luderick -angler

Nice effort, nothing better than seeing a family enjoy a day out, i know from my days as a kid fishing with Dad kept me in good stead for what i do now as a fisho and it kept me out of trouble! Also to see the bay produce considering the abuse its copped over the past 200 years! Those trevs make great sashimi too

locodave, try around the swimming baths and adjacent rock wall on the run out, the rail and road bridge run out tide on the gosford side under the bridge! there also the weed beds and wharf at Davistown, the rail bridge at Gosford, the Entrance has been producing fish i myself have not been up there but my cousin whos at Davistown tells me there are fish there he did not elaborate, if you like a bit of rock hopping try the skillion at Terrigal or Mugs at Avoca, they also get good fish at Mc Masters, just check the swell first! Hope this helps. LA

Dave, a lot of people say use small hooks for blackies but you'd be surprised by the size of their gobs when they open up specially the big uns, we used to get a lot of blackies at night down Sussex fishing for bream wit hnippers and you'd gut hoo kthem on a 1/0 frustrating when your after bream and theres palgues of blackies and good size ones stealing your nippers though they hit harder than some bream of equal size! i end up using a 6 suicide off therocks some days! Sorry i'm going off topic here! Apologies, back to the subject meanwhile! Talking of having fish stolen of a line i had a 2lb blackie snavelled by a metre long king 2 years ago off the end of wharf 2 hickson road and a few years back dad got smashed up 7 times straight thinking they were pigs when in fact they were big blackies getting snavelled by a 7ft whaler shark sitting in the hole they were fishing off nth cronulla rocks! LA

sounds like a top morning Roberta, sounds encouraging withthe fish sitting off the stones you gotta hope they come in though and don't move on! As for your hooks try 540 viking hooks in the stainless or the tarpon style 7666 both in a size 8 also a beak or suicde hook in a size 8 get regualr weight hooks and 2X strong, suicide hooks being veryshort tend not to straighten out. PM me if you want the exact brand names of hooks and models i carry about 6 different models and sizes!

Divey, we get a lot of fish like that in the Cooks and Georges River, me old man reckons its the fish bottom feeding on the silt and mud looking for a feed and the yeare that hungry or scouring themselves out for spawning, we used to get heaps off the sand at Tamarama in September full of sand grit, but you would catch them unconvetionally using a 3 ft ttrace and no. 1 ball sinker with cabbage in the corner where the rocks meet the sand. I will never figure it out!

I was wondering if you all are interested in starting a thread along thelines of when you aretargeting a species and you catch the unexpected? I'll start wit hmy two a pike on a cabbage bait fishing 13ft of the trap at little bay and a 3lb flattie all the way up at Tempe in the cooks using weed for blackies! again go figure!

lethargist, over the years i witnessed from being allowed to fish the ferry wharves to an outright ban on them, i have found as a ruleof thumb statew transit wharves are off limits though they turn a blind eye on some and not others. Some good wharves are the one in pyrmont point park and the small ones in the lane cove river and middle harbour check your ubd and search and ye shall find which ones are okay to fish from hope this helps. LA

Roberta, there's a place dad used to fish up north and you would be on the wall and behind it was a swamp full of weed you would do the exact same thing, i found when i burley you really can't give them too much in the majority of places as all they do is eat it and crap it out as quick as they can eat it, theres only a hand ful of spots i fish that once you get em on the chew you stop burleying or get very lean with it some places you need a 20l bucket to keep them there! As we keep saying go figure!

Thanks for the replys there folks, they were fat little un's smallest was 11inches in the LSD scale the biggest was 13 inches, they were either empty in the stomach or full of the ribbon weed? I did go for a wade down the end of Tourmaline Street and the lake is full of the green wire weed (the stuff thata looks reel nice to use except when you pick it it feels like fine steel wool, though its funny most folks won't use this stuff buti have caught very good fish with it down ion the Kurnell rocks when it grows in the swamps in the bay. Another point the weed i had came from the backwaters of Botany Bay and i thought this stuff ain't gonna produce Dad always said the lake weed was the go or the local rock weed, well to my pleasent surprise it worked! Never will stop amazing me with their habits! Cheers all LA

