monch

Great report and some monster flatties there. Awesome work PB flatties of 96 and 97... won't be long before you crack the metre mark!

I have a 7' Shimano Catana 2-4kg (around $50), 2500FD Sedona (around $100) spooled with 6lb fireline ($20-30). Should be right up your alley. Definitely get the newer FD Sedona over the older FB one.. many improvements. After getting your outfit, get familiarized with braid. This involves tying line to line leader knots and watching out for birds nests/wind knots. Some ways to avoid getting these tangles are to tie slimline knots, have a large stripper guide (the guide on your rod closest to the reel) that is a good distance from the reel. Check that your line is not wrapped around your rod tip before casting. Watch your line after casts and pull some out to make sure it is on the line roller (which is part of the bail arm) and your drag is set right. Thinner line like braid tends to float in the wind so keep an eye on it. Maintain pressure on the line when retrieving, ensuring the line is packed on tightly and evenly on the spool. If it looks messy, pull some line out until there is no more loose line on the spool and wind it in under some pressure. After every few casts, you can try cast out and just do a flat (constant) retrieve under pressure. Understand that birds nests are formed from tight line being packed over loose line or just loose/twisted line. Find ways to avoid these forming and you'll be right.

Great report mate, and you got the prize eventually And that meal looks very nice. Care to share your recipes?

OMG are you sure u measured right? 48cm only? looks to be 50cm+ !!

Are you saying to use a heavier lure or lighter lure?

Nice report there mate, very clear, concise and informative. Good review on that new baitrunner as well, i bought the old one recently, was tossing up between the new D series and the B series. Couldn't wait for the D to come out and went with the older one. The big improvement i think is the better line lay for braid and possibly the new drag washers. Very nice kingy as well, looks bigger than 71cm. Keep the reports coming

Congrats on the catch, must've been fun tackling good sized tailor on the light outfit. The kingy fight would've been something else though ! 5kg kingy is a good fish alright, must have ran like hell on 4lb. I watched a kingy fight on 6lb braid in the back to the bay social and that took a while. The rat of 63cm was circling around the boat for ages. 5kg fish should be around 75cm+ according to fisheries, significantly bigger than a 63cm rat and with much more horsepower. Surprised it didn't manage to bust you off on anything. Was this in the shallows near the baths or further out?

They weren't there yesterday, would've asked if people had nets.

Went off to gunnamatta baths in the late arvo (5:30pm) for the evening tide change at around 7, hoping to get some fish. Mainly wanted to catch some livies and practice bridle rigging them. Schools of small yakkas, hardyheads and slimies were there. Caught a bunch of tiny 10cm slimies in no time and casted one out. Never seen them so small b4, usually only the 30cm models. Livie got mauled but didn't get a hookup, brought it in the check and its eyes were gone unusual... . Filleted the dead slimy and casted it out on the lighter rod and proceeded to catch a few undersize snapper. Meanwhile i rigged up a 15cm yakka and did a nice cast, leaving it there for a good 30mins. No touches so i brought it back in but found that the dam yakka had tangled itself somewhere somehow...had to break it off. Was starting to get late (8pm), sun had nearly set and couldn't be bothered re-rigging the big rod so casted a blade around. After 3 or so casts, decided i was going to leave.... give it one last cast. Hop the blade 2 times.... felt a small touch, maybe a small snapper, decided to strike anyway. Felt good weight and zzzzzing the reel sounds, the fish realizes somethings not right. After 1 short and powerful run, i feel good solid headshakes, i gain a little bit of line but it goes off on another run, proceeded by more headshakes and then just sits there midwater, not giving an inch. By now i'm thinking this might be my first jewie, start getting excited but try to keep my cool. I maintain steady pressure and pump and wind, the fish comes up closer and gets its 2nd wind, goes off on a desperate blistering run so i back off the drag abit. After 5 or so more runs that were progressively getting weaker, the fish slowly emerges from the depths. Whoa its a nice flatty, i call it for 60cm. Now the dilemma of landing it from a height of about 2m+. I leave it about 1m below the surface, and slowly walk it towards shore, dodging other people's lines. After a good 100m walk and about 5mins, i get it to shore, jump over the railing and nearly stack it. Tried to heave it onto the beach but it was heavy and the beach was shallow. Knew i had it get it up in one quick motion otherwise it will do its dreaded headshakes. Dropped another good flattie once before, didn't want to do it again. However, walking the fish along the wharf for a good 5 mins let it revive somewhat and once i started trying to beach it, it tried to turn its head and hit the gas, after a few good thrashings in 10cm of water, i pulled it halfway outta the water but my line goes PING!. OMG!! i run towards the fish, trying to grab its tail, its still on land and sits there for a second or two but soon realizes that its free and with a few swishes of the tail, its gone ><!! That's what you get for using 8lb mono and no net. Sigh, was thinking about releasing the fish but would have wanted to land it to formally to take a picture and call it a catch. Would have also wanted to get my $15 blade back I keep losing those dam things. I'm on an average of about 1 fish for every blade before i snag it somewhere.

