monch

Sounds like a cracker of a day on the water! Did you take any pics? Would have been a sight to see that's for sure.

It works better with scented plastics which are pretty much baits. If you have run out of bait and don't want to bother with working your plastics i guess it would work to some extent but you will definitely get more rubbish fish. However, my question would be, why bother buying and using stinky expensive plastics for that purpose when you have a stinky old prawn that is much cheaper and works much better?

Congrats on the capture, 93 cm jewie on plastic! Great report and thanks for sharing all the facts. Can't wait to see the pics It seems that a lot of the bigger jewies are being caught on the lighter gear. I guess that provides more evidence for the theory "fish light to get the bite". Just noticed that it was landbased, wow and you hooked it 3m from shore, amazing!

Got mine too

You always seem to find the action seriola, whether it be in the hacking or the harbour, great work Would love to have some fun with large slimies, or small ones for that matter. Would this happen to be at THE wharf? Monch

Wow great fish on the light gear, congrats! Is that a catana rod, sedona reel? i have the same outfit, 6lb fireline, 8lb leader, only difference is the colour of the braid.

Just got myself some split ring pliers, owner split rings and trebles for my smaller lures. The pliers are not the ideal size for bream size split rings but works good enough. Really good tip on the orientation of the trebles, would've never thought about that!

Bad luck on the kings but at least you got a feed and/or some quality baits. Those squid are HUGE, would have put up a good fight. The bonnies are always good fun to catch as well.

Fished at one of my local wharves at port hacking on saturday morning hoping for some kings to be around and some other small pelagics. Brought along 1 week old frozen squid but planned to catch bait on the day as well. High tide was around 9am with a barometer in the 1030's, slightly overcast and breeze pushing inshore, had high hopes. Arrived abit late close to 7am and the better areas of the wharf were already taken Set up in my own little spot and deployed the squid strips in less than ideal areas but good enough. Pickers finished off the squid but I managed to get 2 yakkas easily, 1 mars bar sized and another around the 17+ cm mark. Saw some fish boiling up every now and then fairly close to the wharf (what i later found out to be frigates) but couldn't get any interest from them with the 1.5g halco twisty and zappa55. Bridle rigged up the smallest yakka and sent him out close to the wharf to see if anything wanted a free meal. The frigates swam right past the yakka, no interest at all. Had a hit and a few follows from 1 on the tiny metal but nothing more. The frigates were darting around the pylons about 1m below me, their backs slicing through the surface of the water. If i was extremely fast with the net i might have reached them, didn't bother though, was scared i might fall in from all the desperate net waving that would eventually happen. Gave up on the frigates and decided to cast pencils into the shallow weed banks that i could just reach with the wind at my back. Baby tailor were there once again. I tried a really quick straight out retrieve and 2 brown shapes followed it in at high speed, then i saw they were squid! Wow, never knew squid could move so quick. Immediately stopped the lure and the squid slowed down, had a look and grabbed it, i struck and the hooks set WOooo squid on a pencil. Rigged up the squid and sent him out live on the kingy rod with a 2 hook sliding snell on a paternoster. It managed to stay alive for a good 5 mins before it got demolished by pickers. I needed another live squid so once again out came the zappa 55. Managed to hook another squid doing a reallyyy fast and constant walk the dog. Once again it zoomed in, i stopped the lure right at my feet and it took it. Both squid were about 15-18cm hood length. Both of the squid would have chased the lure about 10m from the weed beds to right at my feet, aggressive buggers. Sent out the squid live again, had a small run on the baitrunner but the fish dropped the bait. After waiting abit, i checked the bait, squid was dead but still intact. Sent it back out and about 20mins later i had a very fast but short run from a fish, nearly gave me an overrun on the reel but the fish also dropped the bait and didn't come back . By noon i decided to leave. Even thought it had been overcast, the action died right down so I released the 2 yakkas and kept 1 squid for bait that i got using the conventional method, ie a squid jig.

Those luckycraft lures are sooo exxy though, nearly $30 a pop. I think i'm gonna stick to the zappas and rovers. At half the price of the sammys and NW pencils, i can afford to lose twice as many.

