half further up the creek was the place to go, past what's now Akuna Bay marina and into the last bay before the big sand-flat at the bay's end. It took about a half hour or so to row up with the often uneven length oars, with 2 of the four of us on board pulling an oar each and we'd wobble our way up river, heading "straight" for the spot known as the "Y" tree, which was marked in just about every book and fishing map as "THE" spot. Some publications went as far as to call it "The Home of the Hairtail" Once up in this last bay, we'd try and anchor a couple of boat lengths out from the tree, but you had to be satisfied with whatever spot you could get, as it seemed nearly everybody must have had one of those maps, often there'd be a stack of boats there by the time we rowed up, after hiring the boat about 6.30 am. The first couple of trips yielded a few Flathead and Tailor, but not a Hairtail was caught by anyone, you would have known, because with the steep mountain range of Kuringai Chase encircling the bay and no noise to be heard other than fishers in the many boats, there was no chance of anyone "sneaking" one over the side of the boat without someone spotting it being caught and voices carry quite a distance over the water in locations such as this. After 2 trips with none of the target species even sighted, the fishing report in the Friday paper noted that a "few" Hairtail had been caught in Cowan Creek (Cowan is a massive expanse of water!) so hopes were once again high and we left on a bleak, cold and drizzling-rainy Saturday morning. On arrival at the marina, there were no other cars and due to the rain, no other boats to be seen. As we started to row up the creek, the rain came down a bit harder, but we had raincoats, beanies and had made waterproof "pants" out of large industrial plastic bags, so although a little wet and pretty cold, we headed for the tree. I can still remember how disappointed we were, when on rounding the last corner and in sight of the tree, there were 3 really big sailing boats anchored close to each other and right in the spot. They'd obviously been there all night, so we decided to try along a steep edge about a hundred yards away. Without a sounder, to get an idea of what the terrain is like underwater, you just have to look for the steepest looking bits of the mountains going right down to water's edge and imagine them continuing on as they are, down and under the water. This strategy proved to be good logic and we were soon anchored up in nearly 40 feet of water about 15 or so yards out from the edge. For bait we had a block of pilchards, a big ball of mince for "Yakka" bait but no burley, we'd left the 2 loaves of bread in the car, along with the sandwiches we'd made the night before. Rigs were pretty basic, just a 12 inch shop bought wire trace with a 5/0 "suicide" hook for the Hairtail, and a tiny size 14 long-shank on a fine hand-line for the Yakka's. No lead on the Hairtail line and just a small split shot pinched on about a foot above the hook on the Yakka line. Yakka's were there in numbers and it was easy to catch a couple and throw them over on the Hairtail lines, but after quite a few tangles that resulted from the Yakka's swimming 'laps' around each other, half a pilchard was substituted instead. No action from anything other than the bait fish though and by lunch time, being a bit wet, cold through and through and now hungry, we talked about going home early. Then the breeze got up and other than making us even colder, pushed us pretty much into the bank. Then, as if by magic, all four Hairtail rods bent over slightly- virtually at the same time. Action stations, everyone feeling the slow pull and the weight of something decent on the line. They felt like squid, which we had caught plenty of times before. Same distinct movement pulling gently but firmly away. After reading everything possible on Hairtail though, we knew that they could well be what we were after. "Give them a few feet of line" was the general consensus from our information and then strike hard, so within a few seconds of each other we all struck and 3 rods bent over with hooked fish. The fourth rod had the line bitten off before there was even any weight on it. A few minutes later and 3 Hairtail were pulled over the side. Joy! Only the bitten off line was quickly re-rigged and thrown back over, we other three spent time checking out our captures and making sure they were dead before attempting to handle one. For those who've never seen a Hairtail that's come straight out of the water, they are an almost "surreal" creature, with "teflon-smooth" skin that appears to have been chromed and polished to an almost mirror-finish, a flat body that tapers down to a quarter inch tail-strand, near full length dorsal fin and of course their infamous teeth, flat sided, pointy-ended and super sharp. While we three mucked around with our fish, the one line in the water was quickly grabbed and a fourth fish landed. Mission successful! We all got one and then they were gone. About 15 or 20 minutes or so passed and they were back and we caught a few more. Another "burst" about half an hour later and a few more came in and we ended up getting 14 or 15, before it really started pouring rain and we decided to go home. These trips were of course, all in daylight hours, as the boats only had a "sunrise to sunset" availability and the Hairtail often bite very timidly in daylight hours- not always, but on this occasion and the next, the bite was really gentle and subtle. We enjoyed the trip so much, we made another booking for the next week, making it our fourth weekend in a row. The next week, the word was out, the Hairtail were "on" and by the time we rowed up into the last bay, there were probably 40 or 50 boats already fishing. We anchored in the same spot as the previous week and started catching them pretty well straight away. It was simple fishing, you just lowered your bait over so you could just see it and several fish would approach and you could be selective of the one that took the bait, by just moving it away from the smaller ones. Ended up with 63 (there were no bag limits back in the 70's) and all those other cold, wet and disappointing days on previous trips now all but forgotten. Over the years, techniques have changed a fair bit, but the strange "chrome fish" are pretty much as they've always been, however, these days night time produces far more fish than day time. Not saying you won't get them in the day but from dusk on, is when they're really hunting. For anyone who's never fished for them, they should go on the "bucket list" as they are unique and interesting to catch, they can swim backwards or race across the surface. They also almost always come back to your bait if you lose one and have any bait still on the hook- even after fighting one and it getting off, they'll usually re-take whatever is left. They are also really easy to fillet, leaving virtually no meat on the skeleton and no bones. They also cook well via a variety of different methods, and are one of my favourites to eat. After a really poor season for them last year, lets hope they return in big numbers this year. Hope you get a few if you try!

