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These may be old videos but they show the main dangerous spots in Sydney and not all of them are accessible now but you must remember ANY rock platform can be dangerous in the wrong conditions ! Do yourself a big favour and either try to find someone with experience to go with you for a few trips or go with a guide - you will learn more about safety in one session with a guide than you will in a year of fishing by yourself . I know they’re not cheap but what price do you put on your life ?

This season is really weird, my mate who fishes outside for flathead reckons last season and the one before were a lot better . Is it the rainfall , is it water temps or something else ? I don’t know. yeah I saw the workers on the bridge - I was heading to moony moony and all of a sudden across came this big boat with a guy on the flybridge flapping his arms around - he was the watchman to keep the boats away from under where they were working . Even at 4 am it was busy at the ramp !

I have to use the holder/jig for all fg knots , the years of hanging on to grinders , jackhammers and the like damaged my hands so I don’t have very good dexterity now . When I was first trying to learn the fg I watched a lot of videos as one does but soon found out why they use such heavy lines - sure it makes it easier to see on camera but it makes it easier to tie and get a good looking result. Yet to see someone tie an fg with even 8lb leader and similar braid on any YouTube video I could find . I know Aaron from the Windsor bait and tackle YouTube channel uses an Albright or improved Albright knot as he finds it easier to do more or less by muscle memory and can tie it in the dark if he needs to . I would love to see some results from a test to see how much different they make to casting distance. There is an SG knot also .

Great explanation Derek! Could come in useful for tying the spikes half pilly rig as well because you don’t have much leader to play with at the start ! Ever noticed how every FG knot video is always using heavy lines - try doing that method with 6lb braid and 4lb leader ! This is the knot( pitzen) I was taught by my mates old man and he was taught it by his dad , never knew the name of it until I watched this video ! I remember Geoff Wilson mentioning it in one of his books years ago but even he couldn’t find the name of it , he reckoned it was one of the strongest knots he had ever tested .

I got a couple inside broken bay a few years back - put up a good fight on light tackle ! I didn’t keep any though .

You would be surprised at the number of boats I see heading to various ramps around Sydney at 1am and how many people I see fishing in the early hours of the morning - especially down around pier 1!

It’s the visits to chiropractors afterwards that scare me 🤣🤣😭🤣 Ian.

Nice fish and a great report BN! I never got around to fishing any of the big freshwater rivers.

Awesom fish ! even thinking about fighting that fish made my back ache 🤣🤣🤣🤣

One really bizarre thing happened - when I launched I could see this massive really bright light down towards Juno - it was that bright it blurred out the area under it so I couldn’t tell what it was . As I started motoring towards Cowan it seemed to get closer until I got to Gunyah beach and it started moving out towards broken bay . It eventually disappeared over the horizon . Anyhow later that day two big boats came in that were identical, each having two giant grey things on each side of a mast - they were like half of a medicine capsule in shape with the rounded end pointing up - a bit like below but dark grey. was the light from a survey ship ? I dunno!

Yes I was definitely feeling it by 6 pm that night! I suppose it is one of the benefits of working a shift that starts at 1am - getting up at 3am to get to the ramp at 4am is actually a sleep in 🤣🤣🤣 I usually get there at dawn but wanted to try for a hairtail- I was going to go to Jerusalem bay but I notice a lot of phosphorescence in the main river and I know from experience that it will be Worse in Jerusalem.

G’day Raiders, I went up to the lower Hawkesbury today to check out the scene . Arrived at parsley bay at 4am with a plan to try for a Hairtail or a mulloway in the last hour of darkness before dawn, plan was to use a lead vibes and bait- around flint and steel but this produced a donut . Ran a few drifts off flint and steel and picked up two flathead and a bream. Tried up at moony moony but there was so much fresh in the Water it made fishing difficult. The half pilly rig and lumo sinker combo doing the job!

Maybe Wanda .

Here are some Live Photo’s . Not much swell nor any real gutters - maybe fish in behind the shore break - very light with either beach worms or pink nippers - might pick up a whiting or a bream at night . Photos are in sequence from north to south .

G’day Raiders, I lobbed down to a spot near UTS rowers for a very quick flick in the canal nearby , it was pretty windy which made line control near impossible but I gave it a go anyway. I was using a prawn type plastic rigged weedless ( zman prawz in Houdini colour ) coated with some dizzy scent in UV Mussel. Only got one flathead which was sitting right below where a side drain emptied into the main canal , there were heaps of big mullet cruising around but as soon as I got my phone out to photograph them the seemed to disappear - must be camera shy ? I did get a photo of some mullet but these were the sub 30cm ones and I was praying to hook up with one of the big ones - easy 40cm + and maybe giving 50cm a nudge ! Anyhow while trying to measure and photograph the flathead while on my knees I didn’t notice I had disturbed an ants nest ( fortunately only the tiny black ant variety) and within seconds I was covered in the buggers - I must have looked a treat flapping my arms around trying to get them off all the while yelling out string after string of expletives 🤣🤣🤣 After that I went to the Sydney fish market for a look and was bowled over by how that place has gone downhill! It’s more restaurants, cafes and sushi bars now than fish market and the prices of some things made my eyes water - $23 a kilo for pipis! and they were tiny ! We used to get them for bait at a few bucks a kilo- all be it a long time ago ! They were selling them as live but they were all open and sitting in a tray drying out - yuck !

