Gibbofisho

Guy's, the reply to my e-mail i poste don the first page.... thoughts?

haha, no stockholm syndrome here buddy i think its more pitty....

I e-mailed the operator as i had to get it off my chest.

G'day mate, this is the reason i was able to dismiss the possibility of it just being an off day, and having dived the spots we visited, i knew what we were going to be cathcing, it was just piss poor!

awesome work mate, great fish, great story!

I think he just relies on people not having a clue about what they're catching and just getting excited about landing fish big enough to get a feed out of. the Deckie and operator were both real nice blokes, if they were arseholes i'd publically shame them for taking my money and being dicks about it, hence why i'm torn.

Firstly, I'll start by saying that I'm not usually one to bag out a commercial operator and their business/livelihood and hence is the reason i will not name names publically, if you want to know the name of the operators, pm me and I'll let you know who to not go with. We kicked off at 6:30 Saturday from Tonkin St Wharf at Cronulla and conditions were pretty awesome as the Bureau had got it totally wrong. The boat is awesome and hold six people very comfortably and rides well and moves quick, hopes were high and tales of species previously caught were heightening our expectations, i made the early mistake i think of chatting fishing and diving the areas we're going to, but that mistake wasn't going to present itself until later on. First stop was Marley, how far and how deep off shore do you think we were, 1km? Keep guessing, 500m? ......................try about 30m, we anchored in reef and started burlying with bread, i was skeptical as to what we were going to catch, and even more curious when the charter operator asked me what i see here usually when diving, i said, "mate i reckon the first 3 fish caught will be a sergeant baker, red rocky and a LJ" well 2 out of three wasn't bad, to ad salt to the wound, our decky that we paid more for, had apparently never decked a fishing charter before but was a sailor by recreation and sport, he could tie fishing knots luckily but bait presentation and choice wasn't his speciality, so my expectations were diminishing fast. Fortunately i brought my own gear and threw out a whole snelled pilchard and boated a 55cm king which was the day's saving grace. but after catching hordes of yakkas that the charter operator informed us were "good tucker" i suggested moving on. Next stop was Wottamala (sp?), once again, i could have walked the anchor rope to shore, first two fish boated here were a couple of 30cm pike, to which we were informed were "a great size", and were gutted, scaled and iced, not a nibble after that, i put down my rod and decided to check out the flybridge and saw a school of salmon working about 100m from us, i suggested that we get stuck into them to which the operator threw out some skirts on handlines and trolled directly through the school. It was getting close to lunch time so the operator killed two birds with one stone and told everyone we'd get the big gear out and "troll around for tunas". I had given up home that this guy knew what he was talking about and just went with the flow, we were trolling about 10knots too fast anyway and were in baron dead water, so i soaked up the sun and had a salad roll and a drink. Then came the real funny bit, he asked me where we should go next.. Now at $167 pp you'd expect to be able to leave with, if no fish, some tips, locations or something. I was flabbergasted, i suggested the flathead drift off Gaire, but he said, "he didn't want to loose rigs to leather jackets", i was just laughing by this point, so he said, ok, we'll try of the back of jibbon bommie, where we anchored and dropped lines, everyone was getting light bumps and loosing their pilchards, (which was one of 3 baits to choose from by the way, that being, week old whitebait, cooked prawns that appeared to be leftovers seeing as there was a grand total of 12 that the deckie chopped up so there was enough to go round and a squid head and flaps) so anyway i quickly worked out what was going on and downsized the massive hook and left some free line on the spool and set the hook as soon as i felt the bump, and was bringing in trevally one after another, i started telling others how to do it and the charter operator decided it was time to go and took us back home half an hour early. total fish tally was something like; 2 LJ's 1 Blue Mowong (just legal) handful of baby red rock cod pike yackas 5 trevally some stinky wrass. Now before anyone has a go at me for raggin on these guy's, I've paid half that price and come home with a bag of snapper and assorted other morsels in the past and that was due to the operator and deckies working very hard to find fish and instruct on how to do it. I went because i got a call up from some old workmates that thought it would be a good way to catch up which it was and in my mind i knew it was going to be sh!thouse, but i went anyway. well that's my story and like i said, i wont rag on their name in public but if your looking for a good charter, pm me and i'll tell you what one to not go on. Gibbo.

