jim77

More of the same for me. I had squid, yakkas, jigs - everything! But no decent Kings. Fished plenty of likely spots outside that have been producing fish for zip. Came back in the harbour and scored 2 of the biggest Sydney Salmon i have seen for a long time. A tough summer thats for sure!

Nice work fellas. Next time don't strip up the big squid... Get the biggest squid you can catch and put it down whole, and then hang on!

Nice work boys. Lock up the drag and palm the spool... Amazing how much pressure you can exert before the line or leader gives way! I went out off the harbour this arvo - loads of rats but cldnt buy a legal! Think I might have to head down to Botany for my next session!

Nice report. At last it sounds like the fishing is improving and the kings might be starting to get a little more consistent. Just a word of advice... I wouldn't be trusting any of my gear in a plastic rod holder when I'm down rigging. It might feel secure but believe me a decent king will show no respect for plastic rod holders. If you are using whole squid to target better fish it will only be a matter of time before the inevitable happens and you lose a rod over the side! Do yourself a favour and fit some ss rod holders!

Daniel - slimies were thick as before xmas, although i have to say that i didn't get any Kings on them despite fishing with them a lot. I was away for the whole of December and early Jan so i don't know what they were like then. They are still around atm but for me they are harder to catch in the arvo which is when a number of my trips have been. Early morning they are there if you are patient enough to wait for them to turn up in your burley trail... I'm not very patient! Also they are huge - i know i am after Big Kings but the slimies i have caught recently have been massive and hard for anything under 10-15kg to even contemplate eating! Hopefully if the Kings ever turn up properly this year the slimies will still be around as they are definitely a better bait for weeding out the bigger fish when there are plenty of Kings around.

After a few average trips of late I was planning to fish early and give it a real go for some decent Kings. Things didn't quite go to plan due to my son keeping me up all night so i eventually got on the water about 1pm. I was hoping to go outside but after chatting to another bloke at the ramp who told me it was pretty sloppy i decided i would just try the harbour. My first plan was to catch some Gars. After 30 mins without seeing one i gave up on that. Next plan - catch some slimies. Fail again! So the humble yakka it was - although they were a much better size today than the horse ones that seem to have been the norm! Downrigged a couple of spots with Yakkas. Masses of bait showing and just as i'm thinking how can there not be any Kings aorund my rod starts screaming! Those who have fished with me know that i run pretty heavy drag... This thing was taking line in a big way. I finally managed to get the rod out of the holder and get a few winds on the reel. I tried to get the downrigger bomb up out of the way but there was no chance of that as the fish took another screaming run and pulled me up against the rail. Lucky for me the fish went to the other side of the boat and the fight was pretty much straight up and down. I knew from the amount of drag it was pulling that it was a decent fish... Luckily i was over sand so i was fairly confident that it couldn't bust me off on anything. After a really decent tussle i finally got it up near the boat. It still had enough energy for one more run when it saw me peering down at him but i knew i had him beat. When i got it to the surface i quickly spotted that it was only just hooked on the outside of the mouth. I got it in the net first shot and just as i did the hook fell out!! I quickly hoisted it into the boat and gave myself a high five. Tape measure straight out. 114cm and a very fat well conditioned fish. Phoned a couple of mates to gloat :blah: and then got the fish on ice. Motored back around to where i got the hit and put another bait down. Still lots of bait aorund but no more action. Got back to the ramp where Andrew (Fishmaniac) was good enough to come down and take some pics for me. (I'm very superstitious and don't take a camera) He's going to post them later. Weighed the fish when i got home 12.8kg bled (lets call it 13 :-) ) Its guts were full of yakkas. I have caught much bigger fish in NZ but they don't count right... Any mug can catch a 20kg Kingy in NZ - so i increased my Sydney PB from 107 to 114cm. I would have preferred to catch it on a jig but still great fun!Slowly closing in on 120cm and maybe that elusive 20kg fish.... A weird/slow season for Kings but there definitely seems to be bigger numbers of better fish. Get out there and get into them. Cheers Jim

no. It does help at times but you will still catch plenty without. Where did you try for livies? Plenty of spots you can get em without anchoring....

Yee when you say fresh squid do you mean "fresh squid" you caught yourself or fresh you bought somewhere? if its not freshly caught I.e you bought it I wouldnt bother using it. Learn how to catch livies and your kingy catch rate will soon go up. If you are on the water early at 6am at this time of year you should be able to get a tank full of livies in about 10 minutes! Also by anchoring you are cutting down your chances - sound around and find the fish and then start dropping livies on them or plastics etc those are just my observations - others might say different. Better luck next time you head out

A bit early for the FAD Stan. 12 mile you might get lucky but there again probably not. If i were you i would save some fuel and concentrate on fishing the inshore reefs up to about 50m with either livies or jigs. There are some BIG kings in close atm.

PM me your email Jeff - there are a few reliable spots...

Cant beat middle harbour...... Time to crack out the downriggers. Nice work mate.

Nice work. Seems like there might be a few around atm - hopefully a good omen for the summer after last years Kingy season was such a let down!

Exactly what FT said - i have pretty much done away with using the commercial downrigger releases - yes they are quicker and easier to use but if you are using bigger baits and particularly if you are downrigging deep, a lot of the releases can't handle the pressure and the baits keep popping out of the clip. Just use elastic bands and clip swivels - and your bait/lure will hold easily.

Good job on christening the new stick. Jigging i presume? How did you lose the stonkers? Gear failure?

Go big mate! There are lots of rats but if you look hard enough there are some very solid fish to be had. The Rats won't have any problem with taking a 9" plastic, but you might also find that the bigger baits weed out some of the bigger fish for you.

Great work boys. Think i saw you ou there. I have been dusted on some much heavier gear than you were using - go big as there are some monsters there at tmes!

Yeah mate that is normal. You will probably find that it is worse in certain conditions i.e. fast current etc. It won't make any difference to your hook up rate. After a while (couple of years) you will probably find that you need to replace trhe wire as it goes rusty. When its time for this replace your wire with 200lb braid and you won't get the humming anymore. Depending on how deep you want to downrig you might also find that you need a heavier bomb... Good luck with it.

Great fishing fellas. Maybe just maybe this is the start of some better Kings. Fingers crossed! In conditions like that you can get out there from Botany Heads in about 10 minutes!

Great fishing mate - well done! About time the better fish starting showing up in numbers.

Nice work Jeremy. Is that photo taken where you caught them? Last time you posted the location you caused a new weekend anchorage at Old Mans Hat. Shame as it was fishing well until then..... Good fishing mate well done.

Well done mate - cracking fish. Especially on that gear!

Great work boys. Very jealous! You know how much i love Dollies Mike... frothing mate!!!!!

You might need to move to NZ for that...

Not sure where you have been looking mate but they are everywhere atm! Usual spots are fairly reliable - Balmoral Island/Wharf, Rosebay Wharf, Shark Island, Eastern Wedding cake (early), Manly Wharf (before the ferries), Manly Aquarium - to name a few reliable spots. Burley up and they should be everywhere pretty quickly - if they don't come go somewhere else and find em.

Glad you found some fish Arthur! Now we got to find you some decent legals... Maybe the next holidays!