Kingy

yeah, wow, thanks for the sobering replies! I though it might have been illegal since it seems it would be pretty easy to destroy fish stocks in such a reletively small waterway. rgds, kingy

I was told a net was spotted in Pittwater last week. I've never seen any nets in Pittwater, is this legal???? It was apparently pretty long - approx 100m rgds, Kingy

the chunks taken out of the fish look a little small, but maybe a juvenile cookie cutter took some fatal chunks out. rgds, kingy

stumpy - Two on Sat were taken off west head near yakka grounds, and near bomby at Barrenjoey. Monday East of Barrenjoey headland. Good luck on the jews, let us know if you catch any and the big question WHERE?????? Kingy

Yeah, I tie the braid straight to the swivel, however the braid has been doubled with either a bimini or a spider hitch. I've heard not to trust spider hitches, but they are so easy/quick to tie I can't not use them. I haven't had one fail me yet (maybe a 1.2m kingy will fully test it one day). I use only about 6 wraps in the uni if the braid has been doubled, seems not to need the extra wraps when doubled. I also re-tie all my main line doubles and uni's every other trip. Kingy

Went out with the father-in-law for the first time on my boat and wanted him to catch his first kingy. Didn't take long before one of the rods almost gets torn from the boat, but stripped the yakka from the hook. 5 minutes later and onto a nice 80cm fish brought to the bought by the FIL. He was happy so after losing a few more yakkas headed in. 2 more kingies caught on Sat of the Easter weekend at Barrenjoey and West Head (62 and 65cm). I was suprised as all reports I had heard was that the kingies were starting thinning out. Kingy

I use 30lb braid on my main lines and 60 to 80lb jinkai leaders. I tie a double in the braid and then use the double to tie a double uni with the leader. 8 wraps for the doubled braid, and 4 wraps for the heavy leader. Never failed me. I use a swivel in the system now and tie a uni from the doubled braid main line to a ball bearing swivel, and then a uni to the swivel from the leader. works a treat. I even use a uni to the hoodlum hooks I use. The only problems I have encountered is with over 1 year old berkley fireline in 30lbs. It's snaps above the double if a quick but small shock is put on the line from a fish. Solved the brittle line problem by using Platypus super braid. Never had a problem with this line. good luck. Kingy

The small ones (length of your hand and smaller) I freeze whole. Two hook rig once thawed under a float off the rocks works well for kingies. I skin them first to let the scent out and make them more visible. Live cuttlies with a downrigger work great on kingies. I heard Pete L from Pittwater say they can be better than live squid as they produce more ink to excite the kingies. kingy

I use a Scotty 1050 and have done so for over about a year and a half. I usually run the downrigger 2/3 to the bottom and have 3 or 4 other weighted and unweighted baits out in the spread. Sometimes I would go home hungry without the DR!! Sometimes the fish hang deep and don't want to come up and hit the gear near the surface. Othertimes only the unweighted baits get hit. Othertimes the short weighted line keeps getting hit. I cover all my bases to try and get into the action. Downriggers are an essential part of the spread for kingy's if you ask me!!! It may slow down your troll to 1 or 2 knots, but covers more of the water column and adds another option for a potentially wary fish. The more baits/liveys you can get in your spread the more it looks like a school of fish which aint a bad thing! Kingy

Those small purple jellyfish you've seen are what I call "Purple people eaters". See them often when surfing. You see them in summer and not anywhere near as common as blue bottles but some days there can be quite a few around. Not sure what their real name is, but they do sting (from memory almost as nasty as the blue bottle). Kingy

Kingsrule, you know too much....slap slap!! Well done... way ahead of me! Quick too!! These are part of the plankton that drift in the water column waiting to grow and drift with the current or do the kingies pick these off from around rocky headlands where they may spawn??? just interested in learning another little kingy habit kingy

Bullsh*t Pete........... your just trying to find an excuse to retire!!!!! no seriously, hope your feeling better soon and let me know when catching a kingy could be therapeutic . I'll even catch the bait for you again if you want haha. Shocked the bejebous out of me to hear such news!! Kingy

