TheFishyFisherman

Hello fishraiders. Just wondering how to catch really big bream and other species. My biggest bream was 30 cm on the dot but I feel like I could do better since everyone else on fishraider has a PB of 40+ cm bream. Does anyone have any useful tips I can use? I’m currently fishing Mosman wharf cuz there are a lot of big bream around the pylons. Any help would be appreciated. Also, am I allowed to fish near this spot? It looks very fishy but it’s really close the the ferry stop so I fished around it when I went there

Me too. (Besides yakkas)

Definitley try balmoral. The boat jetty’s full of them and you don’t even have to burley during the warm seasons. I’ve even caught them on really small soft plastics a couple of times to my surprise. I always catch them whenever I’m there and use them as livebaits. During the winter, they’re a bit sluggish though and you need to burley with bread or canned tuna to make them active again. You can probably catch them in the hundreds if you constantly fish for them there for hours. REMEMBER, USE TINY HOOKS OR ELSE YOU WONT CATCH THEM

What about around middle harbour? Like balmoral, Mosman, Clontarf, etc?

What about around middle harbour? Like balmoral, Mosman, Clontarf, etc?

But the marina isn’t within casting distance from outside the pool right? (Sorry I might be wrong, don’t really have a good memory of what it was like) I can only cast up to 25 metres (with a 6 foot rod). Wouldn’t it be more convenient to fish near the marina or is that not allowed?

R u actually allowed to fish near or off the netted pool tho? People swim there and I dont want to catch any humans swimming around it

Thanks guys!! I’ll try what u have said next time!!!

Wow thanks. When yo mean the edge, do you mean the stone platforms? (The ones with bird poo all over them)

Thanks!!

Thanks!!

Would they still be around cuz it’s almost winter. The mornings have been like 9 degrees in Sydney. Surprised that we can still catch fish

Thanks!!! I didn’t know you could use surface lures unless u were fishing really shallow water. I though whiting only ate of the ground. Was it a popper or a soft plastic?

I agree. They wouldn’t really touch my bait until I used my yakka gear which is really light. Does anyone know how to distract the toadies tho? Do I just burly elsewhere to make them go away?

Thanks so much for the info. I’ll wait until the summer for the mullet (live baiting is fun). Whereabouts in the flats is best for whiting? I’ve also heard that there are squid during high tide under the marina.

Hello raiders. I went to Clontarf with some prawns and pillows and fished right off the beach. We fished the big drop off but got nothing (it’s almost winter now) except toad fish so we gave up and went to Mosman bay wharf for the first time. We fished near the cafe (away from the ferry stop) and saw a couple of decent legal bream right underneath the pylons so we tried to lure them out with prawn heads as burly but only attracted the toadies. There were no baitfish around to my surprise so we started casting toward the pylons with little weight to not scare the bream but the toadie would smash up our prawns and pillies before it would reach the bream 🤬. Eventually, my friend started casting out but no hookups and tiny bites were felt. I persevered and painstaking went for the bream, desperate to catch something decent. Used a size 3 hook with bits of peeled prawn but the toadies were being annoying. I put on an extra big piece of prawn on a size 11 hook to target the fan belly leatherjacket that was swimming around but eventually gave up. Just when I’m about to give up I feel a big tug and pause. It reel my line in and it turned out that a bream was eating my bait and I unintentionally set the hook as I was reeling in. It was a short fight (lasted about 30 seconds. 😂😅) and had to haul it up because I was standing about 3 metres above water. I was scared of dropping it cuz i had it on my yakka gear but managed to land it (30 cm on the dot). It went in the esky after it was scaled and gutted for dinner. On my last cast, I get my line tangled on some seaweed but the seaweed starts wriggling and I realise that it was the camouflaged fan belly leather jacket that I was chasing before (34 cm. New pb!!). I jag hooked it on its tail accidentally! I cleaned it too and then head home. (Surprised that I didn’t hook any of the toad fish there🧐) Anyway, the leather jacket was an accidental catch so I would like some tips about the spot. Also my first time fishing Clontarf too.

Also how king should my leader be if I were to use live yakkas there for kings or tailor

I used a running sinker with a swivel and live bait circle hook. I just started doing using floats now though cuz I get more fish that way

Can they be used as livies? I catch a couple of them at balmoral

*when not then

Yeah!!! The leather jacket skin hurt my hands a bit tho then it wiggles in my hands 😂. The skins too rough

Thanks everyone. Heading out to see why beach today with my shimano eclipse lumo and gonna use beach worms. Hope I get something today☺️. Last time I only got 2 trevally (33 c/m and 35 c/m) and surprisingly I also got a luderick (38 cm). (Casted over the surf cuz I never get anything in the gutters 😭)

Thanks! Also, I made a typo on the shimano and accidentally wrote shuman. Sorry

Hello Raiders, I’ve only just started fishing with live baits. I went to Balmoral with a friend at about 11 am and started berlying with bread and slapped on some chum (a pudding bait I made with canned tuna and flour) on my Shuman raider. Pretty soon, we had the livie bucket full of yakkas with an aerator going on. We pinned the yakkas on the nose with our circle hooks but then disaster struck! Two greedy cormorants popped up and the birds tried to take our livies. We switched rigs to a sinking one on our rods and wait for the birds to go away. One they were gone, we set the livies out again with the drags loose and waited. My friend then went to the bathroom and left me to look after the rods when suddenly, the drag was screaming and the rod tip kept jiggling forward. I waited for a bit to let the fish run so it could hook itself and then I tightened the drag up a little bit (twisted the drag twice so it would be half tight - half loose). Whatever that was on my rod kept stripping line off the reel and the fishes head shakes almost made me drop the rod. My friend was heading back and as soon as he saw that I was on, he ran to help land it. I reeled in some more and then the fish tried to snap me off from under the oyster covered pylons and then my friend went to the lower part of the jetty and pulled the line and fish up onto land. I couldn’t believe it…… It was our first Kingfish!!! For a year, we’ve been dreaming of catching kings because we weren’t very experienced with fishing with live baits. We measured it (73 cm so it’s legal), bled it, gut it and scaled it and then put it in the esky. After all that, I checked if we had any yakkas left but we had only one. I burleyed again to get the yakkas feeding so I could catch them easily but then a fanbellied leather jacket came and started eating a piece of floating bread near me. It was so close to the surface and I grabbed it with my bare hands! My friend thought that it was probably sick so it couldn’t react in time (I gave the leatherjacket to a man who was fishing near me). I didn’t get a picture of the leatherjacket but I did get a picture of the kingfish.