Vara

That’s pretty consistent with my experience of late up there. Anything decent hard to find.

@blaxland. Happy for you to jump on board one day but as you can see you might be better on another boat right now. my boat is jinxed

Good luck am thinking of heading out myself . If you are out early and looking for squid I have done well at towers bay and mackerel beach amongst the boats lately

Just wondering how fellow fishos are fairing out of Pittwater. My experience in the last 12 days has been pretty slow and struggling to catch anything of note despite time invested. fads - 2 trips no dollies stacks of rats. newport reef - 2 trips slow trolling live squid, slimmies and yakkas. Squid and yakkas smashed by rats. No legal fish caught. reefs - Snapper scarce flatties - reliable one 50 m thank god for them. Always get a good feed. Shelf - two trips, boated and released one striped marlin. hooked and lost one marlin. All in 200m of water north of bait station. No dollies as a by catch. pittwAter - legal Kingies not sighted around the usual spots. One king landed 90cms at cottage point slow trolling squid. ettalong - two trips on runout ride late evening no Jews. about to turn attention to Jews up the river. is it me or others finding it slow. Thankfully bait seems easy to catch. Slimmies everywhere. Yakkas good and squid surprisingly good too. hope all well. a frustrated fisho

Thanks for report crusher. headed out to fads ourselves Tuesday. Same report out there rats rats and rats. Spent some time around Newport reef. More rats. Didn’t think worth putting a report in but just an FYI for anyone thinking of heading to fads.

Thanks all and yes scratchiest clearly the legend of the area. Thinking of extending th stay by four or five days. fish or no fish can’t wait to see the area.

Definitely doing my homework on the parks. Will give it a good bash for three days and report in. Am working my way through all the reports. thanks for references.

Hi all have taken a bit of a sabbatical from work for 6 months to get into some fishing and focus on health. heading up to port Stephens on Tuesday for three days. Do t know the area at all so going to be trial and era. also just took possession of new boat so it will be on trial as well. hear so many amazing reports of the area. Any tips more than welcome. Hope all well.

Great report congrats. That’s a lot of fish .... does it freeze well. whats the bag limit on southern bluefin. Not suggesting anything just interested.

Sorry for poor description. This is what they used trolling the point Nepean beaches in port Phillip bay for years. They always caught salmon on it.

Will get a picture now. Better ask young bloke how to do that. Lol

Very cheap lure too. It is import the ball of the swivel comes through. If the ball is stuck in the tube you don’t get the air going through which therefore means you don’t get that bubble effect. The back of the snap is what catches and prevents the tube pulling all the way down if that makes sense. Try it. It’s a beauty.

Will get a picture now. Better ask young bloke how to do that. Lol

Sounds fun. I have tried many things to get these fish when fishing bust ups in the heads. But nothing worked like an old lure my old mans mate showed me twenty years ago. get a bit of clear bike tube. Cut it to around an inch long. Cut three strips about a cm long each up the strip from one end. Get a big clip swivel and force it from the back. Call it habit I always use the gold ones. Connect a single hook from the back. when you troll it it creates a very small air bubble behind the lure. for some reason the salmon live it. I have been out with mates and they tried lures, small metals everything in syd Dy heads. This was the only thing that worked consistently outperforming all other lutes 5 to 1.

Took the kids out to a spot I have been fishing for 10 years in 55m of water of Avalon beach. Has been a great spot that was given to me by a local fishing guide. Once again was great fun. 18 flathead in quick time all 45 to 60 cms and two nice snapper. was also nice to chat to a fella I met out there. Last three times there have been other boats on the mark. The bloke who gave me the mark felt for an old fella (said he never caught any fish) who since passed the mark onto his fishing club members and is now on an app. That’s life no worries. but the last two blokes holed up on a very small mark and made it impossible for anyone else to fish it and were absolute unsavoury characters. It’s best fished drifting anyway. this guy was a really nice bloke. Whoever you are was great too meet and I hope the tips I past on about fishing it in winter and how to fish it to get the best results produce fish for you. Hope everyone who fished for a feed. best to all.

Awesome reds.

Well done lads. Good read.

I can’t offer any shore based spots. What I will say is that in my experience bait, if you are bait fishing, is everything. It must be fresh. I also find that bait caught in the area works best in those areas. Ie: I will do many trips chasing squid from the Hawkesbury to use in the Hawkesbury. I will always catch my pike or any other fish I may use including mullet in the area in the day.

That would be good.

Decided it was time to head down to Bermagui for a fish. Have been wanting to do forever and never been. Have read all the great stories over the years so thought it was about time to do it. Having not been there and given was a one day hit and run mission I booked a charter to try and maximise my chances. Actually Brett was the only one of the three charters that I called who called me back and I am glad he did. So it was just me and my 12 year old until Sunday when I invited a mate and his son. Headed out at about 7am with high hopes after hearing some good schools of bluefin were around the day before (nice 30kg to 40kg fish). Hit the Bluefin zone and started trolling. About an hour or so in and the call came through that a boat had them up around their boat. You beauty. Only 8 miles away. The young boys were on edge as they were getting harnesses fitted in anticipation of what we hoped was to come. When we hit the spot there were about 6 other boats already there. No fish showing on the sounder and all seemed quiet but one bloke was on. Started cubing and then bang we are on. Kye, my mates 11 year old was on that rod so away he went. He pulled up a nice 32kg fish. then another and this time my boy was on. After a good fight, the boys did really well, up comes a nice 35kg specimen. Then it went quiet. Only 6 fish were landed in that patch, thankfully 2 by our boys. Dads content to see the smiles on their faces. So about 11.30am and seemingly all quiet with what I am told must have been a small school we had two choices. Start the troll and look for more fin or try something else. As a blue eye fan I asked the skipper how far the blue eye grounds were. He told me a 3 hour troll. the best news was the first two hours of that troll was still reliable bluefin waters. So we made a call to hedge our bets and start trolling to the blue eye grounds. Listening to the radio the entire way the bluefin were nowhere to be seen for the day. Arriving at the blue eye grounds we thought great all and it was. No sooner had the baits hit the bottom of 450m of water and we were on. A really nice fish. But on the way up the mako destroyed it. Another rod went down and this time on the way down the baits were mauled. For the next hour and half we caught 6 more blue eye with no sign of a mako thankfully. We also got a couple of nice Frosty's not to be confused with a coldie. Dropped a deep bait about 200m down and bang on. this time a 90 - 100kg mako. Great fun and great fight. It left the water at one point about a metre and a half up. Left the blue eye grounds on dark. Skipper and crew never once said time to go. They were awesome. Back at the docks crew cleaned the fish and we took some pics so that friends and family could share in what was an awesome day. Will 100% be back down to see Brett and the crew in the years to come. And what an awesome part of the world. Best to all. vara

AWESOME STUFF - WELL DONE.......BRILLIANT TO SEE.

They sure are and the colours are magnificent .

Actually I snuck out on Friday. got a couple of fish Broken Bay wide area on the 100m mark. Fish were 80 - 90cms and temp was mid 22s. Snuck out wider to 150m mark. Temp increased to 23.8 - 24. Water colour changed a lot too. Much nicer. Found the fish to 1m. Was great fun with a couple of mates all on livies. Actually the most success spot was what appeared to be a broken off fad. Old buoy with a good length rope hanging off it in 145m of water. It held some nice fish. On way back tried Newport Reef for Kings - zichamundo. Best to you.

Nice work ....I missed my chance to get out there this weekend.

Well done on releasing him.,...hehe.......thanks for the amazing footage.