DerekD

Hi All, There was an article in today's Sunday Telegraph on page 38 about how fishing in Sydney harbour has improved since kingfish traps and commercial fishing has been stopped. They go on to mention 10 species and great places to catch them. Included in this list is the squid which I chase a lot of as I use it to catch kingfish, mulloway and other species. One of the locations indicated for squid is the Manly area. To my knowledge the North Harbour part of Manly is an Aquatic reserve and can only be fished with line and you can only chase finned fish. This puts the squid out of contention. While the X marks the spot seems to be a little closer to Manly wharf and thus might just be clear of Aquatic zone they have also indicated a hot spot which is well within what I understand the zone to be. If the rules have changed and we can chase squid there it would be fantastic as it gives us another location in Sydney to chase them. Does anyone know anything more about the situation? Regards, Derek

Hi Allen, If it is for you kayak suggest you also get some foam pads to put between the racks and the kayak. I have a plastic kayak and don't like point loading where the racks meet the kayak. I know a lot of racks come with a rubber strip but you will find the contact either pushes the strip into the rack or you dent the kayak. The shop might have them or you can go to places like Clark rubber. I transport my kayak upside down so the rails lie flat on the racks but one of my mates has a kayak craddle (extra cost) for his. I have straps longer than I need as I don't 100% trust the spring loaded clips and I use the extra strap length to tie a secondary knot. My racks cost me about $300 and are one of the well known brands. The company that sold them to me gave me the distance from the window trim to the first rack and then the spacing to the second rack and this takes into account the roof curvature of each vehicle make. I keep a small tape measure in the car for this as my racks come off at the end of the weekend. Regards, Derek

Hobie have a walk in shop again at Darley road in Mona Vale. Used to be called Sailing Scene before they changed to Paddle, Peddle, Sail but I think it is now back to the old name.

On the whole it looks good but that something funny is going on in the top part of the screen. Before you rip out your hard work play around with the settings (like reduce sensitivity) and take it out in deeper water. As you only have 3 feet in the pool it has scaled signals up accordingly so what could even be the plastic of the kayak might disappear when the depth and thus scale is increased. My sonar even has a fresh versus saltwater setting which affects the results.

Hi Will, Went through this many years ago when I bought my first Shimano raider bream finesse 2-4kg. Advice from store was get 2 piece as you won't notice the difference when fishing. Advice from friend who did SP fishing was "Get the 1 piece. Get the 1 piece. Get the 1 piece" and so I did get the 1 piece. Loved the rod but to protect it I needed a 2.3m rod case which is a pain to transport. Promised myself if I found it in 2 piece for $100 I'd get that. I did. I have a smaller rod case which fits in my boot and the 1 piece lives permanently in the garage and has done so for years. Get the 2 piece unless you are fishing so hard you need the strength of the 1 piece (think marlin and tuna offshore outfits). I sometimes catch Kingfish on my 2 piece bream outfit and it has not let me down. Also when on the boat if I find it is getting in the way I can break the 2 piece down and put it back in its case and store it out of the way. Try storing a 1 piece out of the way on a small boat. Make sure you push the two pieces tightly together and if you find it still slipping apart rub some wax (candle or board) on the end of the rod which slips into the other part. The added friction is enough to stop them from separating. Regards, Derek PS. The carbon fibre in modern rods can bruise so you really don't want it banging against the hard sides of a tinnie. PPS. Ended up buying the same 1 piece bream finesse rod for my friend as a birthday present and it ended up getting damaged as it was cumbersome to transport.

I'd suggest trying it without the sanding to start with. Depending on how you scuff it up there might be places for bubbles to hold. If you just clean the surfaces well and it fails you can always resort to sanding as a second go. The marine goop in mine still looks to be holding properly after 2 years of use.

I don't see a problem mounting it centre section of the hull as long as it is flat and it is more or less always in contact with the water directly underneath the hull. I can drive over a boat wake with mine and still see the turbulence bubbles from the propeller in the water a few minutes later - it is that sensitive. Hence the reason for avoiding bubbles in general. Some people will scuff the area to make sure the adhesive has a good bite. I didn't but gave it a really good clean to make sure there was no salt or particulates at this point. Think about where to store the excess cable. I didn't want to trim mine down so I looped it and cable tied it to the mast pole.