Friggen Good knot

Thought that was the case but the line snapped after about 1.5 seconds into the run, the frigate had dived 2m down before the dreaded ping. Must have been a nick in the leader Yeh Roberta, I have tried leaving the lure in the water and waiting for them to come around for their next lap. Unfortunately where I get them their laps are several minutes apart and sometimes it seems they disappear for an hour or so and come back. And obviously it will be the second that i pull the lure outta the water or muck around with something when they decide to cruise through and back out all in under 10 seconds. I have just gotten a 1.5g Halco twisty which is 2cm long, closest thing i can get to using a fly without having a fly rod and still get 10m cast distance. Hope it does the trick.

Joined up last week, hope for good weather this time I'm betting bream will be one of the target species since it wasn't one last time. Flathead are nice and abundant and fairly easy to catch so i think they will remain on the list. That means 1 more saltwater species.... hmmm. Will it be whiting again or something different?

Was at Gymea. I had a metal rigged on another rod with 12lb leader and they weren't hitting that. In the past they have also been very shy of my offerings so i tried to go lighter to get the hits, then worry about landing them.

Went to one of my local wharves for a quick lure session even though the wind was howling. Plan was to hope for some surface action and get into it with metals. On arriving there i see 4 frigate mackerel cruise through the shallows, make a lap and back out... "excellent!" I thought. Start spinning some metals blindly around the general area but get no interest. Decided to toss a pencil out to see if the small tailor were around like last week and they were. Got a few of them using hard twitches, like doing an aggressive popper retrieve with a pencil lure. Entertained myself with them for a while before they buggered off. After a quiet moment I get some missed strikes by fish on the px45, thought the small tailor were back because of the very small splashes. Casted again and i hookup to some good weight, i watch my line zip right infront of me and out to the distance, followed by a flash of blue and silver, YES onto a frigate. The fish gave up the fight fairly quickly, only about 1 min of powerful but short runs on bream gear and it decided to do the tuna circles on the surface. I grab the net but can't reach it even at full stretch. Whilst i reposition myself for another go, i dipped the rod and the fish got its head down and got its 2nd wind making another blistering run before PING! the line snapped. I was very surprised, it didn't rub me off on anything, has no teeth and I had 8lb mono leader with my drag set well. There goes another $20 lure and another 40cm+ frigate. Tie on another pencil and quickly cast it out, i get another hookup but the fish spat the hook within 2 seconds. Sun was starting to set and the action died down so i dragged myself home with my tail between my legs. Monch

Top effort there mate, lots of bonnies and they are all good sizes, must've been fun on the light gear. Btw, what size x-wrap are you using and is it the deep or shallow diving version? I haven't been able to tempt any of the bonnies, frigates or kings in port hacking with the bigger lures, only tiny 2 inch or smaller lures that you can't cast with any distance

I find there are a few ways to fish bread, either floated on the top with some floating burley or left to sink unweighted slowly in conjunction with sinking bread burley. I find fresh white bread the easiest to use because it doesn't crumble as easy as wholemeal, just get the cheapest white bread you can get. Also make sure to keep it in the bag otherwise it will dry up and turn into toast in the summer sun. Get a small hook, I often get bream when i go for baitfish with size 12 blackfish hooks, although the bright green of those hooks is abit too conspicuous for the wary bream, you can hide most of the hook with the bread. Match the portion of bread you use with the size of the hook, i use small hooks so usually only pieces of bread which are about 6mmx6mm. Burley is the key, to have floating burley, just rip the dry bread into little pieces and drop it in the water. You can try a fine mist but i prefer very small chunks about the size of your bait watever you decide. To have sinking burley, dip the bread in water, preferably in a bucket and mash it up in your hands. Again you can make it into a mist of milky water and pour that in or have small fluffy wet chunks. Experiment. If you want it to float, slightly compress one side of the bread so it goes though the hook easier but try to leave most of it fluffy, then thread the other side so the bait covers most of the hook. You are meant to leave the hook point exposed but with bread it is possible to strike through the bread (as its so soft) so that the hook finds its mark in mouth of the fish but if you are not getting hookups then make sure you expose the hook point. I find floating the bread burley and bait out on top much more exciting to fish as you see the fish rise and splash on the surface however, its not the most effective. Sometimes fish will be too scared to rise to the surface and only do so several meters from where you're fishing, if that's the case, you can use a small float to give you some casting distance to increase from the 1m cast you will get with unweighted bread. Hopefully there is abit of current to make the burley float some small distance away, make sure you cast into your burley trail and let the fish find your bait amongst it. Fish with a loose line so that the line doesn't stop the bait from floating with the burley in the current. I find mullet, blackfish and to a lesser extent bream will happily respond to this way of fishing bread, kind of filters out the yakkas and other baitfish. Good method if there is lots of rubbish fish around. If you want the bread to sink, just compress it abit more than before but keep it dry, I still like to have some of it fluffy. I like to make a tear drop kinda shape as it hides the hook well. Slowly feed out the bread bait into your burley trail with line in free spool and wait for the run of a fish before you flick the bail over and strike. Bigger bream usually take the bread when it begins to disappear just out of sight but sometimes they are bolder and come right up infront of you. Polarised sunnies help to spot the fish. If you want the bread to sink faster still, compress the bread eveeeen more, but i find the slower it sinks the more natural it looks and fish hit the bread with no reserve. Your bait should sink faster than the burley as it has the added weight of the hook itself so no need to make it sink faster I reckon. Whatever the method, I stare at my bait with a hawk eye. If the fish are not super finiky you don't need to strike immediately but make sure when they run with the bait that there is absolutely no tension on the line until you strike. Your choice as to how long to let the fish run. Monch

