Chasing Jew's

[bridgetroll]

Hi all, Long time reader first time poster.

I will heading out on the Hawkesbury in a couple of weeks, one of the rare occasions I get to be on the water instead of stuck on the beach or rocks. I would like to chase the jewies, never got one before and am looking forward to targeting them.

I could use some advice on what rig to use, what size line, hooks, leaders and hopefully a good place to target these guys.

If anyone can help with this it would be greatly appreciated.

cheers

[sparkles]

use the search engine mate.

welcome to the site.

there are plenty of jewie mungers on here, so there is a plethera of info.

good luck

[jewgaffer]

you sound like you need a bit of good advice and i am land locked due to the weather at the moment and so have a bit of time to help you

use snappers lead for quick size changes according to the force of the current off a sliding swivel to have it run freely on the line using a 12inch mono loop connected to that running swivel. place the running swivel above the main swivel which is to be attached to a 1m-1.5m leader. make doubly sure to use at least 3inch-5inch long snapper sinkers. keep your sinkers the same weight to prevent tangles from line movement.

lots of people underestimate the hawkesbury current . it can actually drag the rig along and up to the surface.

after more than 30 years in the jewfish game mostly on the hawkesbury i use 80lb braid, 80lb leader, 120lb ball bearing main swivels 10-50lb yankee model ugly stik tiger spinning rods on penn ss reels 7500-9500 , largest ticas, centrons, pfluegers and 725 alvies plus cannon downriggers on live, dead baits and jigs at anchor. my jewies only last 3 or 4 long runs at the maximum before floating side on alongside the boat because with that gear i have the leverage not the fish.

use tandem hooks with a sliding snell on the top hook to match each bait size nicely using heavy duty 5/0s ( for bi-catch purposes) but you can use 7/0 or 8/0 sucide or octopus hooks . use tandem circles to swim live baits as the bait may spin with suicide or octopus hook configurations.

when you hold bottom you will have a tight line and a natural bend in each rod because of line pressure in the current but don't let that deter you it means you will have to detect bites thru bent rods to determine what's happening to your baits.

use a good rod spread to increase your chances.

it pays to stagger the casting distances being sure to drop one straight down at the back of the boat, at least one in the deep hole of reef you've located with your sounder and the others into the drop off on the outside. in other words don't do all your fishing in reefs or deep holes as you will catch far too many unwanted pests.

do not berley the surface but you can drop a slow release bomb to the bottom to hold general interest which in itself brings on the jewies for reasons of territory supremacy. if you have a run of estuary whalers (bull sharks) or h/heads in the river proper, up anchor and fish the holes near lion island and mid n/e of barenjoey and particularly so after the big rains and river flooding of late. however be prepared for other big hook ups too, incl. salmon, big tailor bonito kf and snapper and hang on for the sharks that come into the melee too.

In my opinion the most reliable jewfish bait is local squid, used whole or in larger strips and livies.

your baits must be fresh, large neat, some a foot long and streaming. no cubes or square chunks. when you use larger livies don't strike on the first run . the jewie attacks from below, runs off , pauses the drag will stop while he turns the livie over over and swallows it . you count to 10 on the next run and take up any loose line then hit him.

i won't tell you when and where to find them but you should see holes in a tight baitfish formation on your sounder when and where you decide to anchor.

you say your going out in a couple of weeks but in my opinion you will score big time and find a lot of predators at the river mouth and in the bay as almost every fish in the river has headed towards the salt due to all the recent mud and fresh . so deep other sea predators including sharks will be in frenzy in close accordingly.

by the way the hawkewsbury has been colonized with your proposed target for thousands of years but you have to get everything just right to catch and then land them

hope this helps and by the way i fish for them mostly in the sunlight hours if this changes your thinking that they are mainly ghosts of the night. this is not the case at all. but if you're targetting eels and like the winter midnight hours you'll score heaps of eels in this river at night

fish on .

[bridgetroll]

Hey Jewgaffer

Thanks for your help, you definetly know your stuff..........And I will be doing my best to keep this advice in mind, cant wait to give these guys a go, 80lb line, that is thick line.........

Was thinking of starting off at Jerusalem and heading around to just off Lion Island.

Cheers for your help, and hopefully I will bag a few of these fellas.

