DerekD

Hi Again, I went fishing with an Italian friend, Stefano, last Saturday in Sydney harbour. No squid. No fish action either. After finding out that he used to fly fish back home in Europe I suggested we try for some blackfish on fly. He had no suitable gear but fortunately I had both my saltwater 7 and 9 weight rods and a few reels in the car. I set him up on the 9 weight (I know overkill for luderick but it was all I had spare) with one of the floating lines, one of my home made strike indicators and a weighted weed fly and explained the concept. We didn't have burley but based on recent successes I didn't think it was necessary (although I'd prefer to have some if I have a choice). Once I'd seen he knew how to handle a fly rod I set up my own gear and fished alongside him. We don't need to cast far (less than 6m) as we are working the edge of the weeds. The weed fly generally about 2m +/- 50cm under the strike indicator. After about 30 minutes without action I was getting concerned that Stefano would think I'd been pulling his leg about this blackfish on fly business. Then my strike indicator ducked under the water. I set the fly and called out to Stefano who came over to watch the fight. I didn't have a long handled fishing net but fortunately Stefano hand lined the fish up at the end of the fight and was kind enough to take this photo. After seeing this Stefano went for it with renewed enthusiasm. At this point @Mike89 rocked up to join us. I left them to work what we thought was the prime area and moved backwards and forwards along the rock wall. At one stage I saw Stefano's strike indicator go down but he missed the strike. Mike then pulled out a legal blackfish right in front of Stefano which left my Italian mate feeling a bit sweet and sour at the same time. Unfortunately they were not playing hard and Stefano and I were on a time limit. It turns out the week before Mike caught 12 (10 legal) blackfish fishing the same sort of area. It was one of his better sessions to date and it was without any burley. The area's we have been fishing have a bit of tidal flow and a lot of ferry movements. I suspect the resulting wash and currents ensures a plentiful supply of small pieces of weed in the water which closely resemble the flies we are using. I'll have to try some areas with less water flow to see if the flies are still effective when the luderick are around. Previously my home made strike indicators (indicator yarn, a small o-ring, and some braid to tie it up) were working well for just one fishing session after which they would absorb water a lot more quickly and lose their buoyancy part way through a session. I've since been trying two types of floatant to solve this problem. The first is dry fly silicon mucilin - there is a pocket in which you drop the fly/indicator and turn it upside down to saturate it and then squeeze off the excess and allow to dry. The second is a wipe on silicon gel. Both have worked very well to date and have lasted the whole fishing session. Stefano did point out that in some ways we were essentially fishing an artificial bait with a float. I agree in that we are not having to work the fly in the traditional sense but we are still having to get the fly in the strike location using the weight of the fly line. The actual fight is the really fun part as they put an awesome bend in the rods.

Hi SB05. As a starting point is it set up as left hand or right hand. You have an Alvey so it sounds like you are familiar with this direct drive reel but if I don't start with the simple questions I'll probably kick myself later. There is a one way bearing inside of it which will allow free spool in one direction and allow the drag to work in the other direction. Which model reel Is my next question. I have several and the drag system is a little different in each one. Even better can you take out the spool and take some photos. Regards, Derek

Hi @JamesH. I now own 4 of the ArrowZ rods. The ultra light (AAS-270SUL), the bream surface (AAS-270BS 2-12g), one of the Snapper rods (AAS-270H) and recently the 9 foot (ShoreSpin 9', 2 pc, 14 - 25lb AAS-290SS). You are right that the light version is excellent for the hardbodies and so is the bream surface. I'm loving them both for surface lures like the Sugapen. Unfortunately the way that the supplier sets up their website you have to jump around to find a few of the rods. I set two friends up with the 270UL and if I knew about it at the time I probably would have jumped over the bream surface and gone that way too. I don't think you will go far wrong with either but in my case sometimes I fish up a little off the water and that slightly stronger backbone of the estuary gives me a little more confidence if I have to dead lift a fish out of the water. I also like the slightly heavier lure rating for punching out lures such as size 3 squid jigs (about 14 gram). If you get the chance watch Australian Sand Flats fishing. He gives the ArrowZ rods range a reel (pun intended) work out. Hope this helps. Derek

Somewhere along the years from someone in the fishing community I heard that Shimano, Daiwa and Okuma all have big production facilities with good quality control in China. As a result the gear is both well made and pretty cost competitive for what you get. While I am a big Shimano fan (I used to work near their Sydney offices and the after sales staff have looked after me brilliantly over the years) I have no problem recommending the other two brands as a starting point when assisting people with gear selection.