Sounds good there are enough dedicated luderick fishers here i see. I've always thought about a dedicated luderick site.............Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Oh and that angler you refer to that luderick 59 knows i vividly remeber the photo in fishing weekly Dad had cut it out and stuck it in an album, i beleive it went 8lb 3oz and was caught at bluefish in the murk..............mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm shit n&*%%$#s Dad recalls seeing them caught at Yella at Malabar, they ended up more often than not as fish cakes in the local RSL i believe the boys used to catch them on peas right outta the boils! If only my father were not so secretive i'd love him to put all his experience and adventures down as an oral history but then us luderick fishers can be tighter than the proverbial, okay let me start a train of reminisence of spots long gone or forgotten anyone ever fish the old Erskine Street Ferry Wharf down from Wynard Station or the Nielsen Park Ferry wharf?

Well after 12 months of saying i was going to go up to the lake for a change i finally did it, Mark had come down my way last week for some good blackie action in the Cooks River so i decide it was only fair to make an effort and head up his way. The thought was a rock session in our plans last week but with the seas being unpredictable at the moment plan b was the go (yes we are going lake fishing) Got to the first spot at 7.30 and did no good for two hours so the call was made change spots got to the next spot and after 15 mins okay were sorted 7 fish in an hour loads of downs 3 dropped fish and then gone! We found the hour either side of high water was the go when the run slowed. thanks for a great day Mark, i'll look into a session somewhere in the Georges next week depending on tides and the weed situation. oh by the way hopefully Mark has a pick he can add to this post. Cheers LA

Actually blackfish it was a 287 a very whippy and soft 10ft estuary stick, my first rock rod was a butterworth 5144 light, i inherited my first 663 and 3902 when i was around 15 years old! Still use em today and you would get my left arm rather than these! Roberta, very rarely do i get a chance but Dad used to go every July for a fortnight it was either Nambucca, Port Macquarie, Yamba or Ballina. He got his biggest fish ever at Nambucca it went 5.75lbs the biggest harbour fish he got was down Pyrmont it went 4.5lb. They seem to have run late the last few seasons though a mate sais you can walk on them at Port Stephens that was 2 weeks ago, but they are a mystery and i've known them to take a left turn go up the Georges and miss Port Hacking then the next year the yappear in the Cooks River, tslking to Dad a moment ago he says this happens up north and the majority of fish bypass one river and you might get 1 school all month in your river whilst the next river is lousy withthe buggers. It happened here this season the Georges is thick with them yet the cooks has only a few scattered fish! Go figure. Oh BTW Dad has chased them for 60 years and he rckons he still can not figure them out! Cheers LA

Cheers mate, been at it for as long as i can remeber, won't fish for anything else its that bad an addiction! But hey i would'nt have it any other way, learn't to fish with an old sportex and a steelite 22, still got that sportex too! Best darn brand of blackfish rod ever made in my humble opion, got older dad gave me one of his avons, a great art in fishing is luderick angling and i have my dad to thank that i'll never regret.

Very nice guys, good looking healthy fish. Most of the blackies seem to have gone inside to spawn as i'm getting a lot of smelted up and roed up fish now, those on the rocks seem to be bigger but a lot thinner in numbers. BTW do you clean the black lining out straight away? I find if you leave it in them you get that sick iodine taste! Oh and a trick the old boys taught me if you want a ballistic session chop some aniseed up and stick it in your burley, just don't eat them as it goes through the flesh i'm told, apparently the blackies go nuts over it. We used to do it in the Georges when we fancied a catch and release day! Cheers LA

Just like to say hito everyone and note that it is encouraging to see a lot more blackfishers here than on some other sites (reason is i now have some other fishers that sharew that same strange addiction every time you see a patch of weed or when you get that first tentative down! I've had this problem since a five year old fishing Hickson Road next to the Russian and Dad. Well 27 years later its just as bad) Look forward to chatting with all you other cross eyed float starers! Cheers all LA

Very nice bag of fish there guys, good to see the lake fishing well, have not been up there for years! Might give it a go soon. Been getting some good fish in the harbour and Georges , they seem to have headed to the deeper water with the westerly influence though now its cleared up after the rain. By the way i can remeber that old Ron Calcutt video from when i was a kid guys lined up shoulder to shoulder in the lake.........mmmmmmmmm memories. Enjoy and tight lines.