[Is it possible to catch fish out of prospect creek in fair field and are they toxic]

Prospect creek is a decent spot for bream and bass, you can use top water cicadas or lightly weighted soft plastics, just fish the tide changes as the current can rage through there. 

[Urban Bassing Escapades]

With the fishing offshore being quiet, I’ve decided to finally give bass fishing a go. After scouting around on google maps I found a couple of likely spots where I could have a flick for my first bass. I pull up to a local creek in Chipping Norton and flicked a cicada lure along a weed line, with a couple of steady winds a bass boofs the lure at my feet and out comes my first ever bass. It was a healthy fish considering in came from the dingy feeder creeks to Chipping Norton lake. 

 

Fast forwards a couple days and I have become addicted to topwater bass, purchased 3 new cicada lures and every creek or pond I drive by I think about what could be under the surface. This time I fished further up stream from Chipping Norton in some more dodgy looking water, with a few bottles and shopping trolleys in the water but nevertheless still held bass willing to hit my cicada. Unfortunately I didn’t get to measure this fish but I’m sure I won’t be catching another bass the same size for a while. 

[Port hacking squid]

Some nice squid there. 

I’ve noticed that the Hacking generally holds bigger squid in the shallows than Botany Bay or Jervis Bay. 

[Back to Back Port Hacking Reports]

On 3/18/2023 at 9:58 AM, jenno64 said:

Great report! That bust up must have been insane to watch🤡 Nice mix of species there and good to see an amberjack in amongst them, my son got one up in South West Arm last week and they go hard!

Yeah there’s been a few around recently, last month I got a samson fish off merries reef on a jig.

15 hours ago, Pickles said:

A very nice mixed bag - especially those big Kingie baits, a pity to eat the squid (but they do taste delicious). Great report.

I’d feel bad using big squid for bait just for it to be picked apart by rats, so I vacuumed sealed and froze the smaller ones ready for kingies. 

[Back to Back Port Hacking Reports]

2 hours ago, zmk1962 said:

Going back to basics is a treat at times for sure… I find it nice to occasionally return to “how it all started” … especially when you catch a feed as well. 
During most of last year I was boatless and … Maria and I returned to beach fishing after a 20+yr break catching our dinner and lunch and it felt so grounded and satisfying. 
Great report. 
cheers Zoran 

100% is mate in the last 2 years all the fishing I’ve done has been offshore for kingfish and deep dropping, and I don’t remember the last time I went for a fish up the river. Certainly feels rewarding after spending many days bobbing around waiting for marlin.

44 minutes ago, HOOLIGAN2 said:

nice catch well done !!!!

Thanks mate!

[Back to Back Port Hacking Reports]

7 hours ago, GoldenHourFishing said:

What is the fish under the 2 bonnies? It looks kind of like a small amberjack

 

4 hours ago, frankS said:

Think the fish is a " Black banded Kingfish "  pretty common catch down to about Port stevens not so much seen around Sydney.

Might be worth submitting it to the best species list, don't think many would have been entered.

Could be wrong.

Frank

 

1 hour ago, Blackfish said:

I can see what you mean @frankS but I believe the Black Banded have more of a shorter blunter snout and I can just see the Gold band running length ways which is not as prominent on the Black Banded.

But always happy to be corrected.

I believe you are correct @Blackfish it was a juvinile amberjack, when it first came to the boat it had its signature stripe across the eye and the golden stripe as you say. Its the second one I've caught from the Hacking, have also caught samsons on the edges of shallow reefs here too. 

[Back to Back Port Hacking Reports]

Over the last 2 fishing sessions me and the old man have been chasing bonito from Port Hacking.

The first trip was not successful on the bonito front however we found some success on the squid just in front of Cronulla, after trolling the headlands a few passes we headed into the river to chase bust ups. It was quiet at first and on the bay back to the ramp I spotted birds working right at the back of a small bay, we raced in and saw the most insane surface action i’ve ever witnessed, There were hundreds of large tailor, salmon, trevally, and kingfish working up white bait in 70cm of water smashing them right up at people’s backyards. Flicking some small metals resulted in some tasty fish captures. 

Second trip started off the same with some squid being caught of Cronulla, so we chucked the lures in and trolled around Jibbon and picked up some smaller bonito. The seas were not too pleasant so trolling did get a bit lumpy, we spotlocked on a shallow reef and feed down strips of bonito on light sinkers. It results in multiple double hookups on rat kingfish as well as large bonito and the amberjack which gave a good account of itself. 

A pretty successful few trips going back to basics after multiple donut days chasing marlin. 

[Need help on Squid jigs]

Red head and full white in rattle are cracker colours for Jervis Bay in the clear water 

[1kw Transducer... which one?]

