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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

That’s not a black bream, just a darker yellowfin bream, still a trophy fish by any measure.

Glad to see the local turning on for the summer, I was afraid that the dismal winter we had in middle harbour would replicate itself for the summer, looks like that won’t be the case.

Not much tops sashimi kingfish in my opinion, but of course it’s all preferential

Need to learn how to catch myself some garfish semi-reliably, such amazing kingie baits. I do agree with pickles though, should’ve lobbed out one of those garfish for the king, IMO Garfish are second best for kingfish baits being only beaten by cuttlefish.

I’ve seen pillies caught off my local wharf on bare small red long shanks just casting out with a small ball sinker attached and winding in at a reasonable pace, so I’d say they’d be interested in very small baitfish presentations

As a person who started properly fishing early last year and had a small quintrex to take out, it took me many many months to get my first kingfish as i was primarily fishing last winter. My strategy was to catch live or fresh squid the night before and either keep them alive in a net in the water overnight or freeze them. Next morning we would take out the tinny in middle harbour and hit up Primarily seaforth bluff, which was a popular spot to catch kingies. After countless sessions of failure, i finally managed to pull my first and still largest kingfish on a live cuttlefish. It will most likely take you longer than you expect to catch a kingfish with little to no help or experience but you will do it eventually, just gotta put in the hours. What size boat do you have? That will really define what kind of fishing you will be doing, if it’s a small one that you wouldn’t want to take out of the heads you will have to focus on the Wrecks that hold kingfish during the winter and use primarily livebaits, if it’s a large boat that can handle offshore swell then you will probably have better luck doing what pickles does and hitting spots such as long reef with livies. If you can’t manage a king this winter, I’m sure you’ll get one in the summer.

Yknow it’s not the worst thing that the lagoon is polluted, for the most part yes it is bad, but due to the fact you can’t eat fish from there it is primarily a catch and release fishery, making it sustainable and effective, allowing for the exotic species to be more prevalent as they are protected from fishermen just looking for a feed.

I gotta agree, if you haven’t watched ‘Ultimate Fishing’ on YouTube you gotta do it, best fishing show out there.

Hey all, I heard that the manly Hydraulics FAD/bouy stays out all year round, is that true? And Is another name for it the “Sydney harbour fad”? As it says on navionics. If not can someone paste the coordinates into the thread? thanks, max

Thanks Bn, yeah that last couple minutes definitely payed off, and I can only hope for more large flatties, my top 4 biggest ones have all been on live yakkas so hopefully a good sign and I can crack the 80 mark soon.

After having a fairly good session on Sunday afternoon at the local wharf involving a kingie and quite a few large arrows I decided to head down again this afternoon. With a perfectly timed high tide, low wind, and good moon phase I was pretty optimistic. Once I got to the wharf I realised the water was extremely brown and after about an hour of fishing it wasn’t looking too good, not much pelagic action in sight. So I thought I’d target jewies instead, however the fresh squid couldn’t get past the nibblers and I was starting to feel like this might be a failed session. I ended up switching to live yakkas in an attempt to get past the nibblers and target the larger fish. Finally, I noticed line starting to come off my spool with a fair amount of speed and flicked the bail arm over to set hook. After a short fight on heavy gear I was stoked to see my first Jewie in ages, only a soapie but felt good to get onto them again especially in the local. After some quick pics it went back in the drink to grow bigger. Fairly happy with that result, and my deadline soon approaching I casted out another yakka and started to pack up, then I noticed my yakka starting to freak out and move erratically. I kept packing up but leaving the rod till last as to give myself the best chance of hooking up, just before I started to reel my livie in I saw my line go tense and set hook, immediately feeling weight. Fairly convinced it was a good Jewie due to the headshakes an heavy weight I tried to get it in as quickly as possible. Eventually I got it to the wharf only to see it was a large flathead, little disappointed but definitely not a bad bycatch. However, I was fishing solo, with no net and no way of landing it, using 20lb leader and a relatively small hook. After 15mins of struggle and testing different ideas I eventually managed to get the flattie on the wharf, I realised that it was actually much larger than I previously thought, measured 78cm and very thick. After some quick photos, she went back to breed hopefully many more trophy flathead. Pretty happy with this result as I don’t target flathead and this is my second one over 70 since I started fishing just under 2 years ago.

Hey everyone, I am really keen on getting into fly fishing for the first time after giving it a go, and need suggestions for what to buy. I intend on targeting small pelagics such as bonito and rat kings, but also estuary species such as flatties and maybe bream. What gear should I get in the $300-400 range?

Was there on my boat when they hooked it, there had been some massive salmon bustups in that spot earlier so Im Guessing the bull sharks got attracted to it, however the news loves to blow things out of proportion, I’m sure there is a bunch of sharks hanging around beneath schools of salmon, kings and tailor all the time, we just don’t see them. So if you want to hook a shark go for the bustups and chuck a big livie under it.

Congrats man! Saw a mahi mahi in middle harbour a couples days ago so must be a lot of the tropical fish about

Hopefully a good sign of things to come!

Yeah, hopefully they are here to stay for a little while

Yeah wouldnt it be something to catch one of those that deep in the harbour, wasn’t exactly that small either, probably in the 70s. Still nothing giant ofc

Hopefully I can snag one in the same spot tomorrow might have to get the yakkas ready.

Hey everyone, The past week There has been a massive bait ball sitting in the shallows easily accessible by land, and it has been surrounded by kings every single morning. However, as I was watching kings swimming around, but with incredible reluctance to take anything but the bait they were chasing a saw a fish probably 60-70cm swimming around too, too my shock I noticed that it’s slightly skinnier and longer body with bright green and yellow colours, was most likely a middle harbour mahi mahi, a very rare sight that I’d thought I’d share. Maybe this Lanina weather event accompanied with this odd season has brought in the offshore fish following in the bait? Thanks, Max

Thanks pickles, You are 100% right about the kings, today I had a day where there was loads at my feet but wouldn’t touch anything I threw at them.

👍If I see you out there I’ll shout out

Haha thanks, the kings are definitely back, I’m in a 449 stacer outlaw with a 50hp Suzuki, if you see me feel free to say hi, what about you?

Yeah thanks, was one of the first times I had managed to achieve a decent amount of squid on my boat during day time, so I was ecstatic to say the least.

Hey all, headed out for a session on the boat today with a plan to find bustups and hopefully snag a few fish, after roughly 2 hours of looking we finally found one, however the awkward positioning of it and the fact that there were dozens of boats cramped around it on moorings made for a difficult time. Eventually my mate brought a 40cm tailor up and it was followed by the tiniest king I have ever seen would’ve been 25-30cm and a larger model probably low 60s, however they were extremely reluctant and they soon left. After one more tailor and a lost frigate mackerel at the boat we decided to try a different spot in hopes of finding some more action. We decided to cast a few small metals down in a place I have seen bustups before and instead my mate brought up a squid in a spot I never knew squids were. Soon we had boated 7 squids, 5 I caught on a paternoster squid rig and my mate got 2 on a metal, all in the middle of the day. We were ready to livebait for kings. We took the squid back to the spot where we first saw bustups and 5mins in my mate hooked up to a small but worthwhile king in the 50s and landed it. About 10 or so minutes later I hooked up to an absolute monster and it smoked me in tight structure immediately, I then preceded to get absolutely smashed by another large king and my mates both got smoked by 2 other big kings each. The insanely tight structural area made it almost impossible to land any decent fish, after about an hour or so of getting smashed the action died down and we decided to head back. A good day overall and a new squid and king spot was achieved, hopefully can land some larger models later in the week. Thanks, Max