fishermangreg

That's a nice bream on spiderweb line. Taking on anything that out weighs the line class is always heart in the throat stuff. Well done. The baby oyster catchers are soooo hard to see. You might have to add another pic with circles around them. their camouflage is awsome.

G'day JB The yellowtail horse mackerel is very similar to the greenback horse mackerel but has 68 to 73 lateral line scutes, compared with 76 to 82 for the greenback horse mackerel.

The yellowtail scad (the small yakka's which grow to a max 30cm) is the only member of the monotypic genus Atule, one of THIRTY genera in the jack and horse mackerel family Carangidae. which include fish like dart, trevally's, queenfish, and amberjacks. 2 common horse mackerel that frequent our shores are the yellowtail horse mackerel (grows up to 50cm) and the greenback horse mackerel. (which can grow to 80cm). I think you would find jack mackerel more on the eastern side of the pacific along the coast from california to alaska.

That's an old boot ... a wirrah cod. they grow up to 50cm's and taste like an old boot

Not sure if this helps but still handy to know. When squidding from a wharf up in nth qld, i used to tie a rope and hang a kero lantern with a hood on it over the edge.

I'd like to add an old photo i have of a small narrow-barred spanish mackerel. Sorry for the pic quality.

I'd like to put my 2 cents worth and say that i have fished the Hawksbury for over 30yrs and have been witness to it's slow demise from many pressures of human greed syndrome 1 - Commercial fishing 2 - Industrial outfow 3 - Unprocessed sewage 4 - agricultural products leeching when it rains 5 - Human waste of all types and descriptions In my opinion, yes commercial fishing is one of the factors that destroys a river systems ecology, or eventually does lead to the demise of certain populations of marine stock that rely on these habitats to live and/or breed. Lessons learnt from the lost or near-to extinction of species in the past have taught us not to put too much pressure on anything that requires these areas as a home, rest area or breeding place year in year out. I agree there are still fish to be caught in the hawksbury but they would be school pods or loners that have been either missed or reduced in numbers and only survive and replenish themselves by having good deep water access which constantly flushes itself and provides access for fish to an enormous area to disperse into. Was a time when you could go fishing the hawksbury or pittwater thru winter and hairtail would be in plague numbers. A fish that we know not much about yet has been decreasing from catches every year. Yet nothing seems to been done to reason why these fish are dwindling in numbers. Restocking a system is a great idea and the results have been fantastic so far in reference to thousands of jewfish fingerlings being released into botany bay, the cooks and the georges river which has resulted in some very happy raiders coming up with good catches. Awareness thru eduction, pressure put on industries and common sense can go a long way but as i stated in the beginning, human greed over-rides the environment every time. another thank you for listening. tight lines.

Could be a toothy critters slack attempt at catching lunch. My guess is a yeast infection....

When fishing for John Dory i usually use a float rig with enough weight to help keep the yakka just off the bottom. A 4 - 6kg leader with a 2/0 - 4/0 suicide hook. i found small yakka's work the best and you need to clip the yakka's tail so the dory can catch it easier.

Sorry, i should have gone into more detail about what happened. I guess my bad also for not thinking that taking 50 or so oysters that will grow back anyway of a rock from a tidal system that has BILLIONS of oysters along its rocky shoreline would bring out the fun police. The owner of the property uses the beach nearly every weekend with family and friends. They use it a lot for launching, disembarking and retrieving kayaks and in the past some people have cut their feet on the sharp oysters when the tides up a bit and the waters murky. The top of the rock was very slippery and even the slightest pressure on it caused you to slip and be cut deeply by the oysters that were on it. But hey, i'm open to debate about this. Am i an enviromental terrorist?

Around 3 weeks ago i had a job cleaning up a little beach section at a house in castlecrag on middle harbour. I had to scrape a rock clean that had a few oysters growing on it. When the tide started to come back in the bream were not shy at all. A few of the big ones were well over the kilo mark. My bad for not having a rod with me but it was fun to watch.

g'day paintstripper, I think it might be a fringe-eye flathead http://www.amonline.net.au/fishes/fishfact...h/cnematoph.htm

Thank you David. I now stand corrected.

I haven't caught one but i gaffed one for a fella on bowen jetty. This fish was massive and the poor guy had some sort of a heart attack while playing it!! His wife called me over and asked if i could gaff it while she hung onto the rod and he got his heart pills. Bowen jetty is a good 6-10 feet of the water and pulling this fish up felt like two cement bags(the old 25kg ones)(im in the building industry lol) I got it up onto the jetty and the fish took one big gulp of air and seemed like it died. Didn't move. I felt sorry for it in a majestic kind of way. This fish was 1.3 - 1.4 meters long!! The wife grabbed a knife and started cutting the guts out of it and the hubbie said no time for that, lets get to the hospital!! The wife asked me if i would help lift it into their combi (with its guts still hanging out!!) She couldn't lift her end so my girlfriend struggled with her and the three of us plopped it in thru the side door and off they went. ps I saw this fella many times after that and EVERY time he hooked a fish (usually big ones) and EVERY time he would have trouble with his heart. But he loved fishing so much he couldn't stop. There's a plaque mounted at the end of the jetty that commemorates his fine catches.

G'day Dino, You've started a good topic and i hope other fishraiders will contribute to your topic. I've been fishing for 30 odd years and it still baffles me to this day. I've caught big fish in the middle of the day as well as catching them in the morning or afternoon. Windy or windless days don't seem to make a difference. Just a pain in the proverbial, or dangerous if it's windy with a big swell. Same goes with rainy days. Rainy days are good in one sense cause there's not many other people about. Reading the moons lunar cycle is one that i've always heard about but haven't delved into that much. I could use help on this one too!! Correct me fellow fishos if i'm wrong... i think its documented?? there's a guy named jewfish george?, that was asked to predict a 15kg+ jewfish capture on the hawkesbury. He called a three day period a couple of months in advance and within an hour of the first day he landed a 35kg specimen. As i said, correct me if i'm wrong please. The best way i found was to learn as much about the species of fish you want to catch and then putting that all into practice. Then it comes down to the FISH being around and feeding when i'm there. A bit hit or miss but i get my fair share. There's a lot of fish out there and a lot of water between them. Finding them or bringing them to you in any conditions is half the battle won. CHEERS MATE