Sydney Kings At Last

[shane87]

After reading countless reports of kingfish on this site over the last couple of months today was the day to have a go. We headed into the harbour and had no problem catching plenty of yakka's for bait although the squid decided not to play for us today. With the lack of squid we decided to head outside and slow troll our live yakka's south towards bondi. Not far from the heads we had our first hookup which lasted all of about 20 seconds before being buried into the reef. This happened on our first 4 strikes for the day and had me wondering if i was undergunned using 50lb braid. We continued trolling over a small area and finished with 10 strikes resulting in 4 fish between 55cm and 77cm. Even the biggest fish that we caught today was nothing like the first 4 bustups that we copped early on. Eventually we ran out of livies and with a few fish for the table we called it a day.

A quick thankyou to kelvin for all of your tips.

Cheers Shane.

[offtap1]

Great Report , too bad you couldnt turn the other strikes into landed fish, But some king for the table is better than ziltch. Cheers Dave

[Penguin]

Too bad u got busted off so many times

at least u got a good feed though.

penguin

[popeyepete]

Top work mate, unlucky in the bust-ups.

Mate still struggling to land one of these buggers myself this season, can you let me in on how the yakka was trolled on what rig and speed, depth?

I have the same luck with catching squid, zip but always catch plenty of yakkas. Would love to see these in good use.

[Dezmo]

well done- how did you troll the yakkas? towards the surface or on a downrigger?

I also did the south head run on sat morning trolling 9 and 11cm bibbed minnows. Landed two kings of 59cm (bugger!@) and got busted off on the reef twice by what i was pretty sure were kings. Were a few salmon around also, we landed one whoppa which was really fat, over 70cm and went like a train.

We had no luck on a freshly caught squid or yakkas in middle harbour or the wedding cakes.

[shane87]

I should have my new saltiga loaded with 80 for the next trip so hopefully i can stop a couple more next time.

[namesay]

It sounds like you had a lot of fun. Once you get the seriola bug it gets you good!! I would seriously rethink that 80 braid. 50 is more than plenty . Just set your drag appropriately when on strike as the kings will only reef you in the first minute or so. ONce you get them off the bottom then you should back the drag off!!

I think you should up grade the leader rather than the line as 50lb braid will break atleast at 100lb!!! YOu can easily set the drag at 30kg without any drama. But that is a lot of drag and once the king is off the bottom then you should ease off the drag. Too much drag will mean that the hooks will pull or the leader will break if there are any little nicks on it.

That is one of the reasons why I love lever drag reels as you know instantly how much drag you have once you set it.

By the way I think I am catching a lot of "second hand" fish as in the last 2 weeks i have caught 5 fish with hooks in them!!! So I guess my techniques are working when others are losing them. CHeers Kelvin

Edited December 11, 2006 by namesay

[Luringbream]

Its very painfull losing fish isn't it!!

I'm still trying to recover from my bustup in MH

Did you happen to have a white sharkcat and were you trolling close in just around north head? I saw a boat go back and forth, and he was obviously hooking up.

By the way, Top Catch!!!

DAN

[shane87]

I was only using 50lb fluorocarbon leader so maybe i should up that to 80-100 and see how that goes. I had the drag on my reel done up as tight as i could and the fish were still melting line of it so when i got home i checked what it was set at and it was 9kg. i'm not exactly sure what a z40 saltiga can handle but i think its more than 9kg's.

[namesay]

9kgs of drag at strike is not good for hoodlums. They will just laugh all the way to the bottom. Just be careful when you set the drag as you MUST use a set of scales. Most people under set their drags by more than50%. So if you think it is 10kg it is most likely only 5!!! SO use scales.

Also the lesser reels lose their drag loading once the spool starts to turn. The good reels keep constant pressure. BUt remember to back off as the fish comes off the bottom.....in reefy country I routinely use 70-80lb fluoro carbon and crimp the bastards as these heavy leaders do not KNOT. Cheers Kelvin

[shane87]

I have a good set of salter scales that i use for setting drags but they only go up to 10kg. I guess i am bound to lose a few more of these fish before i really get the hang of it. Cheers again for the tips kelvin i hope to be out again soon putting them into practise.