jewgaffer

hi inhlanzi. what a terrific informative reply. absolutely great ! should definately be posted as a main article so that all members should seriously consider wearing gloves when handling any bait and the variety of reef and river freaks you have to handle in order to get your hooks back. in the 1950's my dad used to rouse on me as a young kid for not wearing gloves when handling the boat's squid, baits and livies. he was very concerned baits touched by human hands would put the jewies off because of the various odors and oils. when he had a bad day he used to abuse his mates for not wearing gloves after smoking. taren point julius also mentioned that and using surgical gloves one day when we were calamariing in dolans tell you what inhlanzi your advice and help is very very well received at this end. you've got me really thinking now and soon i'll have to clean a lot of squid ink off my boat before the sun stains it into the fibreglass. squid ink is not only only a defence smoke screen to deter other fish i think it may well be obnoxious to them and there is a big chance that squid ink could well be the culprit for my hand and finger problem. thanks a million and i do look forward very much indeed to meeting you somewhere on the water one day. jewgaffer fish on

hi donna, your whole concept has developed along very well indeed since i first joined in 05. the forums are nicely balanced, conservative and interesting. hope you can get some time off for your fishing. i thought that your winter and alpine fishos may relate to painful fingers and hands as it feels to me like frost bite from all the night fishing i've been doing this year on the freezing hawks and the hacking. i really appreciate your advice. thanks for the pm. i will follow up with kind regards jewgaffer p.s. donna tell me what you think. would it be an excellent idea if members had a little fishraider member's logo on their boats to identify and get to meet one another or has this been brought up before.

gidday everyone i'd like to compare notes on this very painful problem i've gotten hold of. persistent painful hands and numb painful fingers only started this winter after lots of overnighters on the hawkes & the hacking in freezing cold conditions. should have known better but my younger deckie helpers were keen to fish on till dawn and then keep on going back every other night. the pain is still pretty severe even though the last time i fished was just before the big rains. anyone else suffer and/or still suffering from this painful condition? help/advice appreciated as i am still recovering from a broken back and then a back op last year, still fishing but now concerned about my hands and fingers and it's more of a chore for me to go to town and see the doc than it is to put the mustang on the trailer, tow it 50ks and fish for 12hours . appreciated ! fish on

hi again dave i was told by a fisheries guy they were going to provide access through audley weir into the salt for bass preservation sometime this year. do you know anything else about it .... could be only an advisory council recommendation just found some info on google about funds being allocated for the building of a fish ladder system at audley weir whatever that means. maybe we'll have to climb a higher tree to catch them. fish on

hi dave, you asked where the jewies hide in the hacking. i rather like this question we locate them, we feed them nice, we catch them. it sounds pretty simple but it's the locating them that's half the battle but you can get used to it, and good at it too. it's a strange little river in that it stops dead at audley and then becomes fresh without any of the usual fresh and salt water exchanges and there's hardly any seepage under the weir, i believe i regard the hacking as an elongated bay, and fish accordingly. it's very narrow in places, and around 60 depth in some of the bays branching off it. but it's still a goodie. the texture is nothing like the georges, not that i'm promoting that river, but the hacking has a little bit of hawkesbury and a smidgeon of sydney harbour. you yourself would know this - in the hacking, 90% of each species type congregate in 10% of the water type. this river has a plethora of vegetation types, sand and structure types, mud and silt types. all in all it sure is a rare little river. you can only determine over time which parts of this river are fast action when it all happens and which parts are always slow. Only repeated experiences are the key to what parts of the hacking are suitable for top results and what parts are not, other than yielding one big fish every pancake day. if you dropped 2x44 gal drums of minced fish pieces and a great variety of other minced marine food around grays sand bar and sneeked a bobcat onto it to turn the nippers over you'd soon have every fish in the area around that sand bar except for jewies. targetting jewies in the hacking can be challenging but rewarding. as to where all the jewies are (in) hiding. i can only say this a zo-zuri squid jig still works well on calamaris and arrows. there's still heaps of yakkas. even were active in the chocolate last sunday week. and it still drops to 60, only about 10 seconds from water st. and hitting the brakes and i don't mean 60ks in a car either but after this present low, with a worser low on the way so it seems, b/mtr needs to go back up to at least 1014 as the skies clear before i'll spend a night there or anywhere else. would be interesting to see what happens after the salt and fresh exchanges when they permanantly open the weir as they said they were going to do. cheers fish on