Good fish mate, but groper are probably just as good eating as snapper.

Do be so hard on yourself Chris, its just a warm up for a bumber season to come! Good to see you back online! Gibbo.

g'day chris, hope alls well, look forward to a report this arvo!

Me and some mates went for a spin down the coast for a splash, and on our way back up we saw something hitting the surface at about 100m off Marlee, as we got closer we saw one nearly fully breach and at about a meter long it wasnt hard to miss the big yellow sickle shaped pec fin. This was just after seeinga massive whale breach right next to the boat, so all in all it was a great day, but i couldn't believe seeing YF that close to shore.

Here's something to get angry about http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20362163-2,00.html

Mate i think you forgot the part where you caught a marlin

Mate try the southern Canyons, near the shelf.

top eating. Hard to tell if its striped or blue, blues are a bit deeper in the chest though.

yeah i was just cracking wise, but striped marlin are the nerdy little brother of blues, they are freaking brutes of fish! like i said though, top catch!

the fact it had stripes leads me to think its a striped marlin. top fish either way!

Great thread, I don't have much time to reply with the depth that lots of other people have gone to the trouble of doing! But ideally, i'd be taking a long hard look at Canada's fiheries management, Atlantic salmon was in almost disrepair, but with some clever managemnet, its back and thriving, this is due to seasonal commercial efforts. Also with Our proposed marine parks, i'll also add that i'm not against marine parks, but locking up "Sanctuary Zones" for eternity, is simply irresponsible. It will only result in increased pressures on other areas, so when the greens go back and research the effects of their "Marine Park", all they'll find is that new "Sanctuary Zones" will be imposed on the newly depleted areas. Spillover my arse. that's all for now....

Good luck on the weekend mate!

Mate, my comments were not directed at you personally, if they were i'd have quoted your post. Deep down personally, i think it would be amazing if there was no pro fishing, my point was simply to point out that there is a need for them. And that there is not a need for fixed Sanctuary zones, that i will debate till i'm blue in the face, i belive in stronger policing methods and better fishing practices, basically whatever keeps as many people happy as possible, promote biodiversity, promote sustainability, be able to go out and catch a fish for dinner, and ensure peoples livelyhoods arent effected in the way. So in short, there will alway's be pros, so get used to it (general statement aimed at everybody) Marine parks/sanctuary zones will go ahead unless everyone stops bickering about what they would like more, a common goal needs to be established and we need to keep that in our sights, so keep writing letters to the premier.

No Offence, but lots of people are missing the point, this is a political agenda, where numbers are important and public perception is important. What do you think the general population is going to think if a bunch of rec anglers get all uppity and tell the non fishing community that we don't give a stuff if they cant get fresh seafood, that essentially what we want is for we[rec fisho's] just want the waters all to ourselves. We will be comdemed as selfish and irresponsible. Not to mention the backlash we'll cop from forcing the Pros to sell up, i can see the headlines now. Everyone will just have toi accept the fact that there will alway's be a seafood industry, one way or another. The Problem is Sanctuary Zones, the soloution is to get rid of them, not pro's, keep your eye's on the prize people. Sorry if i patronized anyone.

Well, i didn't expect my comment to stir the pot that much, but i'm glad it was an effective catalyst. to shed some light on what i was reffering to for the naysayers, i will beg borrow and steal in order to get the numbers to overturn these sanctuary zones. I'd rather fish the depleted hawksbury then not fish it at all. What the desired outcome of rallying for me is, would be for the gov. to apply some experst and unbiased research into depleted areas to derive an outcome as to what will best maintain fish stocks, if its seasonal fishing, or pros being bought out or less licences and heavier policing, then so be it, but lockouts are alway's going to be a big no no from me.

opposition within our own ranks will be the demise of fishing.

didn't see that one coming. coward maybe, but backstabbing?

Mate, the plan is to have a joint marine park from the port stephens one down to the jervis bay one. Check the Politics section of the forum, plenty of informative posts on the goings on there!