[Shark fishing buddy]

Looking for a shark fishing buddy, no experience needed, no gear needed as I'm happy to lend gear. Im pretty flexible, Sydney based. Just let me know if your interested. 

Also seeing if anyone would be interested in coming on Friday/ weekend to palm beach or something 

[7/11/22 berowera]

Part 2:

Headed out early and noticed something break the surface near the boat ramp, paddled out and chucked a mullet vibe and landed a healthy large bream around 30 cm. Released and headed off to get the pots. Arrived at where the pots were meant to be and was scratching my head thinking I just have marked the GPS coordinates wrong, anyways paddle around a bit more and eventually find one ages away from where I left it, definitely been messed with and a little while later I found my other pot. The baits were missing, completely disappeared, guessing the work of crabs but unfortunately they were nicked. Just great full that my pots weren't stolen. Went back and explored the mangroves and removed some abandoned traps, hanging in trees, half buried ECT, no tags or anything so I just removed them and chucked them, I just want to make it clear they were derp in mangroves, falling apart, no float/ tags ECT, so yeah obviously dumped pots. Also did remove some rubbish as well, just trying to keep the system a bit cleaner. 

[Berowra 6/11/2022]

1 hour ago, Duffy75 said:

How's the water quality? Did you end up getting any crabs?

Yeah, waters hit or miss. Down the river it's kinda muddy and murky, but up to the first bay it was literally crystal clear, keep heading up and it get worse, it's not the most murky but yeah, you can see about half a meter to a meter. 

Checking the pots tomorrow but it's a new spot. It's completely not accessable by boat and you have to be careful with the sand bars. By the looks of it, it was relatively untouched. Anyways it's not the easiest to lug pots up there so yep. 

[Berowra 6/11/2022]

1 hour ago, Yowie said:

You can keep the prawns, good for live bait, or for eating.

If there is something on the surface that a bream is interested in, then it will head up at speed, and as you saw, launch itself out of the water during the attack. Not intentional to do so, just having a go before the 'food' swims away.

Nah, can't eat crustations, she'll fish from hawkes burry at the moment. I don't know about crabs. 

Ah, thanks. I was pretty suppised, never seen a bream jump like that. 

[Berowra 6/11/2022]

Went berowera yesterday, launched at 7am. Worked along the rock walls with a sugar pen and had the bigger bream I've ever seen launch out of the water after the lure. Never knew they could do that. There were also plenty of prawns busting up, just motored along with the net out and scooped them up, they were all released, just having a bit of fun. 

Went to a new spot to do some crabbing. Saw a hilarious tour group, funniest thing was when the group leader goes "someone (won't disclose they're name") stop sleeping, then sane person, come back" just kind of funny how someone was able to fall asleep while 'paddeling'. 

Anyways, had motor problems all day so wasn't able to do much fishing, but was still a nice day out. Will be picking up the pots on Monday.  

[Towing a boat with a cab chassis ute]

Probably worth putting air lockers on though its a large investment it's well worth it. Even just the rear locker makes a lot of difference. Issue will be the maintenance of them, especially keeping up with making sure they're sealed. 

My mates ute and my LandCruiser (both twin locked) are basically equal in ability.  Id recommend just sticking to the main brands, it's not worth buying the cheap online ones. 

[Berowra 25/9/22]

42 minutes ago, Squidless said:

Woah, now that is an eventful day. Talk about perseverance to continue. I guess you need a bit of that when fishing.

Having the yak swing around on a bite would scare the daylights out of me. 

Definitely was, it's always nice to get outside though even though it was full of mishaps. 

The amount of trolling/drifting with rods in the back, I kind of got used to suddenly having a bit more resistance but definitely wasn't expecting to be swung around lol, shocked me a bit. 

[Berowra 25/9/22]

14 hours ago, frankS said:

If it's metal bring it to me and I should be able to fix it for you.

If it's Plastic you would probably need to buy a replacement part.

Frank

Thanks for the offer, appreciate it, but unfortunately it's the spine (plastic) that has failed. 

[Berowra 25/9/22]

Anyone know where I can get the pedal drive repaired? 

[Berowra 25/9/22]

[Berowra 25/9/22]

PS. The photos have been compressed as the originals were to big to upload 

[Berowra 25/9/22]

Took the kayak out at around 10am unfortunately was running big time late. Got in the water and started making my way down to get live bait when part of the pedal drive snapped and my left pedal could only be left on the furtherest position, should have been a sign of worse to come. Was trolling a lure behind when the rod suddenly buckled and swung the kayak around and pulled a fair bit of line off before coming off, get the lure back and find the hook has been bent straight.  Then got to the place and first cast, some how the line came over the bail (yes it was originally under as I was using the rod a couple of days before) and now I had a giant mess of line. After a while of hooked legs and pants I sorted that out and got fishing and of course miss the only bite. So moved on to the next place where the reel started to play up again and the pedal drive was starting to become loose for some reason. Did get a couple of nice pics. Anyways with no live bait, had to revert to plan B with the fresh squid. Trolled the fresh squid behind the kayak on one rod and a pilchard on a flasher rig on the other. Got a decent bite on the flasher but didn't land. Then got to a bank and found the squid to be half gone.  Found a nice spot out of the current to go for bream and had some more food. Didn't get any bites. Then kept heading down until the line got tangled in dad's motor. So trying to deal with that in wind and current was fun especially when a boat whoes anchor broke and wasn't watching where they were drifting ran into us.  We eventually made it to the beach where we untangled the motor. We swapped kayaks for a bit of fun then the wind and current started to pick up. So started to TRY and head back to the boat ramp. Got off the beach and the pedal drive snapped in half, yes it completely snapped in the middle, I don't know how. Paddling against the wind and current was hard. But the worst part was when I was getting a tow and none of the boats listened to the no wash sign. As my rudder had broken I couldn't steer and being Towed and getting hit by wake I litterally almost flipped. The side of the kayak was almost all under the water. Of course dad's kayak with the hole for the wiring in the unsealed front watch filled with water which all went into the hull multiple times made for a very rocky and unpleasant trip back he almost flipped many times with I was continuously going around in circles because of the current and broken rudder. Atleast we got back to the boat ramp in one peace. That's when we saw the highlight of the day, my mates 'highly prized' car which is completely bent, leans over to the left side constantly so he's filled the right side up with bricks to even it out. 