$230 budget - Challenge accepted. A proviso - Have a really good look at the 10lb braid my concern is that it is thicker and heavier than you really need and you will lose casting distance (especially on lighter plastics). Really recommend going with a 4lb (overtests) or skinny 6lb and learn to play the fish. Rod and reel combo: Shimano Sienna Quickfire 7' 2500 Spinning Combo 7 ft $89 (Sienna reel usually over $50). Rod is graphite and has short butt which makes working lures easier. I've bought 2 of these for my nephews and have set up another 2 people on a budget with these. One of them was catching Sydney Salmon on soft plastics with this outfit several months ago ( right @JahmonW ) Backing for braid to pack up spool and the remainder you can use as leader - Platypus Super-100 300M Mono Line Clear 8 lb $22 Braid 150yds/m depending - 4lb such as power pro ($32) or berkley X5 ($20) or skinny 6lb Shimano Kairiki ($28) or Daiwa J Braid ($25 or $35 depending on 4 or 8 carrier). I prefer my braid in crystal colour but that is a personal preference. Minimum spend so far $89 + $22 + $20 = $131 These are genuine online and local prices but you will have to search where or PM me. Did you want to talk plastics and lures now?

The Unicorn exists.....

I usually work Monday to Friday so weekends are generally the best for me. Also afternoons when daylight savings comes back. Good luck with the surgery.

A legal luderick on fly fishing gear on your first outing. Welcome to the club Andrew - the first of what I hope are many more to come.

For the group I fish them with they have been very effective. There are other brands out there such as Lunker City which make a similar style plastic but value for money the Slapstix (6 or 9 inch) seem to be the best. Our preference is the pink or the white at equal first with the clear/twinkle in third. Do not buy the blue ones - there is something about the material that they use which means it seems to tear open a bit more easily and especially when you insert a jig head. When I first started with them the preferred rigging method seemed to be with worm hooks. Very effective in their way but for me it made it difficult to work the water column effectively. I started using TT Tournament jig heads with the bullet head. I worked out a retrieve which allowed me to get a sub-surface walk the dog action which when mixed with pauses turned out to be very effective in firing up the kings.

About 2 summers ago we had a whole lot of kings move into Middle Harbour. They were frequently hitting at least 2 bays I know off as there was a good school of bait fish in both of them. There were a group of us hitting those areas shore based whenever we had spare time. We found the tide didn't matter. We had a bit of action at the first dawn (sun starts sending light over the horizon) and then at the second dawn (when it got over the hills) and this would continue till about 11am. This was happening daily for several months so wasn't tide dependent. Word got out (damn the application fishbrain) and it started to get busier and busier. On one morning there were at least 10 of us on the wall alongside the water. As a group I think we were pulling in 20 to 40 kings daily (all shorebased). About 1/3 to 1/2 of the hook ups were on squid. Slapstix and 3" minnows probably picked up another 1/3 and the rest were on a combination of hardbodies and surface poppers.

Are you talking about tides from an access point of view or from a fishing point of view. The kings move around. In middle harbour it has never seemed particularly dependent on the tides. Or to put it another way, the whole of middle harbour doesn't suddenly fire up at X minutes before or after high/low tide? If that was the case it would be easy and a few more of us would have cracked the code long ago. Where tides might make a difference is Spit bridge as it is a choke point where a lot of water will pass through in one direction or another. Just get out there - the method of floating strips under floats has been very effective for my group of fishing mates over the years (when the kings are around).

My pleasure @Devon - you have been pretty effective that combo so far. Be interesting to see how it goes when we get some burley into the mix.

Turns out that @Devon responds well to peer group pressure. He sent me this lovely photo today of a blackfish he caught on fly rod with a message confirming that the strike indicator I gave him to try worked a treat. Turns out that @Devon is also a bit competitive as well as being a bit of an over-achiever as he picked up this really odd looking (but legal) yellow/green/silveryfish on surface lure in the same session. Funny looking fly....

Hi again, Went out again with @Mike89 last weekend to try for blackfish on fly again. While he was heading back to his car to get some items I saw my strike indicator get ripped under the water. I quickly lifted the rod to set the hook and felt some weight on. A few minutes later this one came to the surface. As I was feeling a little smug I took a photo to send to Mike while he was at the car with a text message of "this is what luderick look like on fly". I missed the moment as he came back before I could send it. Thought I'd share it with you instead. Legal but not worth measuring. Went back in the water. I had some chores so Mike persisted without me and came back at me with this lovely photo. Recently we also caught up with @Devon and with afternoons like this fishing mid-winter in Sydney it hits home how lucky we are to live near this wonderful harbour.