On 8/12/2022 at 9:02 AM, JonD said:

Don't get me wrong but I would be extremely disappointed if that's the results you are getting from a 275. Those vertical lines that appear both above and bellow the bottom seem very odd from a wide cone angle. the bait fish look weak in their signal and even the larger predators look to have those same vertical breaks through the arches. The arches are long because of the amount of time they are under the transducer which equates to the boat speed you are doing of 1.2kts. 

This is very simular to how the screens have looked when used in water where the transducer can't reach bottom. Those vertical lines appear and even though the depth may be set to a maximum of 80m the head unit still seems to over power and create even worse vertical lines because of the added power its using. The lines become so bad that you simply wouldn't see tuna if they were sat directly under the boat, we know that as I had one under the boat for 1.30mins two weeks ago and never saw it at all. I had the same problem with the lowrances Ive had in deep water too.

There may be something deep in the menu to compensate for deep water and removing those lines bit they seem to be an issue one very simrad Ive seen. Simrad tec will have have you re-routing cables away from others etc but Ive tried that for no benefit. 

 

4 hours ago, essjay said:

This might help tune your setup. I think I have an issue with mine alone the same lines. I have not tried this yet as I only just found it while looking for tuning help. TVG and Gain are what I will be adjusting when I need hit the water.

 

 

Interesting to read, here I was thinking I was getting some pretty good readings. Cheers for the advice I will tinker some more with the settings and see if I can get any better readings. 

[Tuna on a three piece travel rod]

Awesome fish mate, you're living the dream. 

[1kw Transducer... which one?]

I’ve got the airmar tm275lhw and it suits my needs perfectly doing similar things to what you’re wanting to do, I chose the tm275 because it has a wider cone making it easier to mark bait when trolling and travelling between spots etc. I’ve marked kings in 120m travelling 20kts not sure if I’d be able to do that with another transducer. I’m also running a Simrad nss evo16s. 

[First Time Going Wide]

2 hours ago, Jp2 said:

Gee wiz, u must have some big kahunas heading out in that slop on Monday!! Better stomach than me!! Congrats 

Haha I'm not that keen to head out on the conditions that we had on monday, this was a belated report from last Wednesday, where the winds were a predicted 8knts and swell was 1.0m, however the weatherman was wrong and it started blowing a 15knt north west on the way in. 

[First Time Going Wide]

4 hours ago, big Neil said:

I'm sure you will benefit from the experiences learned from your trip as you venture out in pursuit of Tuna and other such critters of the deep. Good luck, safe travels. Which fish is the better eating? bn

Cheers, mate the blue eye was definately better eating than the gemfish, lightly fried the cutlets of the blue eye were delicious. 

4 hours ago, leonardgid said:

choice  feed , wish i  could fish there  one day

 

It has been on my mind for a while and finally saw a good day to venture out, it is well worth the trip not sure about the fuel bill however. 

 

3 hours ago, Squidless said:

Nice fish. What boat do you have?

Cheers mate, I have an Extreme 605 Gameking 

2 hours ago, Isaac Ct said:

Great fish mate, some tasty critters in that box.

Well done.

Thanks mate, I'm hoping to get some more in the coming months. 

1 hour ago, jenno64 said:

Wow, big trip in the recent weather!

a brace of good eating fish and I’m sure there will be more once the weather improves!

 

38 minutes ago, Rebel said:

Great report.

Well done.

 

[First Time Going Wide]

First day of the school holidays we decided to push out wide to Browns Mountain for the first time in search of blue eye cod and gemfish. 

Started off a 5:30am collecting yellowtail and slimey mackerel at the artificial in Botany Bay and made the 40km journey out wide. The conditions were decent so we cruised at 17knts and reached the marks within an hour or so. After some fiddling around with the electric reel and finding our drift, I sounded over a nice patch of fish/bait and dropped the rig down 370m to meet the fish. The rod tip quickly began to bounce and eventually loaded up nicely, flicked the switch and the fish came up to the surface within a few minutes. Up came and nice sized gemfish and smaller blue eye cod. We stuck around for another 30min but couldn’t find anymore fish, raced back to some inshore reefs to find a kingfish and managed to get a few legals before the wind picked up. 

Overall it was a good day learning how to use the electric reel and build confidence in heading out wide, next up is to find a tuna in the deep blue. 

[Winter Kingfish]

5 hours ago, leonardgid said:

amazing catch, i don't think many of that size get landed

 

Theres are few out there just need to weed through all the rats first. 

[Winter Kingfish]

1 hour ago, Larkin said:

Top kingy! Well done. 👍

what water depth were you fishing?