[Live Crickets as bait?]

Yeah they work. Throw them right under the trees. Extremely light line, make it look like they fell out of the tree. Ive had a little success with them 

[Some metals and lures]

1 hour ago, HawkesburyParadise said:

Yea she bought it off a shop owned by Bezos. It's called BlueFire so I'm not surprised it's American. 

Yeah it's definitely American, can tell from the ad. Looks a nice rod and reel though. Enjoy 🙂 

[Some metals and lures]

Those are pretty neat little spoons. Out of interest what travel combo was this? Ive only ever seen lures like this in America in like little multi packs and big ones sold by them selves. 

As for the soft plastics, they look to be the standard ones you get in all in one combo pack, I have a bunch of them I found on the side of the road. They work alright, not the great. I have a bunch of these tiny jig heads I found, they're like 1/24 ounce or something and tiny hook. Work alright on those soft plastics. 

As for the spoons, maybe trout on the small one and tailor and salmon on the larger ones? 

[Soldiers Point]

Looks like a bit of fun. 

In the warmer months, chuck out a whole yakka or large bait with steel wire and you will get bronzies. heapes of them around there. 

[Rock fishing with a dog]

1 hour ago, Ganguddy Goodoo said:

Might want to google that mate. The only steel used in recreation climbing is in fixed anchors (bolts) and maybe the buckle on ya harness. Remembers ya gotta drag that stuff up the cliff so all carabiners and climbing protection (friends and nuts) will be made of some sort of lightweight alloy. Steel carabiners and other hardware are only really used in industrial and rescue situations. I don't think there is a market for industrial "friends" so am not sure they would even exist in 316 SS. Probably excessively expensive if they are available.

If ya climbing on sea cliffs regularly you quickly learn to rinse your friends (aka cams/slcds) after each trip or you will start noticing service rust almost immediately. This would happen way more quickly on a rock platform as there is actual saltwater and sand around not just the "spooge" you get on the cliffs from the wind and humidity.

Not trying to be an argumentative dill on this mate, was just trying to help the opening poster. I agree a life jacket for both dog and human would be a good idea.

Thanks for clarifying, I was just flicking through yt shorts when I came across a guy hammering on and on about his stainless steel rock climbing stuff. Just thought it might have been helpful to relay that info. 

Can definitely understand the issue of weight though. 

Thanks for correcting though. Sorry about the misguidance. 

Not that long ago I did see an ad for dog life jackets for sale.  

[Rock fishing with a dog]

It's probably worth looking and a lift jacket as well. Those rock climbing things are stainless steel, well the good ones are. 

[Alvey float reels]

Probably a dumb idea as I don't know anything about alveys, but isnt there a specialised Alvey for luderick? I'd have thought that would be suited to float fishing? 

[Night Fishing]

I found going lite to no sinker with small hook and a chunk of bonito works well. Get quite a few bream and stuff. Though I'm not not really trying and just chucking out a line while waiting between sharks 

[ZZZZaaappppp!]

Could it have been one of the catfish? 

[Intro to Kayak fishing]

MY trick when handling fish on the kayak is to either lift them into the kayak and chuck them up the front and quickly dispatch or just remove the hook and back into the water. Because I usually have my feet over the side for stability the whole area in front of the pedals is free. If I need to make adjustments, I have the rudder somewhat pre set to adjust depending on how I've needed to adjust before and just pedal with my hands. 

For emergencies where a quick escape was needed, which has happened while I was still landing fish. Ive turned a car shade into a freezer bag so I just pop the fish down the hatch while making my escape. 

As I do basically all my fishing in salt water, I never use a stringer. As for the rigs I usually fish a dropper rig so I just have the sinker over the side and keep the spare hook over the side as well. 

As for the rod holders, I have a rack with 2 30 degree pipes out the sides for trolling. But this is setup for offshore, absolutely useless for estuary. 

Thanks again Derek for teaching me about the ins and outs of kayak fishing. 

[Power Tool Accidents]

In wood tech we watched our teachers finger get eaten by a ban saw, was a bit of an eye open. Ive also had drills go through my hand and come out the other side, wire brushes go into me. The one to top it all was my boss got a bar of metal go in one side of him and come out the other, part of the drilling rig. And yes he's ok, narrowly escaped. 

[Hobie cart]

If you bring a pair of pliers, use it to pull out the pins either side of the wheels then you can pack it into the front hatch. Takes a little bit of fiddling to work out the orientation but it works. PS I'm using the standard Hobie cart, not the C tug 

[School Holidays]

Sharks will be coming down and into the harbour soonish, they've already began to come down. Also jervis bay, Nelson bay and south West rocks are my favourite places. Long reef has been producing for me. 

Good luck 🙂