In the past few months I have caught a few kingies with these in it's stomach!?! One kingy had about 150 in it's stomach, another had only a few. What are they??? They look like little baby balmain bugs or lobsters to me? What do all you clever people think?? They are only about 1cm in length. They were all caught around the Broken Bay Area. Kingy

well done Pete, keep it up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Kingy

I have the same scotty downrigger and have caught a few decent fish using the rod holder on the downrigger. As long as you don't set the drag on your reel to sunset you should be fine. Strike setting's on your rod won't rip it out the holder or break it, BUT i will probably put a teather on the downrigger around my rod just in case.....the rod is over the side of the boat when it is in the rod holder on the downrigger!! Kingy

count me in. I'll be boat based. kingy

I've got a gunnel mount for my scotty depthmaster 1050 (nice downrigger!) and you could set that up on your transom or your side gunnel (near your blue tie down strap in your photo). Very easy!! I'd go for the gunnel mount on the side for easy access!! If you want to know how to get a cheap downrigger pm me (no commercial interests here!) The gunnel mount cost me $100 but is really heavy duty. Kingy

I caught a 65cm spotted mackeral at soldiers point on the troll with some cd-9's dragging out the back of the boat in JULY this year!!! I was a bit suprised and not sure if I was seeing right, but after some research, yep a spotted mackeral in WINTER (i have some photos of it too). A week after that I saw an excited guy land one bait fishing in the very same area. The water was also rather cold so I still don't now what they were doing there. Kingy

Hey Nathen, Unfortunately I forget my scents that arvo. I usually use the aeresol scent I use on my squid jigs or a little rub of tuna oil. I was mainly using these cheap red plastic shads froms #$%@ (40c each, and they last forever!!), but also have a lot of luck with 3inch grubs in pumpkin seed. Never really had as much luck with squidgies. I think the scent of the berkleys really help the fish to not spit it back before you set the hook and you also get a much larger variety of species as apposed to unscented. I only catch flatties with shads/fish but flounder, whiting, pike and bream with the scented grubs. I was keen to try and catch the million Bream that Pete was getting amongst so I threw on a little curly tailed black and white thing pete had with a super small jig head and after the second cast got a micro flatty. Kingy

Yes, bait did trump plastics this arvo!! Pete was pulling them in one after the other!! I think bait does get alot more fish but I thinks that plastics work extremely well for flatties for the fact that you cover more ground. But having said that if you use a white bait like a plastic it would work just as well (maybe better) except you'll have to bait up more often. Those little ganged hooks that Pete uses with the white bait is deadly on the bream!! Hoping for a shot at some kingies tommorrow!!!! Kingy (licking his wounds)

I've been lead to believe that "Calamari" is a marketing word the fisheries industry came up with to promote both squid and cuttlefish many years ago to the public. If you order Calamari in a restaraunt, you may be getting squid OR cuttlefish. Usually the cuttlefish (the larger ones) are served in square sections that have been cut across the surface and seared/cooked and you can tell by the thickness of the meat if it's a squid or cuttly. Kingy

My favourite are the Rapala CD-9's and then the CD-11's. Mackeral and redhead (like the ones shown in the photos) are my favourite too. I troll 3 or four of them behind the transom at different lengths and between 4.5 to 6 knots. I've caught 10 tailor and a spotted mackeral in the past week in Pittwater and not because I'm a good fisherman, but because I had the CD's draggin out the back. I've only been using bibbed minnows for 2 years and it still blows me away how effective they can be. Still to hook a kingy with them, but i've been told the bibbed minnows will get the kings, but from everything I've heard, the pink small christmas trees are the go for kings (that's what Ross Hunter also uses on Billfisher). Hope this helps, go drag some around some headlands and structure and watch what happens

Last weekend, landed 5 keeper bream (biggest also 38cm), along with several just under legal snapper. This was in Pittwater. They are there but need coaxing to bite as they are a little cold and don't need to eat much at the moment as their metabolism slows down for the winter. Burley and offering something tasty can do the trick.

I'll say a prayer for your family for sure. Best wishes Kingy

Went surfing twice yesterday at Narra, nice looking gutter out the front of Sands Hotel (Ocean St). Not much swell and a little whitewater covering the gutter. I was very very tempted. Kingy