PaddyT

think washes, islands , bombies and stickbaits rather than jigs, i have a couple of deep marks but these spots hold barcod and theres no way im giving a barcod spot away to anyone!!! this time of the year the kings will be in close anyway

Downrigger has big advantages over a paravane- you can change and control the depth much easier with a downrigger, as for salmon for livebait, ive tried a few times during spring when the salmon are balled up but ive only hooked makos, i know the kiwis use them but ive not had any luck, live micro bonito and frigates on the other hand get smashed

4kmh per hour is fine, i even go a bit faster under certain conditions, the downrigger holds them in the water and breathing no probs! If you are having problems with flatlined livies dying its because the angle of the line from the rod tip drags them up all the time and they die quickly, use a rubberband off your line and wrap it on a cleat so the line angle is flat (or even the reel handle which is what i do)

And thats why you dont catch many kings- target them and your results will change, if you go fishing for everything you generally catch nothing ! And i dont mean that in a negative way but remaining focussed is important

You really want a heavy duty rigger for offshore, 6lb-10lb bombs and a livie put a fair bit of strain on, trolling big lures is even harder. Cannons are a good brand as are Scotties.

yep he can take home a jewie too

Ok , if you are serious about kings, forget about lures, sure sometimes you will get a few or even strike a bite when you get lots, for example last April while trolling for mackeral up at Coffs i got a a 95cm model on a red head laser pro but if i am targeting kings i dont waste my time with lures (having said that a redhead/white body "qantas" coloured Halco or Rapala seems to attract more bites than most, but then again I generally ALWAYS have one out the back when trolling lures for bonnies/mackeral/tuna/wahoo) . So if you want to get consistant results for kings with sportsfishing tackle (what Waz said about leadlines is true but thats not exactly a sportsfishing method) then 1. get yourself a downrigger , actually get two and learn how to use it. 2. learn how to catch squid- at least reasonably consistantly, they wont want squid every day but the days they do- well forget anything else, however at this time of the year i actually do better on yakkas and slimies. 3. everything is food to a king, live pike are deadly. 4. create a competitve situation, troll 2 livies or if you are a well coordinated crew 3 at a time. This gets the kings fired up , if you hook one then leave it in the water until you get a second bite or a third, trolling multiple baits creates a "baitschool effect", I also like to have a teaser in the water (usually a couple of flashy metal lures off the downrigger bomb). Off my boat we average 2-300 kings a year and i will not claim to be any great fisho but these are the same methods used by the best 3 charter operators off Sydney and thats where i got it from. Good luck

I pack everything into seperate small boxs and label them up- so i have a box of small terminals, large terminals, small jigheads, large, game terminals, etc etc. I gutted a canterlivered Plano 747 box that I had and that acts as a water proof "shell'out on the boat- i just add and remove the small boxes as i need themSoft plastics and game lures all go in soft pack rolls or bags, at home i bought a bunch of those cheap Bunnings plastic "drawers" and everything that stays at home goes in them.

when getting the boat prepped the day before- check everything, even if ive been out a few days before you should go through a pre launch routine every time- check all your electrics, lights , bilge pumps, livebait pump, radio , sounder. bungs in , tie down strap- then you know you wont have any issues. As for not having a readily usuable anchor thats a pretty important safety issue. If you are getting tangles and knots in your rope switch it to "silver " rope- that stuff is virtually fool proof, also check your shackles every few trips and tighten them with pliers so you dont lose an anchor. Doing the same routine every time prevents stuff ups.

trevors are damn good sashimi, id rather eat a trevor than a bream

Running a small biz- not much time off, i attend 15yr old daughters swimming meets, potter around in the garage making stuff, hate gardening, if i get the chance i go hunting or for a shoot at the range. My boys are grown up, they tried to convince me to make a cricket comeback this year but there was no chance of that happening. Have a good weekend all!

Inshore , try any of them

wouldnt know, I fish inside about once every 5 years

Kings on the close in reefs, yakkas and slimies for bait. Fish the upcurrent edges

Not a good idea at all, if you want to spray under the "hood" use a light spray of silicone, wd40 will attack certain rubbers, dissolve oil /grease thats meant to be there and offer no "long lasting protection"

They were only rats- that was the report, all fish caught downrigging yakkas and slimies on an inshore reef NOT north of the harbour

First fish in 5 months, ended up with about 15 kings, biggest 75cm, 3 other legals, lots of mini rats to sort through,every livie got eaten, good start to the warm part of the year.

Jon you need to move back to Sydney , plenty of kings yesterday, nothing huge but came home with 4 keepers and shared this particular bit of reef with 6 boats?Agree with your comment about the moon though, in the past i tended to struggle in the week after the full moon but one of the local guides let a couple of snippets of info slip to me a couple of years back and it seems to work for me. yesterday we had 24 livies in the tank (that was the hard part of the morning) 23 got eaten by kings , one by a sargaent baker. It was my first fish in 5 months so was good to be out!

Dollies do but they bounce out of anything, they dont bounce out of the bigger one- environets are cumbersome and very difficult to use solo

This, getting agro about someone fishing in "your" favourite spot is kind of the opposite of why we go fishing isnt it? Fishing is meant to relieve the day to day stress of life. I understand that a guide might want to get unimpeded access to a school of fish but is that a realistic attitude? I have seen one guide in the Broken Bay region loose his marbles on more than one occasion and another who mainly fishes the same area behave nothing but politely and courteously to all around him- I know which one I would recommend to friends or who I would do repeat business with. Most of the Harbour based guys seem to accept that they are fishing a crowded waterway, I generally keep away from them all unless we fish the same area by coincidence. There are other schools of fish other than the one the guides are hitting.

Berkeley Rubber -i have two on my boat, one for small fish like flatties, one big one for kings, dollies, they are gentle on the fish and dont tend to get hooks stuck very easily, more user friendly than the "envronet style"

I can remember being part of fishing crowds at the entrance 35 years ago that had 100+ in the channel- so nothing is new, as to the internet ruining fishing - well thats a bit of a stretch. Most fishing guides are good guys ( i know a couple of the Sydney ones pretty well) but they do tend to want the action to themselves (which is fine , thats human nature) which is complteley unrealistic in a big city like Sydney. The quality of fishing for such a big city is very good and we should all appreciate it for what it is. 15 boats on a school of kings in the harbour- meeh- have seen the Peak back in the 80's with over 100 boats anchored up and drifting. However in general I dont give away spots or detailed reports to anyone except a couple of trusted mates, im happy to share every bit of :"general" information i have but i dont see the need for spoonfeeding.

Seen the same thing with yellowfin tuna, would touch a bait on 80lb leader, went down to 30lb straight to the hook to get a bite, fishes perception is different to ours, i have and will always operate on two principles 1. I would rather get the bite and worry about what happens after the hookup after I have got the hookup 2. I get more bites fishing light- so i fish light as possible and worry about what happens next when it happens- not before.

assuming thats a step above the mount, just run it through the step (drill a hole through it)and drill your hole above the waterline and run in back down the inside of the hull, not a fan of holes in the hull, its amazing how much wateer can come through a couple of tiny screw holes

Done a bit of it up the north coast and up the back of the Cowan system, damn good fun, had more success with the stickbaits than poppers, just dont stop winding when you get a follow