Happens with all sorts of fish from time to time... gives me the sh**ts. Have any of you tried a small pillie cube with an even smaller hook that is completely embedded within the bait with only like 2mm of the hook point sticking out? Or is everyone too scared to use such small and weak hooks? If that doesn't work then I give up.

Nice tips, Mako and wow you might get sponsored by Jaz lures if you keep this up Also, since i am landbased and don't have access to wolloware bay/towra flats, do you reckon the sand flats on silver beach at Kurnell around the groynes is worth a shot?

You've spoilt them all Burleyking. Last time you managed a whole bunch of nice kings for the boss, now a whole lotta fun on the metals with the bonnies. That kid is gonna be addicted to spinning those metals now... for life i might add You must well and truly be in the boss's good books now

Gladi ator SSS fresh spin rod 2.1m 2pc line class - 4kg max Shimano Stradic 2500FI with free spare spool, 1 loaded with 10lb Fins PRT braid. Hopefully a good all purpose combo for soft plastics, surface lures, light metal work and anything besides ultra light finesse lures.

Sounds like a nice weekend you had there beginner, lucky you. I also put in the hours during the weekend, only managed a 33cm bream on saturday morning and 2 squid in another session in the evening to use as bait the following day. On sunday hired a tinny at Gunnamatta bay but there was a bloody tsunami warning and had to wait till 9:30am for the warning to clear and let us out. Anyway, only managed a 32cm bonny and 34cm tailor whilst trolling out of Gunnamatta, nothing for the rest of the day other than small pinkies. The late start i think ruined our chances, too many boats on a nice sunday morning. Anyway, i would like to ask how you rig your poddies for livebaiting. I've been seeing stacks around at the moment and figure i should use some for a chance for a flattie or 2. Do you use a small/big sinker or let it free swim? Hook in the shoulder, nose, behind the dorsal fin?

Had a look at the australian Daiwa website and can see that the Exceler DA is a new version, looks the goods. Anyone know any shops that stock the reel around southern sydney? Please PM me your replies

I'm of the belief that they also give you your unique ID number thingy in that same email about the target species which will arrive the night b4 the event. When you take your photos of the fish you wish to submit, you have to take a clear picture of the fish on their brag mat and have your unique ID visible in the photo. This is all to ensure people are able to only submit their own catches that they have caught on the day.

Holy moly, that monster is literally twice the size of average LARGE size GTs . Seeing all that gut wrenching, arm dislocating damage that those average LARGE GTs do to every1 is spectacular enough. How much drag and brute force would it take to pull that monster in.... it is beyond comprehension. When i saw that 1st picture i thought he was holding that fish up with only 1 arm. I thought... 'HOLY s**t that is a big GT', then 'HOLY s**t that guy is strong'.