jim77

Hey Brett In the last couple of weeks the water has been holding around the 19.5 to 20.5 region. One day i was out it was nudging 21 C. Depends a little on what the tide is doing as there have been some patches of seriously cold water straight out the front of the heads. As to sharks - can't help you there mate. Never targetted them before in the harbour so can't comment. There do seem to be plenty of mullet jumping if that is what you are after... Good luck

Oapns - $1500 rod and reel. What is it? Be careful with that rod holder Penguin... They are not real reliable! At the very least i would advise puuting a safety line on your rod if it is in that holder. It is easy to get blase until you have seen a rod holder get destroyed by a big hit from a King! By the look of your cable it might be time to change to braid (or new cable) as well. I kept persisting with cable until i lost 2 bombs in 2 trips due to corroded cable snapping. Pain in the arse!!! Especially if the fishing is good and you have to stop!

Well done good fish. Reckon you might have caused a bit of a flotilla at the sticks for the next few weeks.

Fair enough Gazza - if that works for you keep doing it. As the Kings come back in better numbers and bigger sizes each year following the banning of the traps there are more and more large fish around. A lot of the time your 100lb leader will hold up on a reasonable fish, but when/if you come across that fish of a lifetime you want everything going in your favour. If 80cm Kings are grating your leader up on the bottom i would give you little to no chance on landing a metre plus fish... The water is equally clear in and around sydney and it really doesn't seem to be an issue running short drop backs. I know another well known member on this site who catches more than his fair share of giant Kings. At times he fishes with 200-250lb leaders and still has little chance of stopping the fish! The power of a 10kg+ Kingfish is ridiculous and it never ceases to amaze me how much force they can exert. If your leader has any sort of nicks or grazes on it i would be changing it. I know a lot of people who redo their knots after every big fish as the pressure of the fight pulls the knot really tight and weakens the line or so they say anyway. There are no right or wrongs in fishing - if it is working for you then why change it. You learn new stuff everytime you go out. I would still try shortening your drop back though - maybe keep shortening it until you stop getting hits and then keep lengthening it until you get them again. If you do come across a better fish it might give you a better chance of landing it! Good luck.

Must be only rats mate....

15-20metres!! Do you mean feet Gazza? That is an excessively long drop back - also if you get a decent fish you have effectively given it 15-20 metre headstart to get to the bottom. If you are fishing in 20m of water with your bait at 10m, but with a 15m drop back, all the fish had to do is swim down and it will already be at the bottom! You will also risk getting snagged on any structure everytime you make a turn if you have the bait that far back behind the boat. I would suggest a drop back of approximately 5-7m max. The fish will still hit the bait don't worry about that! A lot of people paint and colour their bombs as they think it actually attracts fish. The bomb will not put them off - particularly if you are waving a juicy live squid or livey in their face! Also unless you want to lose your rod over the side - DO NOT RELY ON THE BUILT IN ROD HOLDER ON THE DOWNRIGGER! If a big fish hits it hard (Not even that big an 85cm + will be enough to do it) you risk the rod holder snapping off and your rod quickly getting pulled overboard. Much safer to set up your downrigger so that you can use the gunnel mounted rod holders in your boat. Even then these are not foolproof - i have had 2 gunnel rod holders snapped off by hard hitting fish. If you are fishing solo it may even pay to put safety lines on your rods so that they can't get pulled over the side, especially if you are running more than one rod at once. Good luck with it.

Thanks for the tips Shadda... I didn't actually touch the rod, just kept driving away. Not much sand to head for in this particular spot. The rod was buckled over that hard that the tip was pretty much in the water. I was actually worried the rod was going to snap it was loaded up so hard. As to drag settings... I learnt my lesson with pussy drag last year. My drag was locked up and still screaming. You're right it was the bottom that got me - the spot i was fishing has a drop off that goes from 6m down to about 14m. I had my baits at about 10m - the fish took off sideways and down straight for the shallow ledge. It got there before i got a chance to get away from danger. In shallow water you pretty much need everything to go in your favour and then you have a chance. So far this season its Bigger Kingies 2 me 0, but one of them will stick sooner or later.