[roosterman]

hi bridgetoll,

i agree with jewgaffer,thats pretty sound advise he has given... you will find some real good structure at lion and last time i was there a few months ago lost one est at over 20 kg at the boat as i was solo with big swell rolling in.. be careful as if swells up then you can be abit exposed there... the tides are looking good right now but unfortunately the weather is against us... ive just upgraded to 50lb braid this year and its heaps thinner than mono and gets you more line on reel but you have to learn the right knots to use. im sure one of the site sponsors will look after you if you go the braid... patience is a thing that most jew fishos learn as usually sharks are only bycatch so can be long nights between bites.. at lion you should get a few sharks and at the moment with this weather the reds should be around also.....

cheers ..steve......

[jewgaffer]

hi again.

by 80lb line i mean spectra braid or maybe dyneema braid for your main line as a cheaper alternative.

80lb braid line is only about the same in thickness as 20lb mono.

i do believe in using 80lb braid on bigger spinning reels. braid handles better in currents, has far more line capacity and more direct fish control and of course 80lb leader. this combo has good skull dragging strength when you need it. weaknesses and minor line and leader damage are pretty well covered and helps avoid the possibilty of a break off before identifying the fish.

these muddy waters have driven just about everything in the river towards the salt. you are highly likely to strike a variety of sea predators coming in closer and attacking the river refugees - they all can't just eat surface poppers, deep divers and a few loaded fish strips . salmon, k/f's & maybe y/f and heaps of sharks behind every wave. that would be just natural it's really only common sense after so much rain and river flooding.

when you yourself go out properly armed and nice big healthy looking baits. remember what you are really targetting and that most of the other river fish are huddled up down deep around the river mouth because of the bad river conditions.

so best get both the boat position and every single item of your gear well and truly right first.

if you haven't already got compatiable gear i might suggest you get hold of a couple of 650 alvey star drag side casts for starters but back up only about 200 yards of braid with mono backing using a 4 wrap uni knot on the mono part and a 6 wrap full blood knot on the braid part and pull them together

use 25lb spinning rods. most rods of that line class are made from pretty good blanks these days.

my own rods are 10-50lb ugly stik yellow tigers not available in aust.only blacks are, not the same rod .

the 10lb part of that equation gives good sensitivity and nicely cushions and tires a strong fish, while the 50lb part gives the backbone strength, the neutralising effect needed and as i said in my other thread this sort of gear gives the fisho all the leverage instead of the fish and that is most important.

no no way jerusalem sure there's 30-40 on the cnr. but not for a good while yet.

ok then- go deep well off box hd Ist.

i just thought i'd clarify a few points which may help you get better results at your first attempt at targetting hawkesbury jewfish.

best i spend a bit of time on background to get the picture thru so you can fish on and progress along successfully without dwelling on any unknown factors or lack of knowledge as a reason for giving up.

jewfish are fully colonized in the hawkesbury system and the hawkesbury river becomes the nepean which flows into the camden side of the blue mountains and then becomes the menangle river which runs well into the southern highlands.

so you can just imagine just how big the hawkesbury system is with well over a 100 ks of winding river, with other rivers branching off it, such as the macdonald and the colo rivers, before it gets even close to being fully freshwater .

i know of no other river near this size and depth or for that matter no other rivers that have jewfish colonies as permanent residents like the hawkesbury does .

they have become permanent inhabitants due to the underwater terrain being a natural utopia and the associated food supply being such easy pickings for hunters such as jewfish. they are natural deep water drop off to bottom dwellers and it is not uncommon to find depths around 50 feet and even 70 feet near another shore not far from little dangar island . this is due to the mountainous and almost prehistoric terrain which surrounds this mighty river and almost mirror reverses itself on the river floor but to a much smaller degree of course.

for an example of depth due to surrounding terrain, i myself have to sometimes dig shut down bass out of the nepean section as i call it , of the hawkesbury way up near penrith in up to 40 feet of water and that's not a bad depth for a relatively narrow freshwater river.

many jewfish have been caught in the many backwaters and creeks of the hawkesbury, even creek mouths many miles upstream where the water is almost fully changing from salt to freshwater. jewfish have been caught by kids fishing for mullet . many a bass and bream fisho has had his gear completely shattered by monster jewies and mumbled something about the culprit being a big ray.

they have been well an truly entrenched in the hawkesbury system for many centuries.they are true homers to this river by nature as opposed to other river systems where marauding jewfish come into estuaries from another domain alltogether such as the open sea rocky areas, the surf gutters, and the many close off shore reefs.

so for this reason the hawkesbury river jewfish's habits are very very different from any other jewie grounds i am aware of and the challenge is still there to catch them regularly in any season and to keep doing so.

i get my better jewie action when the usual peckers have disappeared completely and my rod spread has no action whatsoever and it is monotonously quiet and then bang wow, meaning they have arrived at that particular jewie highway and everything else except non palliatable deep water freaks have fled in absolute terror.

