[BONNIES ARE IN]

On 2/5/2023 at 5:53 PM, Max_fish said:

Are all those pictures from this season/recently? Just asking because I see some watsons Leaping Bonito in your pictures and I don’t think they would be in this early into the season

Yeah they have been blasting around up Terrigal/Avoca ledges early this year. Most days they are showing up amongst the jelly bean sized bonito!

[FG Knot for light braid]

FG knot all the way down to 6lb main line (as light as I fish). As mentioned above definitely need to ensure the coils are tightened ever 8 or so wraps. I use a technique that i saw in a video 10 years ago where you wrap the braid around pinky finger and make a loop between thumb and index. I also stopped finishing with a rizutto finish on the lighter lines after a few unravelled after many casts costing me a decent flatties and a favourite lure. Now I just do half a dozen alternating half hitches around leader and braid and a couple just on the braid to finish.

[Kingfish in Brisbane Water]

Yep, they have been right up amongst the boats at Bensville and into the channel leading into Kincumber Broadwater

[Entrance Whiting]

Good to hear Fisheries are out and about catching the dodgy bastards that are making it harder for everyone else to put a legal feed on their table. Nice writeup and good haul.

 

[Winnie Bay session, Avoca Beach]

Tough morning fishing at Winnie today. Made it down before sunrise and managed a decent spot despite there already being a half dozen fisherman on the ledges. 

Lobbed out every stickbait and soft plastic in my arsenal for zero interest. A few schools of salmon came through and managed a couple of hookups on metals pelted into the melee, but fish self-released when being landed (not too bothered about losing salmon!).

None of the kingies that I'd been hoping for although a fella next to me landed a huge Slimy and a small snapper on Gulps. Hopefully water warms up soon and bonnies and kings show themselves! 

For anyone interested in fishing down there by the time we left at 0830 there were well over 20 fisherman on the ledges (which is a lot for Winnie Bay, not a whole heap of room down there).

Good fishing all.

[what type of lure for Kingfish]

2 minutes ago, DerekD said:

Firstly I use TT jig heads in the bullet head. I've worked out a retrieve which gets the plastic moving between 30 and 60cm side to side. Essentially I'm creating an over correction with each bounce of the rod tip. It works from 3 inch to 9 inch plastics. I struggle with darter type jig heads but it is magic with the bullet heads.

TT does some older style tournament jig heads in the yellow packet. With these I go for a 3/0 extra strong hook. Weight of head between 3/8 and 1/2oz. These are getting harder to find. I can also use them with the TT Head lockz but the hook size seems to have changed so for these I use a 5/0 XH. In the photo below you can see the size difference between the 3/0 and 5/0 of the head lockz compared to the 3/0 older tournament style.

Exactly the information I was chasing, much appreciated.

[what type of lure for Kingfish]

What size hook/weight would you use on a 6" slapstix to work midwater, assuming no current? I've gotta dial in the kingies this year (fish Central Coast area from rocks) after a few years break from fishing! Have historically just spun metals but have only had a few small kings amongst a million bonito, salmon, tuna etc

[Are the kings on yet ?]

Salmon, salmon and salmon mate. I'll follow this though to see if anyone else has had more luck!