Great Kings Cflife. JayKay - i would suggest 50lb main line as minimum, possibly 80, and leader anywhere from 60 through to 100++++. I caught some good Kings yesterday to 85cm. I also got smoked by a better fish which there was no way i was going to stop. I was using 80main and 100lb leader. You might hear people say that you won;t get as many hits if you use heavy leader... I'm yet to really see that make a difference.

Nice work mate. Your strike rate has gone up about 1000% in the last 2 trips!! Now you gotta find one to give your drag a work out... Maybe Saturday

You don't need to go to the trouble of pre-tying loads of rigs - realistically they are very simple and shouldn't take you more than a couple of minutes to rig up from scratch. All you have to do is tie a few knots... Plus you might want to change your hook size or style depending on bait size or type and conditions... and if you have pre-tied them all then you can't do that! If you are at anchor, depending on the depth of the water you just need a ball sinker heavy enough to stop your livey swimming everywhere and tangling all of your other lines. The deeper the water the bigger weight you need. There are a couple of ways to rig it up. You can have a leader of about 1-1.5m and attach a swivel to the end of that. Put the ball sinker above the swivel so the swivel acts as a stopper. OR you can use a 3 way swivel and tie your weight off the 3rd eye of the swivel on a short length of line(less than ideal method) OR you can use a snapper lead and attach it to your main line by wrapping rubber bands around the line lots of times and passing the loop back through the snapper lead and over itself. If you are drifting in deeper water you will want a pretty decent size lead as even with a drogue out if the water is 30m plus deep you will find your line will angle back behind the boat a fair bit if there is any sort of current and you don't have a decent lead holding it down. A lot of people don't like to have swivels in their rig when fishing for bigger kings as that is another couple of potential weak points where the line might snap, so they just attach the lead with the elastic band method or i was on a charter in NZ and the skipper there just tied a big dropper loop about a metre up from the hook and attached the lead there. As long as you are confident in it it doesn't matter how you do it.

How do you intend to fish for them? Anchored, drifting, slow trolling, downrigger? Under a ballon or float? There are a few different options.

Hey Trung They get a LOT bigger than the ones that you have found so far. Have a look at these 4 reports from Dogtooth from a couple of years ago... He caught them all well inside the bay. http://www.fishraider.com.au/Invision/index.php?showtopic=35604&hl=dogtooth&st=0 http://www.fishraider.com.au/Invision/index.php?showtopic=35805&st=0&p=271245&hl=dogtooth&fromsearch=1entry271245 http://www.fishraider.com.au/Invision/index.php?showtopic=36167&hl=dogtooth&st=0 http://www.fishraider.com.au/Invision/index.php?showtopic=36363&hl=dogtooth&st=0 As you will see he mentions you need some HEAVY gear to have a chance against fish of this calibre. 80lb braid minimum and 100lb +++ leader. There have been a number of reports of people seeing fish estimated as over 20kg in Sydney harbour. I am sure there are plenty of a similar size in and around botany bay. Don't be afraid to put down a really big livebait - a big fish will inhale it! Good luck.

Great fishing! Jeez you guys do it tough up there don't you! VERY Jealous!