Both the Squidgie and the Berkley minnows in your photo should be absolutely fine - I've probably got older and still usable. Just feel them and put a bend in them and if they don't crack or tear then you are right to use them. If you plan to fish the plastics then dump the mono for two reasons. Even if it hasn't been damaged by UV (stored so very unlikely) it can develop a memory and can be an absolute pain to use (the stretch will also make it feel spongy). The use of braid with plastic is highly recommended. It gives you extra casting distance and the sensitivity is what makes it so fun and effective to fish. You can feel bites 50 meters away. Braid overtests so something in the 4 (my preference) to 6lbs would work well with the plastics shown in your box. I fish lower North shore and if you can't find anyone of your group that fishes light soft plastics effectively then I might be able to give you an introduction to them. The plastics are best fished with the graphite rod. They have a very better sensitivity than the older fibreglass rods.

If it is claimed. Check the lure records section:

Just slots in to third place I think. Record is 47cm. Second place is 43cm (which I just equalled on fly the other week). The 3rd place was 41cm. Beautiful catch on SP. Think I've only ever had one on soft plastic (and one on a vibe) so I suspect it would have been a bit of a surprise.

From my experience they will spin in circles if dropped. By keeping in contact with the lure on the way down (tight line) it then behaves like a pendulum and can only swim in one direction.

Even the fight almost feels like you are hand lining it in as the strength of the rod certainly isn't in the top part of the rod. Also something about being able to land a lure less than the weight of a pinkie fingernail about 20 to 25m away when you load up the rod correctly and get the timing of your hauling right. I know it is more about accuracy than distance but I'd love to spend some time with someone who can get the whole length of fly line in the air.

Hi Noel. You weren't kidding. That is a fat specimen. Pretty sure I've seen basketballs less round than your blackfish. 🙂

Thank you GH. So far they seem to be working pretty well as they don't put a kink in the line and don't seem to slip very much when false casting. Going to give some to @Mike89 and @Devon to trial over the next few weeks.

