Southside Friday Fishing Mk3.

[barker]

Hello All,

After a bit of a late start coming off the night shift, my boat was off the trailer and keenly watched as I sided up to the wharf. Carefully avoiding the lone figure and his lines, I tied her off and parked the trailer after a quick introduction to the fella in the Fishraider cap. Turns out to be Jewgaffer - whom I have recently been PM-ing through the site. He'd been waiting for a mate to go for a fish for a while, and as he seemed to be a no show - away we went.

It took a while to motor up to Long Bay in the nor'easter - but with Jewgaffer filling me in with a some great tips and some funny stories, the journey was as good as the destination.

Out went the squid (thanks Fishfinder Tony) - slow trolled around the washes with one whole rig hooked up on reef and gone first run. Having only one rig left, the next couple of runs were trolled a bit shallow and three kings to 62cm gave us a bit of excitement on the fifteen pound / tld5 combo, and returned to fight another day.

With the Jewgaffer taking mental notes of positioning, reef contours and depths - he suggested we run our next pass a little wider of the shelf and deeper, looking for the bigger boys. Sure enough, as we passed the lineups we both watched the rod buckle and the tld5 scream off a solid first run. With the drag up a touch and pushing out into deeper water, the only times he stopped was to rub my leader all over the reef. After some more tense moments, he hit the deck with some reef wounds and a shredded but still intact leader (thanks again Tony - 80lb Shogun). He topped out at 75cm to take my 15lb/tld5 and recently acquired boat P.B.'s.

Another slow run home and some more great hints from my hitch hiker, saw us done and dusted within a few hours. Thanks Jewgaffer for your good company and tips - being a novice to this fishing game, your willingness to pass on some hard earned knowledge was very appreciated. Having a good laugh and telling a few stories really made the day enjoyable.

P.S. - Jewgaffer - non of the photos on the phone came out, I got a few of the fish when at home. Did any of the shots on your phone work? Barker.

Edited August 2, 2008 by barker

[Kiwi Dan]

Solid fish mate, well done.

Ole Jewgaffer is a wealth of knowledge!!

cheers

kiwi dan

[barker]

thanks kiwi dan,

he certainly gave me some stick mate, the kingy - not jewgaffer.

and yes, he was a character, thats for sure. jewgaffer - not the kingy.

cheers, barker.

[robeebee]

well done on your P B

nice kingy mate

[barker]

thanks robeebee,

i only got my boat a few months ago and have decided to fish 15lb gear exclusively for the kings inshore. it makes for great sport as i fish solo most of the time, so i am on the steep learning curve of boat handling and medium tackle while fishing for about the dirtiest fighter around. i tell ya, i really am enjoying getting to know the boat and the limits of my gear.

cheers, barker.

[Penguin]

Wasnt Jewgaffer a lucky fisho gettin an invite to your

boat after his original ride fell thru, lucky for him he was wearing

his fishraider cap and u stopped to see who he was.

well done on the Kings also

penguin

[barker]

penguin,

thanks mate - you're right, the cap was the reason i asked who he was, and lo' and behold...

barker.

[jewgaffer]

Hi Barker.

Thanks a million for rescuing me off that wharf and taking me along too

I was getting sunburnt waiting around like a jetty mute having fished at Taren point in the night and hanging round waiting on Wally's wharf in the morning and then having to pick up Taren Point Julius at 6pm to fish off the council's fishing platform at Lugarno, a fine example of a perfect land based spot with a long walkway along deeper water with baitboards on poles and heaps of comfy wooden benches would you believe!!

Next time it's my turn to take you out in the centre console and try and bag out like that on Hawkesbury jew .

Anyhow we might be able to grab Taren Point Julius, and grab some jibbon cuttlefish and fish Burraneer so you'll be close to home for the jew session and hopefully get into the table size snapper which come in near the top as well. It'll be good at night in Burraneer for snapper as I got quite a few just round the mark during the morning around 7am at Dolan's around the top of the tide which is always a fairly reliable time up there.

To anyone else that has the time for a bit of a read, as I had time and enough coffee today to just keep on typing a few other relevant matters :-

I had a very exciting kingfish session with Barker on Friday afternoon and as Steve said it started well and ended up even better. I enjoyed the trip very much and we had a lot of of fun riding out the north easterly and holding the boat in the swell around the cliff faces with Steve playing kingfish while taking care that the swell wouldn't pick up the boat and roll us off the holding area.

Steve is one of the best boatmen you would ever have the pleasure to meet, logical, calm, and confident. He's fast around a boat and a natural seafarer. Put all that together and it ended being the best rough water kingfish session I've had in quite a while and Steve does not make kingfishing a complication and just quickly gets into tracking them down and thinking positively to himself all the time. Don't think I've struck a bloke so automatic, he's a just go and get them like you are supposed to bloke , no frills and that's all there is to it and then bang just does exactly that! No complications, fast off the mark and rigs up perfectly, except the 15lb line on 80lb leader worries me a bit should the bigger boys go off.

We located heaps of kingfish, literally hundreds of them, confined to a particular area in an established colony alongside rock formation not unlike the permanent kingfish around Greenwell point. There were rarely less than half a dozen following a hook right up to the side of the boat, a side on position where Barker had no problem holding the boat head on with one free hand and playing kingfish with the other, while I'm trying to reaching for my gaff to help a bit in the rock and roll without falling overboard.

I reckon had we anchored a bit wider and cast out squid into the deeper trolling line, we would have scored well before the lines had a chance to hit bottom. When I saw the teaser that I think came from Tony's which Barker had rigged below a sinker about 600mm above his whole squid bait, I told him his teaser looked so good that kings would hit at it hard as soon as they sighted it, and to hang a set of trebbles off the bottom swivel.

