monch

Very nice report, i can feel the enthusiasm and glee from your writing. You must have come out of a fish drought or something right? You have got the bread and butter species wired alright, some nice insight into your knowledge as well, thanks for that Seemed like a really nice outing despite the weather, keep it up.

What is this guy doing?! Throw a popper in there for god sake !

Hey guys, to aid in your discussion, I have copied and attached a portion of Maritime's map of the george's river / botany bay from their website. I'm not sure on how accurate this map is, Maritime says not to use it for navigational purposes. I hope it helps people get a basic idea of the river, i don't fish it often but wouldn't mind assisting people to share their knowledge if they choose to

Sounds like a nice session there mate ! Did you convert them into some kingies? Don't you just love seeing a school of squid around, so exciting when u can sight cast to them and watch them lock-on to the jig with their eyes, stalk up behind it and jet foward and grab it! On another note, i wouldn't want to leave my reel on top of the squid though, all that slime getting onto the reel would mean more gunk to clean off I wouldn't say it is a bad sign, more squid means more bait for kingies and jewies, not to mention more calamari rings

I recently bought a 4500 baitrunner and spooled it up with 20lb FINS braid. Got the guys in the tackle shop to spool it for me and i think they fit 90m of 20lb mono backing and 300m of 20lb braid on top of that.

Wow, looks the goods on the shimano website, although is it just a revamped fireblood? How much did it cost by the way?

That's one eventful day you had! Fish busting up, dolphins, seals and whales chasing fish, and you also picked up a nice mixed bag. Some very nice pictures there as well, that squid is a thumper and the pic of the dolphins really captures the action. Great job

Location: Gymea Bay baths Time: 6am - 10am Tide: High at around 8:30am Water Clarity: Relatively clear, about 2-3m of visibility Wind: Pretty much non-existent Barometer: Generally steady at around 1013-1015 I had been itching for a fish all week since the BB social but could not spare the time due to uni work etc. I had resisted the urge to go on Friday when the barometer was higher but gave in and decided to go out this morning. Headed to my local haunt and arrived just before 6am. I was cursing my lateness because the sun had already risen and i wanted to start whilst it was still dark. The plan was to set some baits for the barely legal snapper/trevally in the area, and hopefully get some live yakkas to throw out on the larger setup for some jewies or kingies. I was continuously re-baiting pillies for the trevally and yakkas that i had burleyed up with bread. There were a few 30-35cm trevally and monster yakkas about 3m away from the wharf but were too shy to swallow my baits, would only mouth them momentarily before spitting it out. Took a while to get 2, 20cm yakkas which i thought were too big to use so i kept them in my bucket for a while. At 8:30am some1 calls out that they have seen a school of 6+ large fish patrolling the area, maybe kings. The yakkas and trevally were becoming increasingly shy with the sun rising so i took my bets with the large livies and lobbed one out about 30m on twin 4/0's and a float. At about 9am i got a run on my baitrunner and immediately grabbed the rod, i gave the fish about 2-3 extra seconds to swallow the bait then i struck. Felt some decent weight and this thing immediately swung around to the left and slightly towards me. In 2 seconds it had swum 30m or so... Holy... this thing was fast. After that i felt a heavy weight and slow tail kicks but it didn't take any drag. I was confused about wat fish this was and kept pumping and winding. Winched him in quite easily on my 6-10kg rod and 20lb braid on a 4500 Baitrunner. A few fellow fisherman happily netted it for me. A 65cm (approx) Aussie Salmon, Yehhaaaa. First fish on my new outfit, first salmon and a decent size too, PB's all round The fish was tailwrapped and came in backwards. I think it somehow got wrapped up after the initial run towards me since it was just a heavy weight with some kicks afterwards and i was able to slowly wind it in. There is a fairly fresh wound on its tail wrist which had started to heal it was also missing the top half of its tail, and getting the line caught around its tail might have opened up the wounds abit. Success! (wrong species, didn't put up as much of a fight as i expected but overall, good enough ) Estimate of 65cm. The rig, 20lb braid > 2m of 30lb mono leader joined by slim beauty > float > swivel > 50cm of 30lb mono trace to two 4/0's on fixed snells.

