Sea Ranger

I'll have to get her to sign up

Thanks Master it was a top day. Water was dirty with lots of Jelly Fish. We did not find the schools of bait fish in the large numbers we saw last week. We did find a few but ironically where I caught the Flattie there wasn't any baitfish. The sounder showed what looked like a good spot to me. Bear

Brag picture

Well my wife and I went out today in Port Hacking Boat fishing Stacer Sea Ranger 499 Rod Shimano Spectrum Plus 10kg 6.6ft Reel Shimano 6500b Baitrunner 10kg mono 50gram jighead with 6" soft plastic wiggle tail white and sparkle Red bead about 30cm up from lure. Anchored casting into 15 meters of water Well the day started a bit rough with our early start being about an hour later than intended. Gotta plan the night before better. Got to Grays Point boat ramp at 6am no waiting. 28foot Whittley behind us. Mrs needs to use the toilet (me too) so we let him go first and we pulled up out of the way. By the time my wife returned from the toilet there was 6 boats waiting to go in and the bloke with the 28 footer (on his own) was having difficulty backing straight. So I helped him back his boat in and tie it off for him to get the que going. Finally we got in. As a side note the same bloke later passed us in the no wake zone near Wally's wharf doing around 20 knots. Huge bow wave right through the sanctuary. Mate if you are reading this, it is a no wake zone. You rocked all the private jettys there and swamped 2 kayaks. We went to our favourite secret spot (wink) and started working with our 4kg soft plastic rigs. I had a couple of snags last week that had me cut line off my reel. I did not realize how much I had removed and found I could not cast as my mono to braid knot for the backing kept snagging what little braid was left and leaving me with a loud splash. Last week we had several schools of rat kings chase bait, so late last night I came up with the best rig I had laying around to attempt one of those if they showed up. (Listed above) I decided to use that rig and instead of chasing kings, I'd fish it like I do my lighter gear bouncing along the bottom. Second or third cast at around 7am several hours into the runout I got a solid hookup. Short fight with 10kg line (mono too as the old bait runners don't like braid or so I've been told). My wife did an excellent job netting and we measured the lizard at a pinch over 66cm. WOW that is my personal best ever. Not much action after that but did have some Kingies chase my lure to the boat once but did not strike. I had another hit later in the morning that tore the tail almost off my lure so it was attracting fish. We also saw a shark (or at least we think it was) looked about 20" in diameter swim right under the boat. Unsure of the length but at least a meter with a fair bit more. Rue said she saw at least 2meters of fish. I saw at least a meter but did not see the dorsal or pectoral fins to ID. Bullshark? With all the kids water skiing and wakeboarding it made my Mrs a little nervous. We let the big lizard go so it's still out there hopefully making lots of other ones just like it. Bear and Rue

Thinking of hitting the Hacking tomorrow. Any reports from today appreciated. Bear

Same here. I always spike my fish or squid I intend to eat. Quick and humane Bear

Well that explains a bit. I get nervous n less than a meter of water.

RIP Captain

We haven’t yet figured out crabs on the hand lines but we are trying. Nice catch mate

Yowie,, That what these were doing. Then like torpedos chasing bait

sorry just added bits on the phone and then edited it on the computer

Launched our new boat at Grays Point (Port Hacking) at 0900 this morning. Fishing soft plastics braid/mono and 1000 to 2500 spinning gear Marked heaps of large bait schools with lots of predator fish hanging about. Caught these 2 fish just after turn of tide at noon But even more amazing is several times we saw groups of rat kings come flying along the surface chasing baitfish. My son managed to get one to take his soft plastic however it was a short fight and the fish bit his lure in half, no hook up. Still exciting to see these fish hunting on the surface.

tooooo late money already started leaking lol I should probably start another thread thank you

OOps 🙈 I didn't look at the date,, it was near the top of the messages and I didn't look Thanks for the offer Paddy,, I might take you up on that. I want to put my 18yo son on some big fish this year. Bear

It seems this forum isn't very active. Where have you all gone? I see some familiar names in the old posts. Are you fishing less for game or posting less? Bear

Soft Plastics by far for me. Spoons next and then hard bodies. Never much luck with vibes Bear

Depends on what you are targeting and how you are fishing for that fish. I'm no expert just getting into game myself but have been chasing around similar to you. What are you targeting? 50W is a big reel. Giant Kingies all the way to Bluefin with that one. How are you fishing? Live bait, Jigging (50w is too big for that I think), trolling? Line class? 24kg or +++ Braid or Mono Rollers or Guides? My understanding is that unless you are using really good rollers Guides are better for braid and Rollers for Mono,, That said I have a TCurve and the tolerances of the AFTCO rollers are really good and allegedly better with braid. Experts please chime in. For standup I think straight butt unless you are shorter or female. Chair fishing bent butt. Again no expert just what I've been reasearching Heaps to think about Bear

LOL we seem to eat more than use for bait too!

Bundeena and drifiting out from Gunnamatta seem to always produce. It seems change of tide or just past high tide is best recently.

I always do well catching squid in the hacking. 2.5 or 3.0 jig lumo white or pink seems to be the colours that work best for me. Bear

too small for my old eyes but the phone version does work on a tablet as well which works for me (and is cheaper than the tablet version) Bear

Nice post Mike. That is very informative

Nice feed there Loomesy. Were you hand lining or using traps? Bear

My wife and I were out at about the same time mate. We were also at the ramp around 1145 am.. White Stacer center console. I'll keep my eyes open for you next time. We (Ok my wife did) only managed 1 keeper flathead and a few small ones. It was a maiden voyage for our new boat. Bear

Hey mii11x Did you end up buying a sounder? Which one did you get? I just bought a new boat and it came with a Garmin 75sv which I've only had out twice but so far it works really well for me. (Considering I was using a Lowrance x25 before it lol) Different than what you are asking but curious to which one you went with? Bear