tentonner

Has anyone heard of anywhere you can find 2nd hand hobies ? Also anyone got opinions on the native series of pedal kayaks, seems like they have less tricks than the PA but are solid, stable yaks.also like that you can reverse with them

Hey raiders, stinging to get down the lake this weekend, a mate of my old man was down there during the week and in two days caught around 50 fish trolling, 8 of which were over 50 cm! so I can't wait to get down there. Hoping to catch a few spinning and bait fishing from the shore as trolling just doesn't seem as much fun these days. Anybody else heading down this weekend?

I would try get out by 4 am aiming to get bait before sunrise and fish the last couple hours of the run out tide from dawn to about 9. Your always in with a shot if your out there

There are always exceptions to any rule I reckon. Few weeks ago fishing a hawkesbury creek mouth we caught and released approx 40 bass in the same area and it had no effect on the bite. It seemed on this day that nothing could diminish their appetites, impossible to answer this question definitively I reckon.

Me and a mate jumped on the opportunity to go out with a guide on the hawkesbury at basically half price on wednesday this week and man did we have a ball. WE were fishing the run out tide focusing on creek mouths as a whole heap of dirty water was being pushed out of the creeks in to the river. Starting around 7am we fished two creek mouths the first of which was the scene of the best surface action I have ever seen. Casting poppers, stickbaits and even just slow rolling grubs in a particular area around 1m square produced up to 20 bass. We could hear the bass chomping on the surface behind a heap of rushes and bushes and would cast in tight to this area, provided you got the cast close enough you were almost guaranteed a follow and hook up. Then we moved to the second mouth using soft plastics and jackalls and proceeded to nail bass after bass. I have never seen such a concentration of fish in such a small area. It was so intense at one point we needed simply to sit down and have a drink despite the fact someone was hooking up cast after cast (first cast after the 10 min break and there was a double hook up haha). We estimated the total fish count in excess of 70 between the three of us (all fish released) I managed the best bass of the day and a pb in 43cms Cross section of some of the better bass for the day My mate also has a video of the two of us casting simultaneously and getting a double hook up but I haven;t got it off him yet. All in all an awesome session with the help of a very enthusiastic and generous guide

wilson live fibre 15-24kg, 7 foot long and perfect for live baiting kings and jews, around 200 but well worth the money mate, can take a lot of punishment. Ive got a couple of $400 jig rods that I use for baiting kings and I much prefer the live fibre model.

I've got a theory about this, a few times I have found squid after squid hitting the middle of the jig away from the barbs and in some instances (like last week) have had 5 out of every 6 squid dropping off the jig as I wind them in because the barbs haven't hit the mark. This happened after me and a couple mates had already pulled about 5 squid from the area and we reckon the shadow of the boat/noise of the motor/the hooking of several squid in the area had made the squid less aggressive. As a result we moved away to another spot for about 20 minutes to try and leave those spooked squid alone for a bit. When we came back the three of us had six squid in literally 2 casts each at the exact spot where we had lost so many before.

I've got a 6'6 nitro vapor which I use for popping for bass mostly and its awesome for that sort of work. Not cheap though

nice king mad mullet, was out there this morning too, couldnt raise a squid at all and went out with a few yakkas for no result. Can't wait till this all this fresh leaves the system and the water temps rise a bit

nice report roberta, I love eucumbene, its been fishing so well with the constant rising water,

trolling is good though anchoring or drifting can be just as effective, rigging is simple just have a running sinker with around metre of quality heavy trace. Pin squid through the top of the hood and yakkas through the nose (some people like two hook rigs but I tend to keep it simple). Burleying can be effective for kings but I find it attracts too many pickers which can destroy your hard earned squid in seconds.

unbelievable!

I had a play with a 4000 size a while ago and compared it at the same time to a stella, for almost half the price I would never get a stella over one of these, obviously can't say much about durability etc at this stage but to me it felt like a pretty sweet reel, better than a certate too i reckon. And a pretty good price compared to a certate and a stella

It's always a good idea to vary the depths of your baits, definitely put one on a running sinker at about midwater and up, I find putting prize baits like fresh squid down near the bottom results in pickers having a field day.

balmoral island is the spot for yakkas first thing in the morning

yeh mate handled the jig surprisingly well, wouldnt want to cast but just dropping it down and jigging was no probs at all

hey mate the combo is a stradic ci4 4000 with 30lb tufline and a Sakana Zion 10-17lb stick. Yeh mate was a blast on that gear, the zions got such a good blank and the ci4 is so light so yeh was a lot of fun. After a while you get sick of skull dragging 60cm rats on 50lb braid and 80lb trace locked up!

yeh haha sorry mate i dont have gps co ords for that but it wasn't out wide and we just sounded out a fairly large area and would drop where we marked fish, however like fishmaniac says just follow the masses out there and you'll see where everyone is hooking up!

yeh ive got that sakana zion as well, jigged up over 10 rat kingies on friday, its an awesome blank.

I'd say I probably was one of those boats, hate to see what that place is like on a weekend

Gday raiders, managed to get out this morning with dad. With the abysmal reports of squid around we didn't try too hard with the squid, and resorted to yakkas. ended up gettin about 15 yakkas but most were horses so wasn't too confident. Met up with Josh88 and he said they were headed to Longy so thought I may as well go to. Pretty much as soon as we got there everyone was hooking up, we caught them today trolling yakkas, drifting yakkas on soft plastics and I puled out a little 80g knife jig and was outfishing the livies about 4:1. From what everyone said they were all rats today (i managed one keeper of 67cm, the rest were too small). Fun way to spend the morning but can't wait to start some cracking some bigger models.

Nice report mate, nothing wrong with keeping a feed every now and then

U dont have to troll the baits around, drifting past markers can be just as effective without the expense of a downrigger, for drifting just run them on a running sinker to a quality swivel to at least a metre of fluoro (40-100lb depending on how big the Kings are gonna be) and a quality hook. I generally set baits at a variety of depths but if your in a kayak with only one rod around midwater is a good place to start, keeping them well off the bottom also keeps the baits away from pickers. Don't be afraid to have the bait only a couple of feet under the surface either as Kings will pop up anywhere in the water column.

thats inspirational stuff mate, makes me want to go out an customise my own boat.