I watched Gary Chapman and Ron Nelson catch a huge bag of Kings at the Peak in a Sydney Metro comp- he won it and they won champion team. Great tackle shop Arthur Chapmans also- used to buy 5 blocks of Pilly's for $12- $2.40 a block and they were bigger than today's blocks!

Hi Yowie when I worked in a tackle shop years ago, other than a few Edgar Sealey hooks and a couple of sizes of Pescaro's and Holdfast, we had a giant range of Mustad's in boxes of 100 like yours. We also had hooks for sale in multiples of 10 which we used to count out and put into small purpose made yellow envelopes. They were the most common sellers and a job to constantly replenish the rack of envelopes. Often, when tipping out a box for counting out in groups of 10 we'd find an unusual 'foreign' hook in amongst the contents, always really small and we had a collection of them stuck on black felt in a box. I still have a couple, but unable to get to my storage unit to take a photo of the tiny ones. Smallest would have been the size of a match head and gold plated, no idea what size number it could have been but smaller by far than a size 22! Always wondered if they just fell into the boxes at the factory

Hi Dieter the Kingfish used to be in those huge schools around all the major port entrances like Botany, Port Hacking Broken Bay and the Harbour every year. The bigger fish arrived first around mid October to early November and were available from the rocks, followed by the 4-6 kg size and then the 1-4 kg rats early December. Each size range used to be cruising up on the surface for about 2 or 3 weeks before dispersing to wherever they moved to next. Often there would be what seemed like a school in every direction, but that first day at Jibbon the whole ocean was a mass of yellow tails as far as the eye could see. That many 'Fin would be awesome to see. Hopefully one day they might be back again

Hi Adrian (I hope I got that right) there was also another tackle seller in Yagoona then- on the north side of the road and at the extreme end of the shops going east. It was primarily a dive shop but from memory had a little bit of fishing tackle. I attended Fort Street High at Petersham on P'matta Rd, but had many mates that lived in Bass Hill

Thanks! It also takes me back to those days and exciting times, even though some of the things we did were foolhardy to the point of being stupid!

From about 1981-86 roughly

The tackle store was on the southern side of the road a couple of shops the other side of the railway overpass- there were only about 3 or 4 shops there, then a driveway before the baby health centre. The driveway lead to an "unofficial" car park which was very convenient for the shop. Although genuinely small, that shop had everything you needed and no junk. George, the owner is the best all'round fisho I've ever known, such a pity he still isn't there., it was always fun going to the shop, whether to buy tackle, have a beer or just catch up with club members. Fun times

Hi bessell1955 thanks! Had to look up "modality words" though LOL

Some days there'd be up to a dozen blokes from the club there having a beer or two, the shop was tiny and we ended up sitting out the back- which was also pretty tiny, but always a fun time. Played cricket at the Hume for a few years

Hi Yowie we did the same, just pulled the bait away if a smaller one was first there and we worked them by keeping one swimming until the other was pulled in and next hooked- works a treat

