kajiki008

Good on ya fellas ! Nice to see blue fin off Sydney. I knew that they were off the South Coast about a month ago with one guy jumping off the boat to spearfish one but thought with all the bad weather - they would have bypassed Sydney. Nice effort and congratulations to all the anglersin fighting them without a harness and gimbal. BFT fight real hard - harder than a YFT or even a bill fish for that matter. Well Done !

Great fun guys -Mike has one of the best boats and he skippers it well. Got my nice yellowfin with him on a little talica 8 but what really impressed me was the fact that he travelled a LONG LONG WAY to find the fish - something that most captains would not do as my past experiences have shown. Great to see some flags flying. Wished that i could come out again Mike - just a little bit caught up in a new work role so hard to find the time. Definitely will come out again with you....

CONGRATS ! SOO SOO Jealous cos all we have here in off Sydney and Botany Bay are undersized. Great effort in landing your PB Keep it up and may your New Year bring even bigger ones. You cant catch fish unless you have a line and hook in the water

That's about right. Went out yesterday - saw schools of bonitos swimming with kingfish . Birds working but fish was very finicky - they were only eating massive amounts of small white bait. Happy New Year to all and may we have more days to fish !

Great - heard reports from South Coast - Off Eden that there was lots of albacore mixed in with school fin as well. Not too far around the 40 fathom mark.

Thanks Slinky Actually that was exactly what i did. Took out the 5000SW and matched it to a XZOGA Sentinel PE1 Rod yesterday and caught 4 kingifsh of around 80cm. Rod handled the kingies beautifully and the reel sat just right.

I am sooooo jealous. Looks like the fish off Sydney has decided to take a long sabbatical ... and the leatherjackets are still out in mega proportions. Great catch !!

From experience, i have found that no one reel can do everything and I guess this is why manufacturers produce so many models. If you want to jig, a low ratio reel will do it for you better than a high ratio reel (which incidentally is necessary for popping and spinning ). At the same time, all those drags (30kg) etc that they are claiming is totally useless because at the end of the day, go and ask anyone who has one of those reels to actually set the drag up to that level and assuming that you are now fishing at least 100lb braid - to go and pull on the line. You then try to see how long you can take this without either yourself or the rod going over or alternatively the rod breaks (unless again it is rated as PE10). I fished 24kg stand up on a game rod and hooked up to a 100kg BFT - it took me about an hour and a half with the drag set at the breaking strain of 8kg (mono line) - i had upped the drag up to about 12 kg for the deep down fight that these dirty buggers do and trust me - despite the gimbal and harness - my legs and back were numb ! . That was on a Tiagra 50W which allows the angler to be strapped up to the rod. With a spin reel like the Stella 20 or the Saltiga 30 - you simply cannot take such drag. It is the same with videos on guys lifting dead weights with their rods - at the end of the day once you have a fish worthy on the end of the line - you cannot take so much drag without hurting your back or unless you are the incredible hulk. My response is to buy a reel that will stand the strain of constant usage with jigging, the occasional banging of it against the gunnel of the boat will not damage it and when you do have a big fish, it will not break on you. Hope this helps

Okay guys this will no doubt be a much debated topic. As a tacklet rat, I have my fair share of rods and reels and for your information have mostly Shimano in my reel line ups with only 1 Saltiga 4500 in my collection. My 20 year old ( yes 20 year old Stella decided to quit but i cannot blame her and shall cherish her despite the fact her shaft has given way and there is no way even Shimano can fix this). She was the original Grand dame and given me lots of fish from Barramundi to Sailfish. It was a sad day for me but she went out in style - giving her last breath on a tangle with a " popped " spaniard and despite the fact that it was also her last breath, she still managed to land the fish for me. Anyway, I am now looking at replacing her with either another Stella FD or alternatively have heard about the new Daiwa Certate 4000. Although technically not a Daiwa fan, i must admit that their new Saltigas and and certates do impress me so here goes.... lay it with your expertise over the forum. Another thing on your comments what would be comparable reel to the certate 4000 - 2010 ? Is it the Stella FD series or the smallest 5000SW

