Salami

Sounds like luck isn't on your side mate. once you get one the flood gates will open. keep your chin up - ps. i've noticed if you're on yakkas, keep them fresh as the kingys like a lot of movement to fire up. old yakkas tend to go limp & they turn off. pss. and keep away from Pittwater, will take you 20 yrs to get one with your run of luck!! Anyone tried Pittwater lately??. I gave it a run about a week ago & the sounder is either broken/pittwater is dead.

Yes that was me flute - it feels just as good to let the beast go! the beard tends to bring out my primal instincts & i had o eat this one, washed down with a longneck mate.

Got this bream out the front of my house whilst cleaning the boat ! (I live opposite mud flats). Very impressive fight as only about 500mm water & on 6lb line. I thought it was a ray.

Mate, I copped a sting from a rock cod the other day on the tip of the finger & nearly passed out. Took 4 panadol to numb the pain. I'm too scared to try to eat them now. Respect the rock cod, Beware all!!!!!

well done, great to hear the kings are back in the pittwater. hopefully the late season we have been praying for. i was at barrenjoey saturday morning & there were schools of rats everywhere. released about 5 from 45cm -55cm. good to hear there are bigger ones inside. plenty of big garfish about the headland as well.

forget 10 per hour average. if you don't get a squid in 10 minutes then move. personally i'll move after 3 minutes. you have to find them & they'l generally come in groups of 3 or more. difficult from the land, i've never tried. from the boat we look for areas of sand/weed patches rather than bulk weed. we do well all over pittwater, try saltpan bay from the land, barrenjoey headland all around but preferably the lion island & ocean sides. palm beach wharf is also good. basically anywhere with weed/sandy areas. by the way, the pink jig always wins. good luck.

THAT'S RIGHT, THE HEADLAND IS NICE & REEFY WITH SAND EITHER SIDE. TRY THE BEACH SIDE AROUND THE EVER PRESENT FISH TRAPS.

my brother in law just got back from sicily & joked that the only fresh fish at the markets were the yakkas & slimeys. the sicilians love them, but italians can make anything taste great.

made the trip to the fad on saturday, not knowing what to expect. got there about 7.45am & managed 8 keepers till 9am when they switched off. they were going for live yakkas mainly, but also managed a couple on fresh bonito strips. still well worth the trip. anchored just off barrenjoey for a session on the way back & managed a 65cm king & nice 55cm bonito. got smashed by a bigger model as well. my mate also managed a nice blue groper (we didn't know what it was so we released it). it would have weighed approx 6-7kg. when we got back i looked throught the last coupple of weeks fishraider forum as i remembered someone identifying this fish from a photo & low & behold it was the same thing (female blue grope)!. i think we threw back a good feed, but probably would have released it anyway.

headed out to broken bay FAD with Flute to try our luck. very average conditions, trolled skirts all the way out for nothing. water a bit cooler at 22.2c all the way. we were not too optimistic given the water & after a few scoreless drifts with livies & pilchards the trip back seemed a long way. then wack a livey gets smashed...a nice 80cm on light gear made the flogging all worthwhile. the dollies went on the chew for about 20 minutes, (we boated 4, 2 keepers), then dead as a door nail again.

you'd better believe they fish the hell out of pittwater & hawkesbury. the trawlers drag the broken bay & hawkesbury bottom constantly during the week & the by catch definately outweighs the catch. squid has been especially scarce this year & that's definately what the kings are after. lets hope it just the rain or something keeping the squid away/kings away. really gives me the sh*t* when i finally snag a 64.5cm kingy & bloody fisheries force us to throw it back (even if it's gill hooked). where's the sense gone? it's good to hear i'm not the only whinging disheartened fisho out there.