Here you go Dan... Straight from the DPI website. (http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/fisheries/recreational/regulations/sw/sw-bag-and-size/about-bag-and-size-limits) Bag Limit and Possession limit are one and the same - i.e. you are only allowed 5 Kings TOTAL in your possession regardless of when you caught them. Bag limit Bag limit is the maximum number of fish per person in possession. A maximum daily bag limit of 20 applies to any fish or invertebrate not included in the tables bag & size limit tables. Daily bag limits are one of the key tools for managing recreational fishing. They limit the number of fish that an individual angler can catch and keep in a 24 hour period. Bag limits are typically put in place for a number of biological and social reasons including: conserving fish stocks sharing the catch between recreational fishers and other users encouraging responsible and ethical use of fisheries resources assisting in reducing illegal fish sales protecting threatened or vulnerable species Bag limits apply to all forms of recreational fishing for fish and invertebrates, including line fishing, spearfishing, hand gathering, prawn scooping, drag netting, bait collection, and the use of crab traps, nets and lobster pots. Possession limit A possession limit is the maximum number of fish that a person is allowed to have in their possession at any time. Possession limits provide a useful tool to discourage illegal sales of fish by constraining recreational fishers from accumulation commercial quantities of fish. For all saltwater species, the daily bag limit is the possession limit and it applies to all areas of the state. <a name="Boat-limits" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Boat limits Boat limits aim to limit the catch of anglers fishing in the same boat over a 24 hour period. These apply regardless of the number of people in the boat. Boat limits are intended to limit the overall recreational fishing catch and prevent the circumvention of personal daily bag limits by individual fishers through the carrying of non-fishing passengers in a boat. At present, the only boat limit applies to gemfish (10 fish).

Hey mimyo - Are you aware that the possession limit for Kings (and pretty much all fish) is the same as the bag limit? i.e. you are only supposed to have 5 Kings total at anyone time... So not much point in having a bigger freezer when there should only be 5 Kings in there at any one time.

I got to say that by the sounds of it some of you have been very lucky. I have been checked by the fisheries on numerous occassions, both in the harbour and surrounds and a fair distance out. I have seen them out at the Peak twice. They had a big mother ship and the inspectors were going from boat to boat in a rib. I have also seen them wider out towards the 12 mile - so it goes to show they do get around. As others have said - if you keep undersized fish regularly eventually you will get caught. I have a couple of numbers for the officers stored in my phone. When i see people blatantly keeping undersized Kings i call up and report their rego number. I reported the same boat/fisherman 3 times last year!! I got stopped recently in the harbour and one of the inspectors was a guy i know who has made a career change. I'm hoping he might be able to respond a bit quicker if i call him and tell him theres lots of #ickheads at the wedding cake (or whatever it might be) keeping undersize fish. It would be very satisfying to hang around and watch people blowing up when they get smashed with a big fine! It would be nice if people just did the right thing........

Great fishing boys - make us all really jealous what don't ya!!! That last fish is a cracker. What did it weigh/measure. Looks a good 15kg fish at least...

Well done mate - i thought about braving the weather as i knew there would be no one else out there... But i quickly thought against it. You deserved that fish just for going out! Now we just got to get you a decent one on the jig...

Well done mate - the first one is always the hardest! Hopefully you will get a few more this season.

Nice one mate!! Just come home after seveeeeeeeral beers and seen your report. Maybe i should have gone fishing afterall! Same spot?

Mate you're killing the Reds atm - great work!

Is that a piss take Dan...? No panic mate, just careless on my behalf. Neither of the fish lost were due to bust offs - The leader didn't snap. Its going to take a serious fish to bust my leader... On the first loss the hooks pulled. I might have landed it if i had used a net but probably not as the hooks were literally hanging by a thread in the corner of its mouth. The second one i lost was due to shite fishing technique by myself. Everyone knows if you let the bend go out of the rod you risk losing the fish. I had stopped its first couple of runs and felt i had it under control. I took the opportunity to wind up one of the downriggers. Fish swam towards me, slack line, bend in the rod gone... Fish goonnnnneeee. Lesson learned though. Don't fish solo with 2 downriggers out and then drop another rod into the mix when you see a good show! Thanks for the advice though.

Ha ha... Actually pretty close Humesy! I went out again yesterday and i copped an extra lesson last period of the day. I was stood in the doorway of the classroom with my bag in my hand and my car keys at the ready. When the bell went i sprinted to the car park!

Unlikely that you will catch kings at night... You do hear of the odd one or two being caught at night, but it seems to be pretty rare. However if you have a yakka out at sunrise now that is a different matter! Good luck!

Thanks for the replies. Fish caught in main harbour on squid.