Hunt Vs The Kingfish

[huntman]

Hello raiders. I'm fairly new to posting on the forums, but I've been reading them for some time, and I've learned heaps from you all. Growing up I only ever caught flathead and bream with my dad in his boat, mainly in botany bay. We had fun, and I still enjoy the odd flatty expedition, but I do love a challenge, so about 3 months ago I decided to try and get into the kingfish - because I do like the idea of fast fighting fish, and fresh sashimi.

I enlisted the help of my trusty fishing companion, my father in law. He's been fishing the harbour for bream for years, and is pretty experienced, and more importantly, even more crazy about fishing than me! So we read up on a lot of stuff, and invested in some gear, and started fishing.

In late january we decided to go to CG to try and score a kingie. We've had a lot of tips from raiders, and been going every friday morning (except one) for about a month and a half now as we intensify our hunt for the elusive kingy.

So far we've come back relatively empty handed, although We've brought home two octopus and a frigate mackeral, the kingfish remain swimming around with pleasure, mocking us from the depths of the harbour, and telling all their fishy friends about how inept we are. But as a happy biproduct, we are both now getting really good at squidding, and always are able to bring a few squid with us to the wharf from our squidding the night before. If only kingfishing was as easy as getting squid.

....

which brings us to this thread... I haven't been posting my fishing reports from CG because of the dazzling lack of success, and the demoralising consistency of it, but I wanted to just record how I've been going anyway and which tips from you experienced fisherpeople that I've tried and have done the job. Hopefully for other boatless rookies, hoping to score a LB kingie like myself, this will be a bit of knowledge they can use.

I'm not too proud too listen to advice or secret spots or rigs or whatever, so let me know if you have some ideas. So far this is what I've been told about scoring kingies from CG wharf:

* fresh or live squid (my mistake from week 1)

* light gear (my mistake from week 2)

* servo pillies and lots of burley

* float baits out either unweighted or with a split shot

Last friday was promising. We got to the wharf fairly early and I scored another squid on a jig to add to our day old stash. We also had bait shop pillies (maybe we should have gone with servo ones ) and a jig to get yakkas.

We couldn't get yakkas all day anyway, so I spent the morning floating squid pieces out on my 2kg mono light rod, and had a rod set on the bottom also with squid. The floated bait resulted only in some 15-20cm snapper, but I had one big hit on the bait on the bottom, but the line snapped as the fish was close to the top (saw flash of white) it didn't fight tooooo hard though, so I'm not sure what it was. I'm a bit unsure as to how the line broke because the drag was not set too tight I don't think. Maybe the reel is crap. My father in law caught an octopus on another piece of squid, whish was fun.

A guy had a kingy follow up his bait and smash it (busting him off straight away) later in the morning, and then not 30 seconds after that the guy next to me hooked up big and played the fish for about 15 mnutes on stupidly light gear before losing it to the pylons as he got it close.

So we'll be back next friday morning trying to score our first king, we were just about to give up on CG (4 weeks, not even a hint of kingfish) until last friday when we got to see a king hooked at least.

So for this week I've bought some light braid and leader to restock the line on my rod because I think it's too old. Maybe the kings will be more accommodating after that, but who knows :\ I'll keep adding to this thread about how we're going til we either

* score a legal king

* purchase a boat

* die

* lose interest in fishing

I guess there'll be a haitus over winter if we don't manage one by then too If I've posted this in the wrong forum then feel free to move it.

[pmak]

Will be looking out for your posts in future huntman. Sharing your learning experience will do wonders for others on the site (me included) who might one day do decide to do battle with the almighty king of Sydney Harbour.

Just out of curiousity, how light are you going fishing near pylons and stuff?

If other forum members can explain the exact method, peeled prawns have worked well too at one stage.

I do hope you score a legal kingy. Getting a boat doesn't sound too bad.

[huntman]

The braid I bought is 6lb I think. I have fished 30lbs, and then 10lbs, but I'm going lower on advice from pretty much everyone.

[KingsRule]

Hope you get one soon mate, sounds like you have been putting the hard yards in!

