Pickles

Having our (usually) annual pilgrimage to SWR in 3 years, hopefully to get into some spotted and striped mackerel. Unfortunately the only spotty bit the line off (should have been using wire), but a great / short fight. Boated a feed though - Pearl perch, snapper, 2 Cobia (also a great fight) and heaps of Bonito. Live bait was really hard as the local goss is a trawler had “swept” the area the week before we arrived. I also went to the “dark side” and had (so far) 2 brilliant SCUBA dives off up and through, Fish Rock with great visibility of 10-12m and water temp of 26c. Lots of Trevally, Snapper, Kingies and counted 32 Grey Nurse sharks and a few whalers, turtles, dolphins, heaps of lobsters in the tunnel - too many to count. Needless to say, I didn’t talk about fishing to other divers as the two parties of zealots don’t talk to each other (not amiably anyway). Sorry only one pic. Hoping to have a report on Friday after an outing on ‘Jacks with Raider legend @dirvin21

Brilliant work Jeff, great feed of snapper & a beanie to go with it - magic

Killing them Basil - well done.

At last you cracked it @Crabstar, A beautiful part of the world. Can’t beat a feed of muddies - well done

Brilliant effort @lastworm, that 37 is a really good fish - looking forward to more reports.👍

‘Jackets are pretty good eating @kiwibrown, a tiny bit of bait on the bait jigs & youll probably bag out.

Although “lonely”, one whiting is better than none - have you tried “wiggling” for pipis- this often stirs up the sand, releases the tiny pipis and bring the whiting in and they are great bait (equal to worms in my opinion) - I’ve even caught Jewies on pipis.

Thanks for sharing - a special catch

Brilliant work Jason, got to love that hit of the the big boofers. Well done and great vid.

Well done Basil, some really nice Dollie’s - a good feed there mate. I’m a diver (SCUBA only now) also and Zoran is (almost) correct, even though it is poor form, once a diver is in the water a powered craft must be a minimum 60m away from the diver and a “safe distance” from the boat. Unfortunately some diver don’t use a blue and white flag so put themselves at significant risk. below is from maritime handbook: “Powered vessels – including sailing boats over 5.5m long and personal watercraft (PWC) – must keep a minimum distance of 60m from: people in the water, including swimming and surfing areas the boundaries of designated swimming areas and surf zones (marked by signs) a dive flag or float. Take extra care when you're within 200m of divers and spearfishers – they can be up to 100m from their float or flag.”

A hard days “work” - Pity the duskies didn’t come out to play in numbers, good you got 2 and a 53 is a creditable catch - well done

Well done Chris - a stonker of a flattie, pity you didn’t catch the Cobia.

Amen Gordo

Hey @Gengar @blaxlandand @LuckyFilare on the money with replacing trebles with single hooks. I put 2 singles on to replace a treble, but one facing up and other facing down. Only downside is that it can change the action of the lure a bit (not that it matters too much with salmon as they’ll hit anything that moves - at Fraser Island, I have caught them with a ganged hook rig with Alfoil- silver paper squashed around the hooks). Also if you keep the line tight with no slack, the chance of throwing the hook is greatly reduced, you can do this by always having a bend in the rod and keeping the tip up, but this also encourages them to jump. When they are hungry though, there is usually so many around you you hook up again quickly. I had salmon (and Bonito) last night - smoked = yum.

Hey @SaltyGreek, 49 is a very respectable flattie and well done on the prawns - great bait.

Way to go @Madkanu - on the money with Derek as a tutor (Zoran a champion fisho also).

Jewfish yesterday bit it in half

girls can do anything (especially my girl)

Hi @thegee, sorry to take so long to reply - my experience is that Morwong, like snapper are a school fish and hangout together and take similar baits, so very commonly caught together on the same bait and usually over reef or rocky ground or where sand meets reef.

😂 Rebel - love your reports. Looks like you might have a new calling “Rebels mobile tackle shop”. I usually loose my lures and don’t get a chance to”pass them on”.

We had friends for lunch on Wednesday (fish on the menu) and Mrs Pickles was bragging about her ability and prowess out fishing me. So I threw the gauntlet down and said, let’s nick down the river. It was already 6pm and a perfect cloudless summer evening (just enough breeze to keep mossies away and cool the air) and the Bass would be active on the surface getting their evening feed, so I was confident of 20 or 30 fish - How wrong I was, it seems it has finally happened and their annual schooling ritual of pelagic feeding on prawns has run its course and they have dispersed and headed up river. The pic shows the one and only fish caught in 20 minutes of fishing - and you guessed it, she got it (with the help of my Lab’ Rosie, so I guess it was 2:1). It was a creditable 38cm, I did however, give her the best lure and my favourite set up, but best to keep the boss smiling in order to get a leave pass when needed.

Happy to help Rob - pm me and I’ll give you my mobile. It’s pretty basic and not that expensive and will make a huge difference to your catch rate.

👏👏

Hey Dunc, Jewies in the Hawkesbury - tailor east side of Lion Island and Yakkas at West Head and squid in Pittwater.

Yep, about 20 soapies to one legal, - looking good for the future though.