hi again. by 80lb line i mean spectra braid or maybe dyneema braid for your main line as a cheaper alternative. 80lb braid line is only about the same in thickness as 20lb mono. i do believe in using 80lb braid on bigger spinning reels. braid handles better in currents, has far more line capacity and more direct fish control and of course 80lb leader. this combo has good skull dragging strength when you need it. weaknesses and minor line and leader damage are pretty well covered and helps avoid the possibilty of a break off before identifying the fish. these muddy waters have driven just about everything in the river towards the salt. you are highly likely to strike a variety of sea predators coming in closer and attacking the river refugees - they all can't just eat surface poppers, deep divers and a few loaded fish strips . salmon, k/f's & maybe y/f and heaps of sharks behind every wave. that would be just natural it's really only common sense after so much rain and river flooding. when you yourself go out properly armed and nice big healthy looking baits. remember what you are really targetting and that most of the other river fish are huddled up down deep around the river mouth because of the bad river conditions. so best get both the boat position and every single item of your gear well and truly right first. if you haven't already got compatiable gear i might suggest you get hold of a couple of 650 alvey star drag side casts for starters but back up only about 200 yards of braid with mono backing using a 4 wrap uni knot on the mono part and a 6 wrap full blood knot on the braid part and pull them together use 25lb spinning rods. most rods of that line class are made from pretty good blanks these days. my own rods are 10-50lb ugly stik yellow tigers not available in aust.only blacks are, not the same rod . the 10lb part of that equation gives good sensitivity and nicely cushions and tires a strong fish, while the 50lb part gives the backbone strength, the neutralising effect needed and as i said in my other thread this sort of gear gives the fisho all the leverage instead of the fish and that is most important. no no way jerusalem sure there's 30-40 on the cnr. but not for a good while yet. ok then- go deep well off box hd Ist. i just thought i'd clarify a few points which may help you get better results at your first attempt at targetting hawkesbury jewfish. best i spend a bit of time on background to get the picture thru so you can fish on and progress along successfully without dwelling on any unknown factors or lack of knowledge as a reason for giving up. jewfish are fully colonized in the hawkesbury system and the hawkesbury river becomes the nepean which flows into the camden side of the blue mountains and then becomes the menangle river which runs well into the southern highlands. so you can just imagine just how big the hawkesbury system is with well over a 100 ks of winding river, with other rivers branching off it, such as the macdonald and the colo rivers, before it gets even close to being fully freshwater . i know of no other river near this size and depth or for that matter no other rivers that have jewfish colonies as permanent residents like the hawkesbury does . they have become permanent inhabitants due to the underwater terrain being a natural utopia and the associated food supply being such easy pickings for hunters such as jewfish. they are natural deep water drop off to bottom dwellers and it is not uncommon to find depths around 50 feet and even 70 feet near another shore not far from little dangar island . this is due to the mountainous and almost prehistoric terrain which surrounds this mighty river and almost mirror reverses itself on the river floor but to a much smaller degree of course. for an example of depth due to surrounding terrain, i myself have to sometimes dig shut down bass out of the nepean section as i call it , of the hawkesbury way up near penrith in up to 40 feet of water and that's not a bad depth for a relatively narrow freshwater river. many jewfish have been caught in the many backwaters and creeks of the hawkesbury, even creek mouths many miles upstream where the water is almost fully changing from salt to freshwater. jewfish have been caught by kids fishing for mullet . many a bass and bream fisho has had his gear completely shattered by monster jewies and mumbled something about the culprit being a big ray. they have been well an truly entrenched in the hawkesbury system for many centuries.they are true homers to this river by nature as opposed to other river systems where marauding jewfish come into estuaries from another domain alltogether such as the open sea rocky