Thanks Neil it was an awesome sight to see that many good sized fish

Many years ago, my mate Ross and I were having a beer at our "local" tackle shop, "The Fisherman's Friend" at Yagoona, as the swell had been really big for a few days and we couldn't go rock fishing. The shop was on Liverpool Road and outside of clearway times, there was plenty of parking straight outside. A guy pulled up with a 13 ft aluminium boat and came into the shop to buy some feather lures for Kingfish and we started discussing the favourite lures we all used. We pointed out a few of the "new" Christmas Tree trolling lures and a few others on the wall, but the guy then said "I just want plain white feathers- I've been getting a boatload of fish on them every morning- come and have a look in the boat" It was a small "sit-down" boat only marginally bigger than Ross's 12 ft car-topper and there were Kingfish literally all over the floor. He said there were genuinely acres of them and they were in the entrance to Port Hacking and all along the front of Jibbon Bombora, been there for two weeks he said. Some mornings, they were in almost to Bundeena. They were easy to get, you just had to troll the outskirts of the schools, which were clearly visible, pretty much right on the surface. He'd been using plain white feather lures with either 2 or 4 oz heads, but added that if the fish followed the feathers without striking, there was a simple trick that was working really well. You needed to take an octopus around 15-18 inches long with you and cut the legs off it. Then you just needed to add a single leg of the Octopus to the lure's hook (which was a 7/0 or 8/0 Stainless "O'shauhgnessy" pattern- a Mustad 34007). The hook was just pushed through the leg once, leaving both hook exposed and leg free to "wiggle"- this turned out to be vital information. After seeing all his fish and getting the info, we asked the guy if he thought the 12 footer would be big enough to go out in, he said yes you're only fishing the entrance really. Our mate who owned the shop agreed we should be OK, so we went up to the fish shop and bought 2 octopus and organised to go the next morning. We were going to meet this guy (who's name I can't remember) at Bundeena Wharf and go out together. As we were meeting at Bundeena, we decided to just drop the boat in off the wharf. Early next morning, we drove through the National Park and down to Bundeena arriving well before light and we carried the boat, motor, fuel tank and very minimal gear down onto the wharf. Fishing gear was just 2 Butterworth "Jig King Deluxe" rods- 6 ft 20 lb jig/troll rods, mine with a Penn "Jigmaster" overhead and Ross had a Shakespeare overhead, both with 20 lb mono. A small tackle box with feather lures and a few Christmas Trees, 7/0 and 8/0 trolling hooks, a few swivels and some 50 lb Weiss Perlon for leader. Plus the octopus. We had forgotten the anchor and rope, only remembering while unloading at Bundeena, however as trolling was the plan, we thought we'd be able to do without it. Gear loaded, rods rigged by the light on the wharf and we waited for the other guy to turn up. After waiting until well into the morning light, we decided to have a bit of a troll around where we were, keeping an eye out for the guy, who was by now getting close to an hour late. He didn't turn up, so we decided to head out towards the ocean without him. As we got to the entrance to the port, we could see literally hundreds of Mutton birds just sitting on the water only a couple of hundred yards out, no sign of any fish though. There was still a big southerly groundswell rolling in, but the swells, although large, were smooth and a fair distance apart, so we thought we'd brave it and off we went. The things you do when you're young. At first, we stayed within a couple of hundred yards of the entrance, trolling up and over the big swell- no problem, quite comfortable actually. After trolling around for more than half an hour and not sighting the "acres" of fish, we went just a little further out and finally got a double hook up on kings and as they came boat-side, were followed by a few more. Got them in the boat, but after taking the hooks out and trolling around again, no more action, so we thought we'd try the octopus leg trick. Octopus leg added to each lure and off we go again, but still no visible schools on the surface. After about another half hour we were thinking about going in- at least we had one each, trouble was, it was the week before Christmas and although we normally caught plenty of fish each week, due to the swell being up, neither of us had any in the freezers and we both had big family gatherings and fish were "expected" by the relatives, to take home. Then we spotted something large up on the surface about 50 yards away and went over to investigate. Turned out to be a really massive Turtle just up on the surface, however, in the shadow cast from the Turtle, were masses and masses of Kingfish, all jostling for position in the shadow. We dropped the lures over complete with octopus legs and watched as the fish came straight over to investigate. We were amazed that although there were heaps of them and they seemed interested, at first, no takers. We then dropped the baited lures just out of sight and they started "nibbling" -super soft bites on the powerful troll rods. We tried all sorts of different approaches, including raising the lures into sight to see if it was the kings biting or something else, then all of a sudden they just switched on and swallowed everything including the lure and leg bait. It was easy fishing for a while, then all of a sudden they were gone. We started trolling again and spotted the Turtle about 50 yards away again, so went to see if the Kings were in the shadow. They were, and this time we only had to drop the baited lures over about 6-8 ft under the surface and they literally climbed over each other to be first on the bait. There were no bag limits (or size limits on kings then) and we caught heaps before the fuel tank got seriously empty and we had to take off. As we were heading down the face of a decent swell right in the entrance, all of a sudden the entire ocean was suddenly alive with the kings, there genuinely were acres of them. Whether it was the stage of the tide that brought them up to the surface or not I'll never know, but they were in the tens of thousands I reckon. If we hadn't seen the Turtle and found that first school, we would have gone back in and not seen what still remains to be the biggest aggregation of Kings I've ever seen.

Hi JoshGTV I did the same with calamari soaking in milk and garlic, left it uncovered in the fridge and the next day everything smelled like the garlic

Good story Jim- when did they get rid of Lugano St wharf? What a pity, it was a great spot

Thanks Rebel, will do