Hi Again, A little bit of background. As I said I have a Hobie revolution 13 which has 3 hatches. I was looking for a Fishfinder setup I could switch between that and my small runabout. Due to that challenge I had to put a lot of thinking and research into the best way of doing it. In the end I was going to get one good head unit (GSP, Sounder and Down imaging) and a second transducer. For $10 more than the price of the transducer and cables I could buy a second lower spec unit with the same mounting components. I have wired up both the kayak and the boat and switch the better headunit from one docking station to the other and I have a smaller spare headunit. I sometimes get water inside the hull so I had to make sure that the electronics were not affected. First the battery - while on the water I can't easily access the back hatch (I have seen the same hatch design on various brands of kayaks) so I decided to store the battery here. Hobie (there is an agent in Mona Vale) have a sealable box which drops into this hatch. By cutting and removing one of the dividers I can drop the SLA battery 12V 7.5Ah (lasts a long day on the water) on its side into the box and still get the lid on. Humminbird is a bit of a pain as the cables are hardwired into the docking station. I had to come up with a way to mount it and to store it when not in use. There is a mounting accessory company called Ram mount. Hobie in Mona Vale have some components and I found another agent in north Sydney that had a few more. On the Hobie there is hole for a mast and I have inserted a Ram ball in there. Inside the hull I have installed a second Ram ball on the mast column. I bought a mount bracket suitable for the hummingbird and they have ones for other companies. Attached is a photo of the docking station in its operational position (you will notice how the cables come up underneath the front hatch). Here is the docking station in its storage position when I don't need it. The transducer. In the end I decided on the through the hull system as I would have had to get too clever on cables through the hull and mounting brackets and where to put it so it would not get damaged. From everything I have seen I don't believe I have lost any clarity on the sonar but I feel the down imaging is not as sensitive as the in water mounting on the boat. The temperature readings are probably not quite as responsive as it would be in the water but as it is going through thin plastic and is almost in contact with the water I feel it is close to what I expect. The guys from Hobie sold me a product called Marine Goop (others use Selleys All Clear) and gave me some foam. I used the foam and the Goop to make a little dam which would fit around the transducer. When it dried I put the Goop in warm to hot water to get it to a runny consistency and then poured it carefully into the dam. Avoid bubbles at all costs. I pushed the transducer into the runny Goop and rolled it side to side to clear any possible bubbles. It took a little while to dry so I had to make sure the hull was horizontal. Have a look at the attached and you will also see the Ram mounting ball for out of use storage. I put the transducer in front of the drive fins so I did not get interference due to turbulent water. Hope the above has helped. Derek

Hi Krause, I'll put together something in the next few days but can you post a photo or two of the topside of your kayak so I can tailor my response with any suggestions. In particular I am interested in the storage hatches and the location where you are thinking of mounting the head unit. Regards, Derek

Hi Krause, What is your kayak? I have a Hobie revolution 13 with a Humminbird Fishfinder for which I mounted the transducer in hull. I worked out how to rig the wiring without any damage to the hull. If you have a Hobie a lot of what I learned can be applied to your situation. If you have another brand it might take a little more thinking. Regards, Derek

Hi StonedPirate, While I have never had an issue with the Platypus brand (I use it for my few remaining mono outfits) it might be that you have a bad batch. One way to check is to tie it to something while on land and spool out say 5 or 10m and load it up to breaking point or an estimated 6kg. If it passes this then try spooling out between 30 and 50m (depending on how much you can afford to lose) and load it up but NOT to breaking point. If you use a decent knot I'd be surprised if it fails. Secondly, I went through a stage where I was breaking line way under what it should have. I checked all my runners and found a crack in the ceramic of one which was damaging line. Changed runner and fixed problem. As mentioned by roughstyler, tailor have sharp teeth. If they bite the wrong end of the line the tackle won't be coming back. On one session I lost a lot of lures because at times I stopped the retrieve to let it sink and they picked the wrong end (for me) to bite the tail off.