The D series Shimano Baitrunner is definitely better than the B series, however, bear in mind that the D series is around the $300 mark whereas the B series is $200. Substantial price difference. I have a 2 outfits with 4500B baitrunners. One is on a 6-10kg 7' Ugly Stik Platinum with 20lb Fins braid and the other is on a 8-12kg 10' Silstar Crystal Blue which i am planning to run 30lb braid on. Hope that gives you some ideas.

Nice size port jackson there mate. But whats the deal with sitting down on the job? haha

Pretty sure fish are mostly attracted to the vibration and general action of the lure, scents seem abit suss to me. Then again if won't hurt much if u are willing to try the add-on scents, maybe just your wallet.

That's cause they are only available on the American market. Think you will need to import some in.

Nice catch mate. Bad luck with the kings though, quite devastating to see fish swim by and ignore your baits. I haven't had much success with garfish but did find a method to entice them one time when they wouldn't take any unweighted baits, tiny pieces of bread, squid and pillies. I started to slowly retrieve the bait when they came to have a look and they would chase it down and have a swipe. Ended up with 5 garies about 1 cast for each and then i ran outta bait One question though, how would u guys rig a live garfish? Single hook? Two hook snell? They are so skinny, not much room to pin the hooks without hitting some vital organs or bones which paralyses them. where would u pin the hooks?

Stradic's have 2 spools?! i thought the new ones FI didn't have spare spools...

Horrifying news, 15 groper! he must have cleaned the place out The one consolation to this is that at least the guy got caught, hope he doesn't get off lightly, will hopefully send a message to everyone as well. Still waiting on that other group to get caught though....

My understanding is as follows: Here is the anatomy of a hook: J-Hooks: leave a good portion of the point showing, and try to keep some of the gap between the point and the bait. With soft baits you can afford to "bury" the hook in the bait abit more, therefore exposing less gap and the fish might not notice it as much. You should still always try to expose the point of the hook though. Circle hooks: Firstly, do not strike with circle hooks, you have to let the fish run with the bait and swallow it. As the line tightens, the baited hook then slides up and out of the mouth of the fish and the inward pointed point of the circle hook catches onto the lip/jaw/corner of the mouth of the fish on its way out of the mouth and hooks the fish. Because of the design of the circle hook, you cannot strike with it, otherwise the hook will just fly out of the mouth of the fish and miss its mark. Yet, this is also the advantage of using circle hooks, theoretically you will never gut-hook the fish, and all hookups (if they occur) should be in the corner of the mouth - assisting with the release of the fish. In terms of baiting a circle hook, you have to leave a large portion of the point exposed and people say that you should only pin the hook through the bait once. You might be able to get away with pinning it twice in a softer bait, but try not to bunch the bait onto the hook.