It is a bit more complex than that ! I can tell you to fish a certain beach but there is no guarantee that the fish I caught today will be there tomorrow - beach formations can change overnight and the fish move out . You can try Wanda beach near Cronulla, all of the beaches from palm to manly produce fish like bream , whiting, flathead salmon , tailor and the odd mulloway but unfortunately because the of the way the sand moves on beaches - literally here today gone tomorrow and back again the next it is impossible to predict where the fish will be. You will just have to do it the same way we do - look at the beach , identify the structure , give it a go and if one gutter doesn’t produce after maybe half an hour move to another . BTW if you want to learn one on one how to fish the beach and rocks there is an excellent guide operating on the northern beaches - he is the only one doing so over there so just type in beach fishing guide northern beaches into your favourite search engine and he should come up.

Narrabeen tends to be more small holes rather than gutters - sometimes there is a decent gutter at the north end of the beach near the lake entrance , depends in how much swell has been around and what direction it is coming from . All the pictures below are screenshots from an app I subscribed to and are from live footage taken at midday today. Below is Avalon showing a typical horse shoe gutter - this is close to low tide and would be worth a fish it high tide - even better if high tide is after dark . Below is Mona vale showing a hole or pocket gutter - similar to what you will get on Narrabeen beach . Below is south Deewhy showing a closed end gutter , which is really just an incomplete horseshoe gutter - sometimes you will get two ( one either side of a sandbar)that don’t quite join in the middle to for a horseshoe. Below is mid and south curl curl - this beach always seems to have a gutter of some sort on it and the bottom photo just shows the end of the gutter where it runs out to sea . Palm beach also has some reasonable gutters most of the time but like any beach- prolonged periods of low or no swell will fill the gutters in and turn it into a fishing desert or a haven for sand crabs and stingrays!

Keep it respectful and state the facts : no scientific evidence, decisions were made based on emotion and sentiment- not facts etc . There is nothing to be gained by abusive or vulgar comments as the person that reads the comments is an innocent party and your feedback will be deleted if it is judged to be inappropriate. We all need to understand that it is no longer about a groper- it is how this ban was enacted that should have everyone ( including the general public ) worried because it sets a very dangerous precedent- if the government can roll in and ban whatever they like whenever they like based on emotion,sentiment or to appease a minority party we are all in trouble!

We need to remember that this is no longer about the blue groper it is about the method in which the ban was enacted . Zero scientific research, Zero consultation with any relevant user groups and all based on the feelings and sentiments of one very misled Minister. If the research had been done and it indicated that an immediate ban was needed I feel most rec anglers would support it . I worry now that if the Government can just roll up and ban something without a legitimate reason what else will they ban ? Maybe two stroke outboards ? There’s one way of killing some old boats off !

It’s going to take a while to get there ! Provided you obey the laws there you will be ok , give circular quay a wide berth and stay away from the naval waters at garden island ! One trick with going under the bridge in a small boat is to ride in the wake of a big boat - use it to iron out the bumpy stuff ! Make sure you have plenty of fuel !

I haven’t done it with a 5 hp but I used to fish middle harbour with a couple of mates in a12ft tinny and a 10hp motor . The area circled in red ( known as the sound ) is a place I would avoid with your set up as the ocean swells roll right in here and if you get a run out tide with a wind running the same direction the wind swell and current smash into the ocean swell and turn this into place your boat doesn’t want to be ! If you stick to the eastern shore and channel ( green circle ) you should be ok - the western channel ( blue circle ) is always busy with traffic - usually big boats and ferries which can swamp small boats , I would give this area a miss unless you can get into Clifton gardens a bit more and get out of the shipping channel . Under the bridge is always rough going and if you have to go through there stick to the milsons point side - just stay out wide enough to avoid anyone’s lines . Rose bay ramp is probably your only option to launch unless you like spending half a day getting out there ! You could also look at around the spit bridge and upstream from it - you get kingies up there as well and it is way more calmer and safer for small boats . The amount of traffic out in middle harbour nowadays is just insane - I fished there in October last year and came home with a sore neck because I found I had to keep looking around to make sure no one ran over us - one yacht missed us by a few metres - I had to sound the little air horn I keep in my fishing bag because the skipper of the yacht couldn’t see my white 4.2m boat -apparently. Oh yeah ! make sure all your safety gear is up to spec as you will get a visit from either waterways or police ! Don’t forget you can get kingies in Pittwater at the right time of year .

Awesome bream ! Epic report ! Well done !

The use of WD40 on a 5inch alvey will make little difference - it has a heavy spool and the spindle diameter is much larger than a steelite which creates a lot more drag. You can use the technique as shown in this video but I would probably go to a local sports field or park to do some practice first as you don’t want your line to fly off and touch the rocks .

Could they be the elvers of the eastern short or longfin eel making their way back from the spawning grounds in the coral sea ?

For night fishing I use a head torch I bought online from an astronomy supplies shop - it has a white light and red light which is great because the red light doesn’t ruin my night vision . The one I have has separate buttons for each light so I don’t have to cycle through different light functions to get to the red light .