When you get the chance google "daz's lake jew" and look for the video. That should answer your first question. As to the second question, it is probably a case of time and effort. Good luck.

The following has had no extended scientific research and is based more on my personal experiences over the years. I fish primarily inside the heads. From Middle Harbour to Balmoral and North Head in my very small runabout and in the main harbour on my kayak. Others fishing off the coast of Sydney at the reefs and peaks may have different experiences. Personally I don't see any advantage to put extra strips on the hook. I fish circle hooks and the extra mass may actually interfere with the setting of the hook. The extra bait might put a little more scent in the water and the extra dangling strips might get the attention of the kingfish a little better but you'd have to fish both methods side by side to see which is more successful. The rod holders on my boat are set up on the four corners of the boat. When I head out with a fishing mate we have four rods out with strip baits or squid heads on them and are fishing a light rod each with smaller strips. I find the single strips get hit a little more often than the head with tentacles. We have more strips out than heads so that is maybe not a fair test. Something else I have seen a few times is when fishing for yellowtail with a piece of squid a king has come through and taken a piece of squid smaller than the fingernail on your pinkie. Also when fishing a whole squid there have been enough times when fish have taken just the head and left me with the hood and the hook - for that reason consider a snelled rig with a second hook in the head when fishing a whole squid. It may be different with the 1m plus kings outside the heads but what I feel is a bigger bait doesn't mean more kings. For that reason I continue to fish single strips plus I get more baits out of a single squid which generally does result in more fish. I picked up 4 kings out of a smallish stripped squid last summer - better than 1 king out of the whole squid (unless it was the 1m plus which I still have to achieve).

The size of the strip depends on which rod I am using at the time. On my snapper rods which I use to chase kings I will use a strip about 3cm wide by about 10cm long give or take. I use Gamakatsu circle hooks usually in a size 4/0 or 5/0 or a 6/0. I put the hook in about 1cm from the top turn it and put it back through the strip a little further down. Essentially I want the strip of squid to wave naturally in the water. On my bream rod the strip is a little smaller and you'd be surprised at how many times a king has hit that. Unfortunately I lose that argument more often than I win it.

Hi Will, Please let us know how the first attempt goes. It will only get easier with experience. At times I find the hardest thing is getting a good grip on the squid as they can be slippery buggers. Even though they are dead there can be a bit of left over ink so think about where you prepare them.

When fishing my experience has been that the kings have taken the strips over the larger sections of squid. Even though I think I am pretty good at it I find I work hard enough for my squid to want to get multiple baits out of it rather than put it out as a single bait. At this time of night I don't feel like getting one of the frozen whole squid out of the fridge for a photo session so I hope what I write makes sense. Same technique for arrow, southern calamari and to a degree cuttlefish. The underside/belly of the squid is the side where the nozzle for propulsion is. Lay the squid on its belly. Reach directly behind the top of the head and just into the hood. You will find a piece of flesh which joins the hood to the head and runs at least half the length of the hood. With my index finger I sweep across this piece breaking as far back as I can reach into the hood. Grab the head with one hand and the hood with the other. Pull the head out. The ink sacks should come out with the head. There is at least one bait here and I sometimes split the head lengthways to get two baits. Look at the wings. There is a little ridge joining the wing to the body. You should be able to dig a thumb nail into this ridge and then pull the wing away from the body. Repeat for the second wing. Cut these lengthwise into strips. There are at least three baits in each wing and maybe more depending on size of the wing. On the upper half of the hood on the inside (where the hood joined the head) if you dig along the line of flesh and just under the skin you will feel something a little hard. This is the pen. It looks like a clear bit of plastic (see photo below). Dig around till you can grab it and pull it clear of the hood. Throw this bit away. If you are going to eat the squid then you clean off the remaining skin on the outside and the little bit of gunk left inside the hood. If you are using it as bait then I run the knife along the line where I found the pen. I then open the hood out and lay it flat like a triangle. I can then cut my strips to the size I feel I need for the day.