Awesome fish mate, were you using plastics or bait? And how light is light?

Awesome video quality there, can't wait to see some footage of harbour kingy action in the future (remember to mute the sound for some reel screaming )

Sounds like a good idea, however i can see a possibility for failure in this rig. If you attached the hook to say a few centimeters behind a livey's head, that would mean the squid barb attachment is also lying alongside the fish, and the spikes could jag the livey, penetrating into its body and kill it. A squid might still attack a wounded or dead yakka and could possibly get hooked up on your rig but i think the livey will not have much chance of staying alive if hooked onto this rig. If the livey doesn't have much chance of staying a livey as opposed to a deadie, it might be better to just use a dead bait on the conventional squid spike. However, i would still encourage you to try it and see how it performs in practice. Might work out ok, you never know

What a great day it was on sunday. Thanks for the admins, mods, sponsors and others who contributed to organising and running the event. After registering early me and bloopin raced off to the container wall and other spots, hoping for some trevally, they were nowhere to be seen and after a while we gave up and moved around flicking plastics and blades in search of the flatties. We caught 3 keeper flatties that went 45, 47 and 48cm, caught a few undersize ones and dropped a few larger specimens as well. Bloopin managed to get 2 chopper tailor at the same time on a blade and shortly after hooked into a rat 63cm kingy on 6lb line in 3-5m of water. It was a good fight with the fish circling the boat and passing under it a few times. Bloopin once again i thank you for taking me out on your boat, you put us onto some good fish and lots of action. We found some good spots, I learnt a lot about fishing from a boat and gained some good experience with using soft plastics as well. I had the flatties for dinner tonight, yummy.

Hey guys, i would like to ask for clarification on a point regarding what counts as a caught fish during the botany bay social. Do we need to bring the actual fish back to HQ for an official measurement or does a picture taken with a camera on a brag mat count? The reason i am asking this is because i like to practice catch and release and in the event that i happen to catch something such as a large flathead, i would very much like to release it safely and unharmed. Bringing a fish back to HQ to get it measured before releasing it would decrease its chances of survival. If its a strict requirement to officially weigh in fish then i will be willing to bring the fish back to base camp, measure it and hopefully it will still be fit for release after the ordeal. Monch

Decent sized squid there, good work. Did you find the glowing outline on the squid again? I think i can see it again in the top picture. Bad luck on the jewies, yesterday was pretty scary weather, thunderstorms and all, i wouldn't have gone out for a fish.

I agree with Southerly, being able to see the squid stalk and finally attack the jig is a really good way to learn about their behaviour and what switches them on. I have limited experience but in my opinion these are the important points, in order of significance: Finding the spot holding the squid Presenting the jig at the right depth Retrieve technique and jig sink rate Physical size of jig (not weight) Colour (which i am still undecided about whether it is important or not). So in answering your question, i think that any jig will work provided you can tick off the boxes for the points i have listed. I find that all squid will attack a smaller jig, but not all squid will attack a large jig. So if you want the tiny ones to use as whole, i would thus recommend the smallest jig u can find, with a fairly slow sink rate as the smaller squid usually live in the shallower water. I have found that tiny squid will still try to attack large jigs as big as themselves, but because of the large distance between the point they grab the jig (the back of the head) and the barbs, and also because of their short tentacles, it is hard to actually hook the small squid on large jigs. In saying this, if you want to specifically target large squid, although large squid will attack tiny jigs, the small barbs on them may not get a good hold on the tentacles of a large squid and you may lose the squid. I have found that the yamashitas and yozuris work well because of their slow sink rates (but then again i have not been game enough to try out other brands), because i am landbased and work shallow water <4m i usually use size 1.8 and 2.0 and if you look on the packet, some of them say the actual weight of the jig, i have found size 1.8 and 2.0 in 5-8g varieties. I'm not too hyped up about the flashy range of squid jigs with all their shine etc, since none of that will be anymore effective at night than a normal squid jig. I have found that squid are able to find my jig in total darkness, and i would have expected them to have evolved to be specialised in that regard. However, you could use the glowing jigs if you wanted, i would guess it would draw more attention and follows, but whether that will result in more hookups i'm not sure. Despite all that, i mostly use Yo-zuri Aurie-Q's because they are available at my local tackle shop in a great variety and at comparatively reasonable prices