areas, the surf gutters, and the many close off shore reefs. so for this reason the hawkesbury river jewfish's habits are very very different from any other jewie grounds i am aware of and the challenge is still there to catch them regularly in any season and to keep doing so. i get my better jewie action when the usual peckers have disappeared completely and my rod spread has no action whatsoever and it is monotonously quiet and then bang wow, meaning they have arrived at that particular jewie highway and everything else except non palliatable deep water freaks have fled in absolute terror. here is the difficulty. to get a result, you yourself have to first locate just which highway they chose to cruise along in destruction mode in the time frame you have to do it in. this means that an anchor buoy would be a real asset to allow you to motor off as quickly as possible every 90 minutes if necessary. but, if you get one single schoolie or sopey near the mouth but not way up river where soapies often breakoff and go off in their own peer groups as they were doing before these big rains - and no one wants soapies and eels only and not one single schoolie or pensioner -, stay in that river mouth spot for say another 45 minutes then move off and sound out another bait school a bit wider out in at least 30 feet with obvious holes in the bait fish formation showing on your sounder screen. large numbers of jewies can often arrive in force and are like termites, you could say, in their habits in that they have munchers, crunchers scouts and sentries and even sacrificial lambs to ensure the safety of the rest of the family. what i call schoolies around 5-7 kilos can arrive in segments where males may escort a female around and monster size pensioner jewies often bludge the pickings the schoolies drop or go it alone or bludge off those fast invaders the tailor, or perhaps and always hopefully, cull a few of the slower ones such as my own crippled livies. i mentioned that you should pull up anchor and fish the sea side of the lion should you strike bull sharks or hammerheads at let's say walker or flint . this is because the jewies either scarper or don't show up at all when mobs of school sharks such as these come into the river. these varieties have a favourite treat, an infant jewie so the family has to vacate at the first sign of bulls or h/heads. a classic example of this and a particular practice of mine when jewfishing at a spot known as the gap in the richmond river at ballina, a narrow entrance to ocean going yacht moorings where the jewies come in from the sea at near top of the tide and during the early run out. these are marauding jewies ,rock and gutter dwellers, a totally different ball game to the hawkesbury, the richmond river not being colonised. these jewies hit fast and furious at the entrance to the gap and move off the second the bull sharks come in behind them. ballina jewies are highly active at night near the top and the early the run down, waiting to ambush bull mullet schools coming back out with the tide which swirls thru the narrow gap entrance. when the jewies go quiet at the ballina gap it's then time to put the wire on. many of the locals specially target bull sharks and from my own experiences 4-10 kilo bull sharks make absolutely fabulous eating particuarly the fillets you can have beer battered locally for free with chips in return for a few ks for the cook. that's how nice they taste probably as a get square i did find a little shovel nose, and once a little bull shark swallowed whole and only partly digested inside the stomach of a jewie. hope this info is helpful and inspires you to think like a hawkesbury jewfish as you really have to master that alone to be capable of catching a couple of these which i myself call ghosts of the day on the hawkesbury when others say they're night fish only. sure they are night fish only at places like ballina or taren point just ask my hungarian deckie mate, julius who specialises at taren point off the rocks and will bet his wallet on no jewies unless its dark and has photos of over 40 animals of jewfish for this year alone. you'll see his photo with an 80 pounder with a smaller one on a site called future of fishing i think it's called when you're up there watch out for submerged or floating timber from the floods and don't plane around too much. like the floods of old the broken branches and old rotted tree stumps that found their way into the system will keep flowing up and back with the tides and the river will remain fairly dangerous for fishos and boats until someone sensible in authority decides to clear the many logs and branches out of there. cheers fish on.