It was the lagoon side but he swam across the lagoon to the flats at the back and managed to step on it there. Didn't envy him having to swim back across the lagoon to the camping section of the Basin with that pain in his foot. Times like this I understand using the stingray shuffle when walking in the shallows. For peace of mind worth getting the booties but in my opinion the likelyhood of it happening is still pretty small when you consider how many times people wade in the shallows many times over the summer over many years of their life.

Was at the Basin up in Pittwater today meeting up with a few friends. Had the line set up and was getting a few bites in what looked like being a promising fishing session when one of my friends came back with a bleeding foot. Turns out he had stepped on a sting ray. My friend is pretty well built and pretty tough to match and it was interesting to see the effect the toxin had on his system. He admitted it was pretty painful. We got him to the ranger's office and they put his foot in hot water. His body was twitching uncontrollably. What was really strange was looking at one of his larger leg muscles. It wasn't just twitching but it was rippling/moving like a wave. The water police took him back to the Palm Beach side and the ambulance people checked him out. In the end they released him to go home. That is one fishing experience I am in no hurry to try.

I have 4 of my friends with Hobie mirage drive kayaks stored on the club racks. One of the guys talked to someone from the club and received permission to use the spare slots for the last 5 years. Used to be $100 then $200 and now $300 but still good value. The money goes back into the club for the kids activities and we have somewhere to store the kayaks. Also have a jetty there so very easy for us to launch. I call it a win-win. Worth talking to the local councils. Have found them to be pretty reasonable on prices. Talk to the local boating clubs too. If you go down the kayak path then you get to fish, see places you wouldn't easily get to and get some exercise. We started looking at kayaks when we realised we couldn't always get to the pelagics which were busting up over the bays during the summer months. The plastics these days should be UV stabilised and it will be years before you should see any sun damage (if ever) but I prefer to keep mine in the garage. Mine is also a little more decked out than some as I have a fishfinder on it (the head unit I can switch between the kayak and the boat). In summer you won't need it as most of the action is on the surface. When you can buy a new paddle powered kayak for $500 with oar, seat, fishing rod holder use it for a year or two and sell it for $200 or $300 if you get bored I call that a pretty good deal. Be warned if you get the pedal powered Hobie they are addictive. I put my retired mother on one and within half an hour she was scooting around the bay like she'd been doing it for years. Wouldn't take the hint though - she kept coming back and I kept pushing her out again (BTW I actually really do luv her). If you get a kayak please take the time to learn some of the boating rules. You don't need a boat licence but it is for your own safety and that of others. There are times out there when it is a bit like the bicycle versus car situation which can be frustrating as there is plenty of room on the water.

Hi Jay, Firstly, I share your frustration at cleaning up after others. I get that some things get dropped or forgotten but if I did that sort of thing deliberately as a kid my father would have set me straight very quickly. I've always wondered what the mindset is of people like that but I don't particularly like the idea of getting into a fight by trying to correct their behaviour. I usually end up shifting locations to avoid the grief. As for the second part of your query, I have a boat, a kayak and do a lot of landbased fishing. Landbased - I don't like crowds and have multiple places in particular areas to get around this issue. Get out the street directory and have maybe every 4th weekend as a reconnaisance exercise. You'd be amazed at how many viable fishing spots you end up with over the years. Boat - The great thing is you can take a mate or two. If an area is not fishing well it is easy to change without having to pack up the gear. I store mine in a back street near my place. Just put some consideration into where you put it. A trailer is a registered vehicle so it can be parked on the street but some owners assume the bit of street in front of their house is their own private property and take action accordingly. Rego for boat and trailer is about $130 per year. You will need to wear a life jacket at all times if it is just you on the boat. If you stay under 10 knots you do not need a boat licence - boat horsepower does not factor into the licence. Still worth knowing the rules for safeties sake. Boat ramps can get busy and there are some dos and don'ts too. There will be maintence. Had my engine rebuilt and the cost was more than the engine, boat and trailer when we bought it second hand. For the many outings I have had I don't begrudge the cost. Kayak - I store mine in the garage. My fishing buddies store theirs in racks by the water. It costs them $300 per year. It cost me $50 for the hoist. I have a Hobie mirage drive kayak but it costs around $2,500 but I consider it worth it as the peddle drive keeps my hands free for fishing. Very stable and covers lots of distance. My neighbour bought a new kayak for about $500 a couple of weeks ago. I was impressed at how well it was decked out for the price. Due to the weather it has not been out on the water but I am looking forward to seeing how it handles. I can launch in more areas than I can with the boat. As it is so quiet it does not disturb the fish - have been fishing in a school of fish for over 3 hours once. Enough areas you can fish without getting in the way of the boats and you do have rights on the water but the random power boat driver will forget that. No boat licence required but seriously recommend you read the boating rules. Don't rush into it but seriously worth getting some sort of boat - especially that the pelagics will be coming into the harbour in bigger and bigger schools over the next month and generally into late March. Derek