Yeh i too notice that glowing outline of the squid. Maybe its the lighting? haven't seen that before. I myself caught 3 nice sized arrows in port hacking last night. Restocked on bait, hope to use them to end my fish drought. Might even try to get some jewies with them.

Great info there jewgaffer, really appreciate it when you do these informative posts I have been thinking about your comments about fishing to the right side of wally's wharf by casting into the main channel but having a look on google maps and also in person, i think it would be quite hard to get a cast into there from a landbased position say on the rocky point just right of wally's wharf. I think the only chance would be via a boat which i am not fortunate enough to have access to. I would have been out there on wednesday night if i didn't have a flu. Great, generous information nonetheless. Thanks

Good effort mate. Where abouts in the hacking were you if you don't mind me asking. By the way, the squid on the left is an arrow squid and the one on the right is a southern calamari. You can tell them apart because the arrow has shorter wings which only go down about half the length of the body whereas on the calamari, the wings are along the full length of the body.

Another great session and report Ray, nice work! Sounds like awesome fun on the light rig, makes me want to try with my flick stick, 2-4kg rod 2500 series reel and 6lb braid . Reckon i'm in with a chance? Just to clarify, would that gutter your fishing in be the area in between the shore break and the next row of waves? I've tried the beach once or twice with soft plastics and 1/8th jigheads hoping for some flatties, tailor or salmon but haven't had any success yet. Spotting gutters and casting out to them is the main challenge at the moment. I can only manage a cast of about 20-30m with my 7' rod and can only spot rips so far, can't distinguish gutters properly. Any tips?

A question that i have been pondering on for a while is whether to let lures free-fall on slack line after a few jigs of the rod or to let them fall with the line under at least a little bit of tension. I find that the small blades with their slim body profile and weight drop like rocks, so i've been thinking maybe it may be better to totally reel in the slack, keep the line tight and let it kind of swing down towards the bottom. Hopefully the others can give some of their opinions of what they think works best.

Went out for a quick plastics flick at gunnamatta flats this afternoon at 3:30 - 5pm. The weather was fantastic, nice warm sunny day with no wind, thought it would be good to try wading the shoreline and hope for some flatties. The water was very clear, could see some tiny baitfish hanging around the shallows, hopes were high. The water was fairly cold but because of the sun baring down on the flats for the whole day, i could still handle staying in the shallow water. Because of the clarity of the water and the sandy banks, i put on a casper clear 4" minnow and did small hops over the sand but didn't get a touch in the 1-2m flats so tried the deeper weedy drop-off of around 2-4m. Kept getting snagged on the weed every cast so i gave up . I need to get me some weedless jigheads. I went at high tide so had to wade a good 15m out from shore to get a cast into where i wanted. I should probably get down there at low tide in the summer, hope i have some more chance then.

Hey guys, thanks a lot for the comments and votes. It seems that most people would prefer 30lb over the 20lb. However due to my shortage of $$$ i will probably stick to the 20lb for now at least and see how i go. If it holds up then all is well, if not then i guess i will get another spool of 30lb.

Watch out it'll kill you with a bolt of lightning!

I am not using my rod to lift the dumbell, it is a 2 piece rod so i was only using the butt section and pointing it at the floor and lifting upwards so the rod did not do anything apart from holding the reel in place.