Hey guys, went for a fish with some pink nippers i bought today and whilst they got alot of attention by the fish, didn't get many hookups. The pickers moved in quick and ripped my nippers up quick smart. Read bold print if your lazy. I want to now ask for your opinions/suggestions on how you rig your nippers. Ie sinker or no sinker? Trace between sinker and hook, or no trace? I was using a single smallish hook with a very small running sinker down to the hook. Would you guys prefer a trace of some distance to allow the fish to take the nipper without feeling weight? Weight for me didn't seem like a problem, the problem was that the nipper was so delicate, the fish would peck at it and pull the nipper apart. Any tips on threading the hook through the nipper, all the ways i tried somehow ended up with the fish stealing my bait. Should i bother with trying a 2 hook rig with 2 very small hooks? I was drifting the bait down to the bottom with a small sinker, and slack line in about 3m of water with a light current and the nipper would be gone b4 it reached the bottom. I would be watching the line following the bait down and hoping for a run in which i would tighten up and strike. Most fish just pecked at the bait on the way down which was hardly distinguishable in my braid. So i was thinking i was giving too much time for the fish to eat the bait. I then tried drifting the nipper down on a tighter line and holding the line in between my fingers to feel the bites, most seemed like aggressive strikes yet i guessed they were missing the hook. So, slack line and wait for the run, or tight line to feel all the bites and hookup straight away? Finally, is there any way to hook the nipper to keep it alive yet on the hook firmly so that it does not get pulled apart? Thanks for you help

Thanks for the info fishmaniac, that's the stuff i was looking for. I generally livebait with floats so that i don't need to cast very far but rather tease the baitfish to swim out by alternating between tension and slack line.

Great fish, great video and one of the best surface strikes i have seen on video. Awesome stuff

Hi guys, thanks for the helpful comments. Anyone familiar with bridle rigging with rubber bands? Can i cast with it, will the rubber band snap? Jewgaffer i have read about you advocating your two hook rigs with the keeper hook near the tail of the baitfish and the bottom hook near the dorsal. I usually use a two hook rig, either with a sliding snell or fixed snells, and this has mainly been influenced by you. However, i find that pinning the hook shallow into the body of the live baitfish only allows me to lob out the bait a short distance as the hook rips out easily. Due to my limitation of being landbased, i try to find ways to enable me to cast further, particularly with predatory fish which i have been told/read like to hang out near the drop-offs ie on the edges of where shallow water meets deeper water. To get access to this deeper water i need to make decent casts and shallowly pinning the hook into the back of the bait doesn't allow me to do this. For this reason i have been trying a two hook rig with the keeper hook in the nose/mouth/front of the eye socket and the bottom hook nearer to the tail. This allows the force of the cast to be on the keeper hook on the nose/mouth/front of the eye socket which being harder areas does not tend to rip out as easily.

Went out tonight, landbased at 9:30pm till 12am at port hacking. High tide at around 10:45pm, no moon, no wind, Barometer steady at 1019. Not a bite, didn't even lose a bait. OMG this is driving me nuts. Only managed to get 2 yakkas, could see them swimming around my burley in close with my headlamp. Casted them out on the jewie rod, no action for 30 mins so i check on it, try to cast it out further and the dam hook rips out -_- Put on the other yakka and same thing happens, when i reel it in to check on it and cast it out again... gone Their noses are too soft, would bridle rigging with a rubber band let me cast with abit more strength and get them out further, into the deeper water? Yakkas start dodging my hooks, couldn't even get them anymore so i put on a defrosted squid head on the big rod, no touches. Usually squid heads with all the guts get mauled to pieces. The pickers weren't even around. Threw out a squid jig and snagged it in the weed and lost it Too much failure for my liking, packed up and went home.

Sound advice from Jewgaffer there. I personally never use clips on my squid jigs anymore. Sometimes when i'm lazy and there is already a snap swivel on my line i will just clip the jig on, but not on most occasions. I squid in shallow water and use small, light yo-zuris and yamashitas. These jigs are finely balanced and a snap swivel can really make the jig start to nose-dive. In deeper water and with bigger jigs this may not be a problem but i try maximise the hangtime of my jigs on the descent so no more clips for me. If you have some really small, light-weight clips you could try them. Convenient for quickly swapping jigs and colours. Also since squid don't pull very hard, there should be no worry of the small snaps coming undone.

LOL, pilly fillets on blackfish hooks, might work, but a decent king would break the hook in 9 places, that is if it even manages to hook onto their mouth.

Looks pretty darn scary in your photos. I wouldn't wanna be out there even with that nice boat of yours :s You got home alright so i guess its all good.