saltrix

Went out in the harbour and out to DY wide earlier in the week. Got 5 small bonito around North Head, but no squid or yakkas. It does seem a bit quite compared to a few weeks ago. Managed a flathead and some sweep and wrasse outside but was a bit quite and I didnt put in a report. Saltrix

Always good to help someone out, just remember to only tow at a slow motor revs and idle speed, pushing the throttle forward to get more power will cook your motor very quickly as the motor revs does not increase due to the towing load and as the spark is advanced manually on an outboard, pre ignition overheats the motor. Its the same as over propellor fitting. Regards Saltrix

The colours is an extensive tongue of reef running from the Gap to about 300 metres south of the signal station. At its narrowest point it is about 300 metres wide. It extends out about 1000 metres off the signal station where it drops to sand at a depth of 30 metres. The kings are often found about 600 metres out from the signal station where it drops from 22 to 28 metres, but can be found anywhere on the reef or at the drop off, The eastern point where it drops onto sand fishes well at night and before dawn but it can get sloppy there in the NE as the waves bounce of the cliffs. GPS WGS 84 33 50 930 151 17 650 , but it is a wide ground as described, careful with an anchor as it it rock with shelfs and grooves. If you do not have a GPS let me Know and I will email you some transits. Regards saltrix

Use a shifting spanner and tighten the shackle very firmly with the spanner. Another alternative is to tie the shackle pin with a piece of copper wire. Your loss is someones gain, as as a diver I pick up lots of anchors. If you pass by Pennant Hills email me and you are welcome to one. The best advice I can give you is to use a heavy enough anchor and sufficient chain so that it grabs without dragging as if it drags it will be a major snag it finally grabs on and that might be hard to get free. Regards Saltrix

Nice crabs. I also made up a couple of traps some time ago from leftover chicken wire, in which I caught a few muddies. Then I read closely the rules and realised that the wire size was less than the legal size of 50mm diagonal measurement. I quickly scrapped them but it could have been a very expensive exercise. Regards saltrix.

In my experiance I have found most if not all large jewfish are infested with the parasitic marine tapeworm. This is one reason why I stopped fishing for jewfish many years ago, although they can be traced and cut out. It can usually be seen where they have entered the fishes flesh through the stomach and wound around the backbone. If you follow the worm around you will come to the head of the worm which is like a small pea. These worms can also be found sometimes in large trevally and tailor in my experiance. Most fisherman do not notice them unless they look closely, and are unaware they exist. I have read some where before that they can be transmitted to humans but i cannot find any reference today. Just make sure that the fish is well cooked and cut out all the worm. Regards Saltrix

Good effort and exciting for you to see the action!

Have a good look at your mullet and learn to identify them as it is only the sea or poddy mullet that has a legal size, as advised for bait and for the table. The yellow eye mullet, the sand mullet, and the flat tailed mullet are also reasonably common in Sydney estuaries and have no legal size , although subject to a bag limit of 20 combined. The yellow eye mullet takes a bait more readily than the poddy or sea mullet. Borrow Sea fishes of Southern Australia ( Hutchins & Swainson) from your library or buy a copy of this or a similar publication as it is important to know your species for legal sizes and also as a safety aspect as some fish can give you a nasty sting or a painful spike. Similarly flathead have differrent legal sizes for different species and have no legal size for some species although I rarely keep any that are less than well over the minimum size. Regards and hope your live baiting does well.

As the previous reply straight out from the heads on the sand produces flathead in 40 to 50 m, and I have done quite well in the 45 to 55m depth off Rosa Gully to the south, drifting along to as far south as the Bondi headland. An unusual bycatch out there are winter whiting. What they are doing in 50m taking pilchards on a 5/0 hook I do not know but i\I have often caught them. Where I fish they are mostly marbled flathead and are best Sept. Oct. when they aggregate I suspect to spawn. I fish on gravel but the grounds straight out are sand as is the bottom at 45m off Rosa Gully. Trawlers give these areas the once over sometimes and the catch falls off after they have been through. Regards.

BTW? Don't know that one . I did not measure or weigh them but they were about 39 cm and about 1kg. Each fillet was a good meal for one. What river was producing the flatties? I thought I might give the crabs a go next week so would be interested in some info about the flatties.

As I couldn't arrange company I set out from Roseville alone about 5.30am. As it was low tide I didn't try for squid, but trolled around Grotto Point for zero. The conditions looked good outside. So I headed over to north Head and trolled around the point where I picked up 3 Bonito on a 5" bibbed lure. The headed out to DY wide to try the flathead but only got 1 keeper and several throwbacks. Then moved a bit south to the mowie grounds where I got a couple of nice fish. A large humpback whale passed on the landward side heading south, it was a bit late as most went much earlier. Tried to take a photo but the swell was a bit much. The wind came up about 10.30 so I called it a day a bit early.

Tailor schools are around headlands, beaches, channels, at all sorts of times, and when they have bait fish bailed up is the best time to catch them. As said this is usually dawn and dusk. To really get amongst them I fish the entrance to Sydney Harbour at the edge of the channel inside South Head from dusk to about 9pm, preferably with an incoming tide, and keeping out of the shipping channels, and from Feb to April they can usually be caught to their bag limit. The trick is to use berley to bring them around and fish with unweighted pilchards. Half pilchards will do once they are on. Not much sport as I just use a few metres of heavy handline with ganged hooks but they fill the freezer and we enjoy eating them. Sometimes a small sinker is needed, and once in a while they dont appear but they are pretty consistant. There are probably similar locations in Botany bay. They are best bled and then kept in an ice slurry. Leaving them for a few hours in a tub means they are not the best for eating. To freeze, fillet and wash in salty water and seal in plastic, and freeze quickly.