The kings were having a go at their hooked up mates and would have hammered that teaser as well.

The kings were so prolific and with no baitfish coming in with the tide at that point they would have hammered cork floats as well as prawns being used for baits a couple of metres under the floats.

No doubt the larger kings were apart in groups in deeper water coming out in the adjacent long straighter bottom area, where Steve got hammered on the first troll and hooked up on the next pass along the same line.

Unfortunatley Steve had a commitment to leave around 4pm but I would have stayed on until the evening for the run up to the top tide which would have gradually steadied the north easterly swell, because the opportunity of getting into bigger kings would have been there around sundown, and when they come up like that they are too good to miss out on.

On the way thru Port hacking around past Botany Heads and down towards Malabar, we managed to locate the swarms, having gone through the main factors together and debating several likely scenarios.

We were on the water about midday and Steve, a regular one man band, was restricted by time to a quick hit and run session which finished up about an hour and a half of actual fishing time until we arrived back ar Dolan's Bay boat ramp about 4pm.

We had to ask an Italian fisherman fishing on Dolan's wharf to take extra photos and I'll post those up shortly.

ln what is basically a two man trollling boat Barker's boat it is an excellent design for a smaller deep sea boat at an absolute bargain for Steve's type of natural but somewhat daring though very secure within himself style of fishing.

Steve is very competent holding in the swell starting in close around the highest cliff faces, which is what has to be done to find the starting point for sourcing out kingfish schools as the tide begins to pick up its momentum just before the beginning of the roll in during a rising north easterly swell, where baitfish have little alternative but to pack in tight and close.

When we were as close as thirty metres off the rocks which was the test point for the first series of wider trolls which have to be linear and parallel to formations, rather than motoring away and trolling in arcs and circles and that is necessary due to the very nature of the formations and structure, the natural habitat of both deep sea and returning kingfish.

I find Steve to be a very special fisherman boatie and an absolute one of a kind. I'm not joking or exaggerating in saying this.

Barker is a Bondi surf life saver iron man type of a bloke who sent me a pm and photo (below) of the little rubber ducky which Steve wouldn't hesitate to take solo to Wattamolla in the dark if he wanted to chase kingfish.

I ended up fishing another of my old favourite 26 hour marathon sessions again. This time I left Campbelltown at 5pm on Thursday afternoon to join Ness (Thereddraggon) for an all night jew session at Taren point Bridge but Ness had to go around midnight and despite the getting soaking wet in the big storm around 10 pm I particularly wanted to fish the moored boats and back to the first pylon from 1am at the bottom of the tide and thru the run up around 7am.

I went up to Dolan's Bay around 1am and fished off the wharf waiting for a kingfishing bloke who didn't show until about midday when Barker a member, who had pm'd wanting to fish for Hawkesbury jew one day, arrived and invited me out after my mate didn't arrive for a pre- arranged kingfish session. I had received a phone call from Taren Point Julius giving me no option but to hang around until after 5pm to see if he could get someone to mind the boys while we gave Lugarno a work out.

I am impressed with Barker and it just goes to show the many places you can get to meet other Fishraider members when you're wearing a Fishraider cap. The only worry I've got when the summer jew come on with all the Fishraider signs and the Fishraider caps, I had better wear a santa claus outfit and wave a collection box around when any other boats come around

This is a picture of Barker's rubber kingfish boat which he used when he got into this type of inshore fishing off outside cliff faces and reefs only a couple of years ago.

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thanks mate, Yesterday, 09:25 PM

byron,

thanks again mate for your company and hints the other day, you are a true gentleman and a great character. check out my original king chasing boat in the attachments.

cheers,

Steve

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That is my account of the kingfish session etc of Friday 26/10/07 and I am sure we will all hear much more about Barker's ability and we can all look forward to reading some top fishing reports from him in the near future.

Cheers

jewgaffer

Edited October 28, 2007 by jewgaffer

[Blood Knot]

Barker - nice work on the kings

What sort of stick have you got the TLD 5 on, just bought one and am looking around for a rod.

Guessing the one pictured is custom made ? Plan to spool with 15lb to 16lb braid as you have.

John

[barker]

blood knot,

thanks mate.

i acquired my combo from my old man - he bought it in the early eighties and had a custom 6'6" rod made up for it. i have had the runners replaced and the fella added one and re-spaced them for how he thought the blank required. it always had an aftco roller tip and he left it as is. he said it was probably a 6kg rated rod and it feels great in hand when fishing 15lb with the lightweight tld5. i have mine spooled with 15lb Ande mono and a 12ft x 30lb Ande mainline leader, tied on with a slim beauty knot so it can be wound-on.

i've gotta say, i do find the drag curve of the tld5 to be very steep once past the strike button. she gets pretty sticky in the upper range. lately i have been looking for a solution - maybe a replacement drag washer or some drag grease - if anyone has any suggestions it would be appreciated if you could pass them on. i have two marks on the preset wheel to run 5 or 8lb of strike drag, and fish it like that without going past strike.

it is definitely my favorite combo - practically and sentimentally, and as long as it deals it up to the inshore kings - well you know. 15lb makes for great sport and it makes you concentrate when tying knots and getting back to basic fishing.

cheers blood knot, barker.

p.s. byron, thanks mate for your encouraging remarks - although i feel a bit embarrassed with your comparisons. back to basics fishing and a bit of knowledge of the sea from more than twenty years of surfing really seems to help, and of course the stupidity of youth. thats one hell of a report there mate, a few coffees and a durry gives you wings. good onya mate.

Edited October 28, 2007 by barker

[Blood Knot]

Thanks for the info John - will send PM with some TLD related info - cheers

John