if you want to get the monkey off your back, sounds like you should head for the harbour plastic man. it sounds like the kingies are getting in the way of the ferries. pitty is a great challenge. there are definately good fish out there. keep up the effort & you will get one. when you nail one you'll feel all the better for the challenge. loook into a downrigger, or slow troll a livey with a snapper sinker/ knife jig to keep it down. i reckopn the only other technique is hit scotland island at first light & look for surface action, then if you see it throw everything in the tackle box at them.

i'm glad i'm not the only one! not so much this year, but last season we spent a lot of time downrigging around pittwater - i found the dusk session very productive. liive squid on the downrigger produced kings on 9 of 10 outings. most of these fish came out of kingy highway ie. stokes point & southward along foreshore. i think that without a downrigger & live squid your chances are limited. yakkas are not as effective but we find they get the bigger fish. best way to locate a wreck is to look around clareville moorings for a boat anchored up with 10 rods out & the likelihood is there is some type of structure under them other than sandy flat bottom! (which makes it impossible to troll past). i don't have the coords & would probably be beaten for saying but keep your eye out. commercial fishing seems to be the common thread. wasn't sydney harbour pretty ordinary a few years back until all commercial licencing ended? i'm from up the river a bit & i've heard from a reliable source about pro mullet fishos last year netting over 2 tonne of mullet in one night in one creek ! tell me that won't put a dent in the biomass. maybe bag & size limits on recreational fishos will solve the problem!

Welcome to the Pittwater inhlanzi- i like your morale to the story, it is unfortuanately very true. someone once told me that it's not called BARRENjoey for nothing! The few kings that are around seem to be very cautious. They will go on the chew from time to time but it's bloody hard work. I don't know if it's seasonal or it has something to do with the commercial fishing practices. I've only been fishing for kings in pittwater for the last 2 years, so i don't know what it should be like over several years. I'm either a crap fisherman looking for an excuse or there's something else going on. Anyone else have an opinion & some longer term experience in the area???

Broken bay FAD was great sunday morning. was supposed to get out there with this bloke called Flute, but he pulled out at the last minute quoting "we never do any god out there, i'll give it a miss". He surrenders so easily. 2 of us bagged out on 60cm + dollies (20). We caught at least 8 more. No real big ones, but they were down there. Couldn't get the bait past the smaller ones - live yakkas & frozen slimey. maybe try jigs next time. they seemed to shut down at about 10am. water a very blue 23.5- 24.0c tried trolling skirts back without a touch. PS. i had an old mark in my GPS (not very old) which was abt 1.4 miles off the current mark. luckily i had printed off the Fisheries list of marks in the morning & I reprogrammed it whilst out there. I noticed in some posts last week that some people couldnt find the FAD - i think it's recently been moved so check the current long/lat on fisheries.

thanks for the feedback scon, think we'll give it a bash & see, at leas the wind is down. i'd be happy with your result, one nice fish on the troll isn't a disaster! cheers

thinking of heading out to FAD tomorrow for dollie hunt. appreciate some feedback if any raiders have had any success today?????? IE FINDING THE FAD OR DOLLIES!!!!

we do the best at barrenjoey headland, mackeral beach around moorings & west head. haven't tried for a couple of weeks because they were so scarce back then. anyone out there had any luck lately??

lion island/barrenjoey is more productive at moment i heard. we've spent a bit of time downrigging live squid in pittwater for squat. there's a tonne of bait at west head so give it a try.

in close 15metres, collaroy side. there were some solid runs so heavier gear advisable......... then they won't touch it. gotta love 'em. good luck, well worth the trip.

Good result at long reef wall this morning. bagged 2 legal kings 65cm & 66cm & a 50cm bonito. Bonito took a live slimy & the 2 kings took fresh bonito strips ! Also got reefed by 5 larger fish. Kings wouldn't touch my live yakkas on 15kg, but just waited for the bonito on the lightest rod at 7kg, hence the lost fish. Wouldn't touch bonito on the 15kg either. Typical!

Could you harbour kingy fishos keep a few of these fish & release them into pittwater PLEASE!..... oh & also a few SQUID! we've run out of both.