here is the difficulty. to get a result, you yourself have to first locate just which highway they chose to cruise along in destruction mode in the time frame you have to do it in. this means that an anchor buoy would be a real asset to allow you to motor off as quickly as possible every 90 minutes if necessary.

but, if you get one single schoolie or sopey near the mouth but not way up river where soapies often breakoff and go off in their own peer groups as they were doing before these big rains - and no one wants soapies and eels only and not one single schoolie or pensioner -, stay in that river mouth spot for say another 45 minutes then move off and sound out another bait school a bit wider out in at least 30 feet with obvious holes in the bait fish formation showing on your sounder screen.

large numbers of jewies can often arrive in force and are like termites, you could say, in their habits in that they have munchers, crunchers scouts and sentries and even sacrificial lambs to ensure the safety of the rest of the family. what i call schoolies around 5-7 kilos can arrive in segments where males may escort a female around and monster size pensioner jewies often bludge the pickings the schoolies drop or go it alone or bludge off those fast invaders the tailor, or perhaps and always hopefully, cull a few of the slower ones such as my own crippled livies.

i mentioned that you should pull up anchor and fish the sea side of the lion should you strike bull sharks or hammerheads at let's say walker or flint . this is because the jewies either scarper or don't show up at all when mobs of school sharks such as these come into the river.

these varieties have a favourite treat, an infant jewie so the family has to vacate at the first sign of bulls or h/heads.

a classic example of this and a particular practice of mine when jewfishing at a spot known as the gap in the richmond river at ballina, a narrow entrance to ocean going yacht moorings where the jewies come in from the sea at near top of the tide and during the early run out.

these are marauding jewies ,rock and gutter dwellers, a totally different ball game to the hawkesbury, the richmond river not being colonised.

these jewies hit fast and furious at the entrance to the gap and move off the second the bull sharks come in behind them.

ballina jewies are highly active at night near the top and the early the run down, waiting to ambush bull mullet schools coming back out with the tide which swirls thru the narrow gap entrance.

when the jewies go quiet at the ballina gap it's then time to put the wire on.

many of the locals specially target bull sharks and from my own experiences 4-10 kilo bull sharks make absolutely fabulous eating particuarly the fillets you can have beer battered locally for free with chips in return for a few ks for the cook. that's how nice they taste

probably as a get square i did find a little shovel nose, and once a little bull shark swallowed whole and only partly digested inside the stomach of a jewie.

hope this info is helpful and inspires you to think like a hawkesbury jewfish as you really have to master that alone to be capable of catching a couple of these which i myself call ghosts of the day on the hawkesbury when others say they're night fish only.

sure they are night fish only at places like ballina or taren point just ask my hungarian deckie mate, julius who specialises at taren point off the rocks and will bet his wallet on no jewies unless its dark and has photos of over 40 animals of jewfish for this year alone. you'll see his photo with an 80 pounder with a smaller one on a site called future of fishing i think it's called

when you're up there watch out for submerged or floating timber from the floods and don't plane around too much.

like the floods of old the broken branches and old rotted tree stumps that found their way into the system will keep flowing up and back with the tides and the river will remain fairly dangerous for fishos and boats until someone sensible in authority decides to clear the many logs and branches out of there.

cheers

fish on.

[bobfish]

Great read there jewgaffer! Top stuff

[Davemmm]

jewgaffer you should be writing books. Good stuff!

Now I just need to know where the buggers hide in the hacking

Dave

[jewgaffer]

jewgaffer you should be writing books. Good stuff!

Now I just need to know where the buggers hide in the hacking

Dave

hi dave,

you asked where the jewies hide in the hacking. i rather like this question

we locate them, we feed them nice, we catch them. it sounds pretty simple but it's the locating them that's half the battle but you can get used to it, and good at it too.

it's a strange little river in that it stops dead at audley and then becomes fresh without any of the usual fresh and salt water exchanges and there's hardly any seepage under the weir, i believe

i regard the hacking as an elongated bay, and fish accordingly. it's very narrow in places, and around 60 depth in some of the bays branching off it.

but it's still a goodie. the texture is nothing like the georges, not that i'm promoting that river, but the hacking has a little bit of hawkesbury and a smidgeon of sydney harbour.

you yourself would know this - in the hacking, 90% of each species type congregate in 10% of the water type. this river has a plethora of vegetation types, sand and structure types, mud and silt types.

all in all it sure is a rare little river.

you can only determine over time which parts of this river are fast action when it all happens and which parts are always slow.