As you stated burly is a must!

The lighter you go the more bites you will get but the more bust offs occur. (who cares though , its still bloody fun! )

I use 6lb fire line with 10lb leader mostly, althoughh if the fish arnt being picky ill use 15lb braid & 15~20lb trace.

I have found unweighted pillie pieces / fresh squid strips floated down a burly trail to be the most effctive method for almost all species around the area.

Hope this helps a bit

Rob

[injay]

Hope you get one soon mate, sounds like you have been putting the hard yards in!

As you stated burly is a must!

The lighter you go the more bites you will get but the more bust offs occur. (who cares though , its still bloody fun! )

I use 6lb fire line with 10lb leader mostly, althoughh if the fish arnt being picky ill use 15lb braid & 15~20lb trace.

I have found unweighted pillie pieces / fresh squid strips floated down a burly trail to be the most effctive method for almost all species around the area.

Hope this helps a bit

Rob

Yeh everything 'kingsrule' said, his a true local and gave me plenty of tips too

fresh squid from there landbased isnt my preferred option, sorry robbie.

all i can add on is, if you want a local king from the wharves then use the bait thats in the area, eg: baitfish (greenbacks, yakkas and the schooling whitebait is also awesome, if u can catch em)

frozen whitebait works a treat for me there also.

you will never catch anything decent there unless you burley, cubing i think is the term.

just remember if what your trying isnt working then, use a different method!

I'm usually there on friday afternoons, maybe i'll catch ya there sometime.

Cheers Jin

[huntman]

I got a fishraider hat from tony this morning, so I'll be out tomorrow at CG sporting the colours. My father in law is unable to come though, so I'll probably be solo. Any kingfish attracting mojo is welcome if you can send it my way.

[Guest IFishSick.]

Well getting the squid is a start....Nice long strips down the trail is the go, I havn't been fishing for em lately.

I'm hooked to Frigates but havn't been getting any

[huntman]

Ran into a fellow raider at my squidding spot on thursday night (fishotter I think is his board name) and I got talking to him about my kingfishing woes LB. So he graciously took me out on his boat friday morning to get into some kings from a boat. We found it tough getting squid, but we managed a few live ones and got into the kings in the harbour. I finally got to pull in a king just over 60cm and I was laughing the whole time with excitement and relief.

So thanks to fish raider and fish raider members I look forward to refining the techniques and helping other people to score some fish.

As an aside, I saw a number of boats with raider stickers out on the water which was really cool. I wanted to say hi but I don't have a loud voice, and am a bit shy. Tony hooked me up with a fish raider hat the other day though so I'm proudly flying the flag.

[Guest IFishSick.]

Great work mate, good to see you finally landed one. I'm still yet to get one landbased though.

I'll keep trying though.

[huntman]

thanks mate I'm still to land a LB one as well, but after the other day on the boat, it's going to be hard to go back to the wharf

I also scored a rediculously large squid in the hacking the other night. I'm trying to get the picture off my phone, but it was a lot bigger than my handspan, and it fed about 3 people. Doesn't seem to be as many squid around lately, but the ones I get are big.

[Guest IFishSick.]

I'll test that theory out starting Wednesday through to Saturday

Try new techniques, different jigs, use a live squid on a snelled rig, throw lures.

I'm doing the works

[huntman]

for something different, went out to balmoral wharf instead of CG friday morning. I had to work at 10 so it was a shorter session. When we got there at about 4:30am there was a lot of surface action, which is strange because it was still dark. There was a lot of yellowtail just on the surface of the water so I threw the bait jig in and before long I had a 20cm tailor come up... which solved the mystery of what was busting up all the yellowtail.

At daybreak me and the father in law flicked out a few squid strips and pilchards, we lost a lot of gear to the little tailor, but eventually we landed a nice 28cm bream. Saw a few bonito as well, but overall it was pretty quiet other than the choppers eating every bait.

It's got potential to be good for kingies there, but this late in the season I don't know that I'll be able to get any.

running tally:

kings - 100000000

hunt - 0