That's why there is only one in the photo, the smaller of the 2 was cut up for bait, the reds are fond of them too, but cooked chinese style with ginger, garlic and shallot they are really nice.

I have taken a nice thick fillet off each side, while wearing my leather gloves to avoid any painful stings. It is one of the best eating fish around, once they get as big as this one. The small ones are best thrown back using a pair of pliers.

Left Roseville about 6am with fellow fishraider Pete, tried for tailor and squid around Grotto point but no takers. Then went to North Head and around the corner for a couple of bonito on bibbed lures. Saw a big school of salmon around the corner of Dobroid Point so chased them throwing all sorts of lures and Pete got a large one on a chrome slice, which was destined for fish cakes. Then tried the flathead grounds at DY wide and Long Reef, but there wasnt much drift until the NE picked up and then there was too much, but we managed a couple of nice sized flathead, a large red rock cod and a sweep. Nice smooth seas and a bit of sun made it a pleasant day out even though the fish could have been a bit hungrier.

Your "Dusky Flathead" I think is a Marbled Flathead. The dusky usually has only a couple of bars but this can vary vastly, whereas the marbled has 7 bands consistanly. The marbled flathead also has a thin white border on the caudal, anal and ventral fins. It is also a bit stockier and generally caught on the offshore reefs and gravel. The dusky is more common in the estuaries although there is some overlap. The caudal or tail fin is the decider as the dusky's is dark on the botom half and spotted on the top half, while on the marbled it is more uniform with the white rim. There is a different legal size for dusky (36cm) and as far as I can see there is no legal size for the marbled, the rules only mention dusky (36cm) , sand, and tiger (33cm), although the bag limit (20) includes all flathead. Reference Sea Fishes of Southern Australia Hutchins/Swainston page 46. Any comments on these ideas?

Never had any complaints except they are hard to fillet and bone, but the flesh has always been excellent. Perhaps if not killed and bled and place in ice they pick up odd flavours. They are easy to skin, so try removing the skin next time. As they are a firm white flesh I do not think they are a good fish to smoke. Regards Saltrix

They are maori wrasse, if large enough they are good eating with firm white flaky flesh. I prefer to return them but after bringing them up from 50 m they are usually sick especially as they have taken 4/0 hooks right down. Oops Replied to the wrong comment, but jewiehaven has already identified the maori wrasse.

Launched at about 6am, and tried trolling in the Harbour and at Nth Head. It was a nice calm morning with a bit of a westerly early. The water was pretty clear and not much white water and I did not get a hit. Tried bottom bashing off DY and managed a feed but only just. This week there was not enough current or breeze to drift. I only went about 100 metres in 1/2 hour. Gave it away at 10.30 and went home. There were a few flocks of birds around getting exited about something but I did not see any fish chopping and trolled around the outside of them without success.

That was a good effort on plastics. You have inspired me to give them more tries. Regards Saltrix

Spent some time in Brisbane this week and my son took me out on Moreton Bay to catch a few whiting. They are winter whiting and dont grow to the size of the other varieties, but they are great eating and the run we found were 23 to 25cms which is a good size for these fish. The bag limit is 50 per person and we caught 90 between the 4 of us, with a couple of good sized flounder as well. They were all filleted and after a couple of meals the rest frozen for future use as they are mainly a winter fish. The frames were kept for crab bait so nothing is wasted. It was a perfect day and a smooth trip back across the bay, which can be very rough sometimes.

Got them on bait. Not very sporting bottom bashin out there in the deep but I usually get a feed if the weathers OK and there is not too much current.. I have had a few unsuccessful tries in close with lures, and have put some SP on the bottom rig sometimes but only seem to get the seargent Baker on them. Regards

Launched at Roseville about 6.15am, and trolled around North Head on the way out but there were a few big swells occasionly so I didnt go too close to the headland and got no strikes. It was a bit rugged with a confused sea until I got off Manly when it got a bit better but was still hard to move around. Saw a couple of whales, and the Albatross are still around feeding on the dying cuttles, they are great to watch flying around, they seem to go for ages just gliding. I came up on one with a cuttle on the way home and I thought I might pinch a candle from him, but there wasnt much left so I left it to the bird. The current was pretty strong too and I needed a sea anchor to slow me down when the wind came up. Got 3 flathead and a red as keepers and 3 huge Seargent Bakers, some red rock cod when I got to close to the reef, all of which went back. Also got a nice Pike which went well as bait. By about 10 am the wind was coming up as forecast so I went home early. Nothing of any size, the red was 34 cm, and the biggest flattie only 42cm.

The protected wrasse species are the Elegant Wrasse male and female. The NSW fisheries guide shows them on page 54. The guide can be downloaded from the NSW Fisheries site and is a really good guide to fish identification and give a lot of basic fishing tips as well.

I reckon the top one is a Crimson Banded Wrasse also called a White Spotted Wrasse (female) The bottom one is a Gunthers Wrasse (male). Courtesy ot Sea Fishes of Southern Ausrtalia Hutchins & Swainson