Cheers mate I was fishing in 70-80m deep 

[Winter Kingfish]

4 hours ago, Jp2 said:

100% damaged top rod runner. Please check. A few years ago I had the same problem once hooked up and this was the cause!!! Let me know how u go.

I checked my tip and it all seemed fine, the braid only snapped once at the tip and the rest were around 20m from the rod tip.

[Winter Kingfish]

2 hours ago, Yowie said:

Good sized fish.

Any idea why the braid kept breaking, too much pressure or fraying of the braid?

 

14 minutes ago, big Neil said:

Great result mate...well done. I, like Yowie, am interested in where the braid was snapping. Was it where the braid joined the leader? bn

I’m not to sure what caused the braid to snap to be honest when I was fishing I didn’t notice any nicks in the braid and my guides were fine and the braid was breaking well above my fg knot. I’ve caught metre fish on the exact setup with the same line, leader and drag settings and haven’t had any problems. My best guess is that leatherjackets are biting my line on the way up. 

[Winter Kingfish]

6 hours ago, Isaac Ct said:

Great kingie mate, well done.

Cheers it went well for its size.

6 hours ago, bessell1955 said:

Great looking fish.

They are starting to fatten up now and will really get well conditioned in the coming weeks.

2 hours ago, kantong said:

healthy specimen, well done

Cheers

1 hour ago, masterfisho7 said:

That.s a top king well done

Thanks mate

59 minutes ago, dlvbw said:

That is a great catch mate! 

Cheers

[Winter Kingfish]

After all the windy weather and big swells which copped the east coast, I decided to take the boat out to the reefs off Sydney in search of some winter kingfish. First stop
was to gather bait at the artifical and after 20 minutes the live bait tank was full with yellowtail and a few slimey mackerel, it was then a quick run to some of the closer reefs off Sydney to find a few kingfish.

At the marks the were only a couple of boats so I decided to spotlock on top of fish I was marking, after sometime I hooked up a small rat king on the jig which quickly went
back in the water, after a quick circle around I starting to mark fish again so I deployed spotlock. On the first drop I hooked up on what seemed like a good kingfish until my
braid snapped at the tip of my rod, shortly after the livie rod goes off and a 73cm kingfish is boated. Some more rat kingfish ensued, until there was a good bite on the
paternoster meant for a snapper, up came a 96cm kingfish on a 3/0 circle hook and 30lb leader, I was surprised at how well my 3500 certate handled it. After some more lost fish on the jigs due to braid snapping, I decided to call it a day and head back in.

[Sydney Squiding]

1 hour ago, onearmedfisho said:

Nice session mate, in deeper water do you just run the ball sinker all the way down to the jig or do you use a swivel? I mainly squid in 4-6m but keen to try some deeper water when the new boat arrives...

Thanks mate, I used a running sinker to my snap swivel and connected the squid jig on to it makes it easier to change jigs to try different colours.

[Port Stephens- Making the most of it]

Cracking fish there, hoping to get up to Port Stephens and chase them on plastics too some time!

[Port Hacking Session]

22 minutes ago, Restyle said:

rather brown. the mouth of the hacking, into gunners is alright but nowhere near as good as it should  be.

 

anyway real good snapper there, congrats. any squid?

No squid today, the rain from this week mucked up the water, and the currents were ripping so fast I couldn’t keep a squid jig down even with a large sinker in 15m. 

[Port Hacking Session]

7 hours ago, Isaac Ct said:

Great snapper mate, well done

I might try and head out tomorrow, how dirty is it around lilli pilli?

Thanks mate, didn’t go around lilli pilli but towards Gunnamatta Bay it was all pretty greenish brown. Good luck tomorrow if you’re heading out.

7 hours ago, masterfisho7 said:

Nice snapper top effort 

Cheers mate

5 hours ago, Rebel said:

Top report.

Well done.

Top Snapper.

Thanks

56 minutes ago, Larkin said:

Nice red mate! And on light gear!

will make a nice feed

Cheers mate, it put up a good fight I’m surprised how many good fish I’ve landed on my bream setup.

[Port Hacking Session]

Headed out early this morning to Port Hacking in search of some more squid and a kingfish or two. Tried some shallow spots in the Port but the water quality was too dirty and decided to push out deeper for some squid.

Flicked out some hardbodies and trolled towards Jibbon Bommie, and picked up 2 bonnie’s for bait. Came out to the marks and the current was pushing fast, but marked some nice fish on the sounder so decided to fish it with fresh bonito slabs. Drifted down on a 4/0 hook and light sinker with 14lb leader, eventually found its way into the mouth of a 63cm snapper. 

New pb for me and went well on bream gear, after that we got a couple rat kings and the sweep showed up so we went home.