Caught what I thought was an Australian bass on a 2 inch white grub a fair way up river from the Roseville bridge probably about 9 years ago. Only later we worked out it was most likely an EP (I'm counting it as one). Good to see they are still there.

Was on a friend's boat on the skiffos side of Manly wharf. We saw a landing net in the water on the weed beds. We managed to snag it and bring it up to the surface.Score!! Here is where it got strange. Looking in the net we realised there was both an unopened bottle of beer and a live and just legal whiting. Wonder if the fishing gods were telling us something - beer battered whiting? Normally I'd hesitate telling this story as it was a little too out there but there were four witnesses on board.

I have found that during the colder months I have to work harder to catch fish and usually get less than I would in the Summer when most of the fish seem to be feeding more agressively. To anyone who has struggled with lures give it a really good try during the summer months. If you have a reasonable technique, the right gear (go lighter rather than heavier - you might lose more fish but you will hook up more often - let your drag do its job) and put the time in you should get more fish which is a great confidence builder.

Hi Again, Good advice from your mate about shifting around a bit. A lot of people fish with bait passively and wait for something to happen. I used to fish my bait like a little bit like lures (moving it in short stretches) to find the fish and then when I found them I worked that particular area till they stopped biting. One of the reasons I like the lures is that you are proactive and always busy. Another reason for liking soft plastics is that I can fish the whole water column. When I fish from shore I am fishing depths of 1m in the shallows to maybe 10m further out. First thing is put the bait aside for a session or two or just put one big bait out (say a whole squid) but spend the time fishing with the plastics. With my 4" plastics I use a Squidgy round lead head 9 gram with 2/0 hook. With the 3" plastics I use either the 5 gram #1 hook or the 6 gram #1/0 hook. With the 2" grub I use Berkley 1/8 ounce #4 hook (can't find these anymore). I find the Squidgy ball heads to be good value but if I was sponsored I'd probably use a lot more of the TT range. The following is how I usually go about it. Pick a nice fishy looking spot by the harbour with some oysters on the rocks, seaweed hanging of the rocks, sandy patches and a bit of a drop off. First off I'll try for an easy flathead or two. They are ambush predators and aren't really put off by lure presentation if it gets within striking distance. I'll use the 9 gram head on the 4" or even on the 3" minnow if I really want casting distance. Pick a direction and work the lure like I mentioned in the previous post. Change point of aim by about 5m and then repeat. Fan your casts out till you are pretty sure you have covered the area. BTW I have had enough kings hit the 4" minnow that it is not a complete surprise when it happens - they still win more often than not but I am left grinning like a maniac. After I have worked the area I change down to the 3" plastic with the 6 gram for distance or 5 gram for a slightly gentler presentation. Fan the casts out. After this I'll switch to the grub and repeat or move along by 50m to work a new area. Keep doing this till you have covered the area and if need be move areas. No need to rush the process. There will be times you get the small stuff but often enough you will get some really good fish like this whiting which went 41cm and I have had bigger whiting on lures in the harbour. This brings us slice (twisty) lures. If you find you start losing tails off your plastics one of the likely culprits is the tailor. At this point I switch to the 10 gram twisty to see if I can hook up. Generally if there is no visible surface action then it is a waste of time throwing the twisty around for an hour or so with the hope of getting lucky. If I see surface action indicating feeding fish then out comes the silver twisty and then I work the area. The 70cm kingfish shown in my profile picture was caught on a 5 gram twisty with single hook on the bream gear with a 6lb leader when we saw some fish feeding on the surface in Middle Harbour. Took a while to land.