you sound like you need a bit of good advice and i am land locked due to the weather at the moment and so have a bit of time to help you use snappers lead for quick size changes according to the force of the current off a sliding swivel to have it run freely on the line using a 12inch mono loop connected to that running swivel. place the running swivel above the main swivel which is to be attached to a 1m-1.5m leader. make doubly sure to use at least 3inch-5inch long snapper sinkers. keep your sinkers the same weight to prevent tangles from line movement. lots of people underestimate the hawkesbury current . it can actually drag the rig along and up to the surface. after more than 30 years in the jewfish game mostly on the hawkesbury i use 80lb braid, 80lb leader, 120lb ball bearing main swivels 10-50lb yankee model ugly stik tiger spinning rods on penn ss reels 7500-9500 , largest ticas, centrons, pfluegers and 725 alvies plus cannon downriggers on live, dead baits and jigs at anchor. my jewies only last 3 or 4 long runs at the maximum before floating side on alongside the boat because with that gear i have the leverage not the fish. use tandem hooks with a sliding snell on the top hook to match each bait size nicely using heavy duty 5/0s ( for bi-catch purposes) but you can use 7/0 or 8/0 sucide or octopus hooks . use tandem circles to swim live baits as the bait may spin with suicide or octopus hook configurations. when you hold bottom you will have a tight line and a natural bend in each rod because of line pressure in the current but don't let that deter you it means you will have to detect bites thru bent rods to determine what's happening to your baits. use a good rod spread to increase your chances. it pays to stagger the casting distances being sure to drop one straight down at the back of the boat, at least one in the deep hole of reef you've located with your sounder and the others into the drop off on the outside. in other words don't do all your fishing in reefs or deep holes as you will catch far too many unwanted pests. do not berley the surface but you can drop a slow release bomb to the bottom to hold general interest which in itself brings on the jewies for reasons of territory supremacy. if you have a run of estuary whalers (bull sharks) or h/heads in the river proper, up anchor and fish the holes near lion island and mid n/e of barenjoey and particularly so after the big rains and river flooding of late. however be prepared for other big hook ups too, incl. salmon, big tailor bonito kf and snapper and hang on for the sharks that come into the melee too. In my opinion the most reliable jewfish bait is local squid, used whole or in larger strips and livies. your baits must be fresh, large neat, some a foot long and streaming. no cubes or square chunks. when you use larger livies don't strike on the first run . the jewie attacks from below, runs off , pauses the drag will stop while he turns the livie over over and swallows it . you count to 10 on the next run and take up any loose line then hit him. i won't tell you when and where to find them but you should see holes in a tight baitfish formation on your sounder when and where you decide to anchor. you say your going out in a couple of weeks but in my opinion you will score big time and find a lot of predators at the river mouth and in the bay as almost every fish in the river has headed towards the salt due to all the recent mud and fresh . so deep other sea predators including sharks will be in frenzy in close accordingly. by the way the hawkewsbury has been colonized with your proposed target for thousands of years but you have to get everything just right to catch and then land them hope this helps and by the way i fish for them mostly in the sunlight hours if this changes your thinking that they are mainly ghosts of the night. this is not the case at all. but if you're targetting eels and like the winter midnight hours you'll score heaps of eels in this river at night fish on .

yes it was cold on saturday too with the westerly in your face on the run in tide . we fished walker point on the run in am saturday for 3 hours for zero results , moved well into broken bay and hooked just about every monster non table species you can think of , good sport though , ((but still no table fish !)) one after the other , a sign of great general activity after last weeks heavy rain . we then had live squid ripped apart in no time by schools of undersize leather jackets reckon had we stayed in the bay longer in the pre sunday gale chop , the jewies were in the deeper holes and would have hit sooner or later. no live yakkas until dusk and even then in the freezing shade inside pittwater at west head . fished in 60 feet opposite flat rock point mid evening and got eels only.spent midnight to dawn of the run out moored in the main channel at the southern end of the road bridge and never lost a livie or a whole squid . yet on returning to brooklin ramp , we noticed shovel fulls of huge jewie scales on the ground , almost the size of 50 cent pieces coming off 20 and 30 kilo jewies . i'll bet they were caught east of lion island and not in the river . any one like to comment or advise on that ??