Only repeated experiences are the key to what parts of the hacking are suitable for top results and what parts are not, other than yielding one big fish every pancake day.

if you dropped 2x44 gal drums of minced fish pieces and a great variety of other minced marine food around grays sand bar and sneeked a bobcat onto it to turn the nippers over you'd soon have every fish in the area around that sand bar except for jewies.

targetting jewies in the hacking can be challenging but rewarding.

as to where all the jewies are (in) hiding. i can only say this

a zo-zuri squid jig still works well on calamaris and arrows.

there's still heaps of yakkas. even were active in the chocolate last sunday week.

and it still drops to 60, only about 10 seconds from water st. and hitting the brakes and i don't mean 60ks in a car either

but after this present low, with a worser low on the way so it seems, b/mtr needs to go back up to at least 1014 as the skies clear before i'll spend a night there or anywhere else.

would be interesting to see what happens after the salt and fresh exchanges when they permanantly open the weir as they said they were going to do.

cheers

fish on

[Davemmm]

would be interesting to see what happens after the salt and fresh exchanges when they permanantly open the weir as they said they were going to do.

I understand they first said this would be a good idea somewhere back in the seventies. We will wait and see.

[jewgaffer]

I understand they first said this would be a good idea somewhere back in the seventies. We will wait and see.

hi again dave

i was told by a fisheries guy they were going to provide access through audley weir into the salt for bass preservation sometime this year.

do you know anything else about it .... could be only an advisory council recommendation

just found some info on google about funds being allocated for the building of a fish ladder system at audley weir whatever that means.

maybe we'll have to climb a higher tree to catch them.

fish on

[Davemmm]

Its my understanding that a fish ladder is a series of steps with the water flowing over them that alow fish to "jump" over a weir or dam wall.

This wont open the fresh up to the salt or vice versa but will allow fish like bass go from fresh to salt.

What they need is a new bridge that removes the weir. Although that then allows a hell of a lot of run off from housing if they ever really open Helensburg up.

Dave

[jewgaffer]

Its my understanding that a fish ladder is a series of steps with the water flowing over them that alow fish to "jump" over a weir or dam wall.

This wont open the fresh up to the salt or vice versa but will allow fish like bass go from fresh to salt.

What they need is a new bridge that removes the weir. Although that then allows a hell of a lot of run off from housing if they ever really open Helensburg up.

Dave

thanks dave this is getting interesting.

i wonder if they're going to have a second ladder in the salt side so that the bass can get back to the fresh and if so can how would they stop the chopper tailor from skipping over the ladder and into the fresh ?

i reckon choppers would cause a bit of havoc and a mass exodus of local frogs to the top of bulli.

regards

jewgaffer

fish on

[Flattieman]

thanks dave this is getting interesting.

i wonder if they're going to have a second ladder in the salt side so that the bass can get back to the fresh and if so can how would they stop the chopper tailor from skipping over the ladder and into the fresh ?

i reckon choppers would cause a bit of havoc and a mass exodus of local frogs to the top of bulli.

regards

jewgaffer

fish on

G'day jewgaffer - to the site! Your input into this topic has already been much appreciated (by me personally - I'm a regular Port Hacking fisho looking for some jewies!). A fish ladder works both ways and you're right - there is a chance that "unwanted" species like tailor could get through! Fish ladders are very common in the US and UK etc. - where fish need to move from one level of a canal to another, for example. Hope you get your hands fixed up.

Flattieman.

[jewgaffer]

G'day jewgaffer - to the site! Your input into this topic has already been much appreciated (by me personally - I'm a regular Port Hacking fisho looking for some jewies!). A fish ladder works both ways and you're right - there is a chance that "unwanted" species like tailor could get through! Fish ladders are very common in the US and UK etc. - where fish need to move from one level of a canal to another, for example. Hope you get your hands fixed up.

Flattieman.

thanks a million flattieman for your input into fish ladders for bass etc. i reckon those chopper tailor would even eliminate the cane toad problem.

good you found some info in my stuff that was helpful to you personally.

it is common for fishos to catch flathead but targetting them as you do and being good at it another ball game.

i spent many years as did my dad putting the jewie riddle together and many years with commercial fisho friends who run the fishing park at ballina and i have the opportunity to go up there a few times a year

i read some pretty down to earth posts where fishos feel like giving up on jewies and i can understand that

years of fishing and inside info like seeing the habits of fingerlings, soapies and schoolies in a fishing park sure helps locate jewies in the right water.

but after all you've still got to catch them

regards

jewgaffer

fish on