Lures 101.... First I've been fishing soft plastics for over 10 years and if they didn't work I wouldn't have persisted so long. If I am teaching someone to fish I use bait but I prefer lures for most of my fishing for a number of reasons. When fishing with a friend using bait they might catch more fish but my fish are generally bigger. Throw a piece of food in the water and generally the smaller fish race in and the bigger fish follow up to take anything which might be left. With a lure the smaller fish might pick at it but I still have a chance at picking up something bigger. Most of my biggest fish have been on lure but my 104cm mulloway was on a squid I caught earlier that afternoon on a lure. I can keep my fishing gear and lures in the car and if I decide to go for a fish at last minute I don't have race out to find bait. My hands don't stink of bait after a session either. My gear for most of the lure fishing is 2-4kg 7 foot 6 2 piece Shimano raider Bream Finesse with a Symetre 1500 reel with 4lb Power Pro braid, 8lb backing (which I don't see) and 8lb Nitlon leader. I like a stiff rod rather than a spongy rod as I use it to impart twitches to the lure. My go to lures are Berkley Powerbait 3 inch minnows in pink, watermelon, blue or smelt or sometimes the 4 inch in watermelon. I also use 2 inch grubs. There are many fantastic alternatives out there but this works for me. I don't use Gulp but I think a biodegradable edible plastic is brilliant it is just that they get hard if they dry out. Use a jig head heavy enough to get down to where you want it to go without losing too much of the movement. Cast out and then keep the rod tip low (and 90 degrees to the line to absorb shock) so the wind can't grab the line. Watch the line as the lure swims down to bottom. The line will belly out when the lure hits the bottom. Flick the rod tip away from the lure to give the lure movement. Small twitches for the smaller lures and slightly larger twitches for the bigger lures. When you flick the rod tip retain tension in the line otherwise the lure will drop rather than swim back to the bottom. When you have to take line in make sure you wind back and keep the rod tip under tension. If line does not go on the reel with tension it will want to birdsnest at times. When summer comes I chase the schools of pelagics from the shore or the kayak. At this point my go to lure is a Silver 10 gram Halco twisty with the trebles changed out to a single large eye size 1 hook (easier to get out of the fish and causes less damage). I use a swivel and duolock clip as I feel they are stronger than some of the other clips out there. Lost 5 Halcos in one session to other clips pulling when the fish were bouncing on the lure. At $6 a lure I changed clip design. These cast a good distance and I have had a lot of different species on these. Vary the speed on the day to see what is working. Sometimes the fish are so focussed on the baitfish it takes a lot of casts to hook up but generally keep persisting. The pelagics love the twisty (or similar) shiny lures and the competition and fast retrieve gives them very little time to decide to accept or reject the lure so they will often just go for it. In one short session this past summer one of my kayak mates picked up amberjack, kingfish, tailor, salmon and I think a yellowtail scad all on a twisty type lure. One blade type lure worth trying in non snaggy areas is the Ecogear ZX40 or ZX35 (I think colour is less important). Cast these out and (they cast really well) and wait till they hit the bottom (sag in the line) and drag them back (rather than twitch them back - you will feel the vibration through the braid) about 30 to 50cm and let it settle as you wind the slack in (keep line under tension and stay in contact with the lure). Keep persisting with the lures. I have met a lot of people that say it doesn't work and then I show them my gear and show them how I do it and they look surprised and pleased at the same time when they hook up. I have my off days with lures where I know I would have caught fish with bait but consistently catching above legal fish makes up for it. If you are fishing with mono make the switch to braid. You can catch fish with mono and lures but the lack of feedback and the spongy response to the twitches gets painful. While I use 2-4 gear I can upscale a lot of what I mentioned above to my 5-8kg snapper gear.