Hi all, This is a fly report but there is also a bit of history. Many years ago as a birthday present I was given a beautiful NZ made 4 piece 7 weight 9 foot freshwater fly rod with a gorgeous reel (and floating line) to match. This one in fact. It was from a very good friend who was in NZ and one of my bucket list items is trout on fly rod in New Zealand. When I got back I wanted to learn about fly fishing techniques and how to properly use the rod so I booked a one day lesson with one of the Sydney based trout guides (who has passed away in the last few years). Wasn't cheap but it was a really good introduction. In the morning he went through the background and theory. A short history of fly fishing gear. Older rods to modern rods. Line weights. Knots. Leaders. Very informative. In the afternoon we went through casting basics. The roll cast. Single hauling. Double hauling. Laying the line out. Loops. All in all it was a worthwhile day and shortened the learning process dramatically. I was still pretty uncoordinated (it is very like pat head circle stomach when starting out) but I'd learned enough to practice, practice, practice. My first fish on fly (black woolly bugger) was a bass in Manly dam. I've also had nice carp in the Hunter Valley. As it was a freshwater rod I wasn't keen to use it in saltwater. Even with a good clean I'm afraid of missing a bit of salt and damaging the rod long term. I invested in a 2 piece 9 weight saltwater rod from the same NZ manufacturer - a bit of a broomstick but I like the stiffness of the rod. I found a couple of Scientific Angler reels online and got set up. Over the years I've had salmon, bonito, tailor and a few other species. I'm also looking forward to the day I hook a king on it. This outfit is a bit overgunned for some of the smaller saltwater species we have in Sydney harbour so this year I decided to invest in a 7 weight 4 piece 9 foot saltwater (stainless guides) outfit. Matched it with an excellent value ($170) reel with an insane drag and some intermediate (slow sinking) line. All up probably the most expensive outfit I own but with care it is something I could use for the rest of my life. On the odd occasion I've been chasing Luderick (Blackfish) with @Mike89. He has gone to the dark side and acquired a centrepin reel and super long rod and has also been getting very good at it due to the time he has put in to it and the assistance of other Fishraiders. I'm quite capable of catching luderick but I use a spinning outfit as it is crossover fishing for me. This winter one of my goals has been to start catching luderick on fly rod. There has been a bit of a learning curve to work out how to approach it most effectively. The flies were easy as my local tackle shop ties them and does a mixed pack (light green or dark green - see photo) but it turns out they are either floating or sinking (tied with lead line). I've also included a wet fly in the photo so you can see how well it imitates green weed. Next step was the strike indicator. I am aware of the stick on foam ones but wasn't sure how well you could move them along the line once stuck. I found some waterproof indicator line which you can tie on the line but wasn't happy with the bend it puts in the leader. Online I found some ones with an O-ring attached (green, orange, red and yellow ones in photo below). These worked pretty well but because the O-ring was so fat they had a tendency to kink the line. I then hopped online and found some 5mm I.D. 8mm O.D. O-rings through which I passed the indicator yarn and fastened it with braid. This is what I am currently trialing. I pass a double through the O-ring and loop it over the yarn. When I pull the line tight the O-ring doubles on itself and creates a friction lock - the strike indicator sits where it is when casting but the position of it can be easily moved by sliding it up or down the line. One of the earlier trips out with Mike to one of his secret spots where he has been consistently been catching and releasing good luderick showed me the limitations of the intermediate line as it would drag down the strike indicator after a while. I had a few touches but no conversions. At this stage I was more interested in the learning curve than results. I fortunately had a spare spool with floating line so that problem was easily solved. This weekend I picked up some cabbage weed after work as I was going to introduce another friend to the joys of chasing luderick. @Mike89 was also free to fish the lower north shore with us. So with a goal in mind and company on Saturday we all headed down to the water. I cut up the weed and Mike made up the burley. We couldn't see too many luderick in the water but had seen them in the area on earlier trips. My friend Floris had an early down but was so in the zone he missed reacting to it in time. Mike then put a few on the board. Once I was confident my friend understood the concept I set up the fly rod and started fishing. I had a strike and set the hook. A luderick of about 20cm came up out of the depths. My first luderick on fly. I hand lined it up. The hook had caught near the eye which I carefully removed and then released the fish without worrying about a photo. A little while later the strike indicator disappeared under the surface and once I struck I ended up with a really nice bend in the rod. The fish was darting back to the weeds (6lb fluoro tippet) but I managed to keep it out. I saw the fish and thought it was average but was impressed at the fight it put up. Now in my defence I had acquired some polarised, prescription, sunglasses for my topwater bream fishing with @Niall over the summer and these throw my depth perception out pretty badly although they are as sharp as. Mike and Floris were telling me it was a good fish and it wasn't till Mike netted it that I realised how good it actually was. You judge. For the record it was 43cm on fly and a personal best (bait and lure). Out of curiosity I looked at the lure records on Fishraider and this one would put me in equal second place behind the record 47cm luderick on lure. I'm looking forward to doing more of this style of fishing over the winter. On a side note Mike has seen multiple times how effective it is to fish the weed flies even on the centrepin and spinning outfits. You still burley up but it saves the hassle of rebaiting the hook every time the luderick nibbles away at the weed on your hook. You can combine two flies by having a weighted fly at the bottom and a floating fly a little further up the line. He has also been using very small split shot sinkers to get the weed flies down into the water column. Thanks for reading. Derek

No didn't get the chance. Had a full weekend booked up already and for some reason I don't see too many people in Council working on Saturday. On a side note my dad had been patient enough with me leaving it there for a long time and wanted the spot back so it was easier just to move it.

Yes there was and it was in clear view too. I preferred the old days when you had the rego stickers. No doubt then.

Hi All, Just a heads up for others that store their boat and trailer in the streets. My boat has been stored on the trailer outside my dad's in the Willoughby Council area for quite a long time. My dad advised me on Friday the 26th of June that there was a note on the boat which it turns out had been placed by Council 3 days earlier advising that it was unregistered and abandoned and was going to be collected in three days. Both trailer and boat were registered and I have just renewed both recently. At no time has either registration lapsed. I'll own the fact it had been sitting there for a fair while and that there was a build up of pine needles on it. What pissed me off is that the notice was mostly under the tarpaulin and so difficult to see and secondly that there was only 3 days warning without advising the owner (what if I'd been overseas or if dad hadn't seen it). I didn't want to risk it so I shifted it that evening. I know some Councils are warning that trailers must be moved within 28 days but what I don't know is how far. Is 10m sufficient? I used to store it in the back streets behind my place in front of a park and rarely had problems finding a spot. Just found that down through the years there were more cars in the area and it was getting hard to find a place without inconveniencing others. Regards, Derek