GREAT JOB ! Am going on Monday. Hope the weather holds

Hey Slink, The jigs for the tuna need not be overly heavy as you will find the heavier jigs do not impart the kind of action that the tuna likes. Lost on ( you can ask Mike ) on a 200gm jig dropped about only 100 metres down ( where the tuna was sitting not for anyting but because of my own stupidity of using light line and not understanding how it works. If the tuna does take your jig, let it run and dont panic. I did and tried to stop the reel from being spooled after losing about 200 metres of line so i thumbed it too hard and it snapped ! It will be dependent on the size of the fish of course but generally from what i heard of reports in the states where they predominantly do this for BFT, better to let it run and do its tuna circles before you apply pressure. It is good if the boat is not drifting too fast and you divide the work around with one cubing and two people on cubes and another jigging by dropping the jigs to around 200 metres and bringing it up quickly. You would have buckleys chance to get it to the bottom only because the depth could be over 1000 metres. Mike from Reef Magic Charters got it pretty down pat and if you get a chance, go out with him with a crew. At least if there is no fish, its a hell of a boat (so comfortable you can be lazy !! LOL) Also the jigs as mentioned are normnally short butterfly types and this was what i used and got the fish. I will be trying again this season and also next season for BFT if i have a chance. LUCANUS JIGS Used them but only on inner reefs where they work very well on all sorts of fish (mostly bottom dwellers). problem is that the hooks on these are not for tuna (trust me) and i have lost kingies as well but caught lots of rock cods, sargent bakers even small snappers on them. You dont do much with them - just drop let it sink enough not to hook at the bottom and let the drift do your jigging for you. Once in a while lift your rod SLOWLY and not too fast and the take is sometimes hard but usually a gentle bite until the fish feels the hook and starts to fight. Very very different than jigging high speed jigs. I tried this at the peak and also 12 mile - Bloody hopeless except that the leatherjackets will eat up all your plastic and you have buy new ones. VIBES Get yourself some vibes - there are some 20+gm ones availabl. Change the hooks into the twin hook ones and if there are bonnies around, you will have hell of time with them cos they also catch you plenty. I have bought some 40+ and 50+ ones to try for kingies so will update with a report if it works.

LOL i live in Sydney too and last season went jigging for them nearly most weekends i could get out. This year a bit more sporadic due to work and also being away chasing other fish in other states. Nice catch that kingie - my PB was caught in South Coast waters over 1.1 m long so hopefully this year I will get my hands on a nice one here in Sydney waters. The biggest i got was only around 10/11kg not bad but i am still searching for the elusive BIG MOTHER !

Yeah the boys were great - lots of laugh and definitely an Aussie sense of humor (dry jokes !!) and like every fisher loves to see another angler hooked up and in pain -HEHE Nice sail - the only one i got off Nth Queensland was around 30kg only but gave me a fight on 6kg line. You will love the rods - My biggest fish on the PE6 Taka Si was a 46.1kg YFT just a few months back. Took me some time but the rods will do the trick and yup for kingies - just purrfect especially in our Sydney waters - you jig more than you hook up LOL BTW do you have big kingies up your way ??

The beauty of the place is such that it is still remarkably " village " unlike Kuala Lumpur and other big cities. There are no size limits but the amount of fish available (especially bait) is indicative it must be very productive. As mentioned before in other replies, the fish do get finicky but from my past experience in chasing billfish - man the water was definitely as green as you can get (see the youtube) and yet they are there in numbers !! Never in my life that i could believe catching sailfish in 30metres of water LOL

Yup and for your information, the weather is only great for a certain number of months i.e. from August onwards. However the boys have also informed me that the fishing is best over the start then peters out. Apparently sailfish is there all year round in these waters - perhaps because they are not commercially targeted and it is amusing to know that the as the season progresses, they become more wary - Too many caught and released so it becomes more difficult to catch them. I was very lucky for a first timer !