Kingiekup Round 9 Friday Dec 28th

[kingiemaster]

Haven’t done a report for awhile as I’ve been enjoying the holiday break. Have done a lot of different fishing up and down the coast and the in harbour over the past few weeks for very few results.

Anyway went out on Friday 28th for round 9 of the KingieKup. For those that have been following my reports we’ve had a pretty woeful Kingie season with only a few sightings and couple of hook ups but we finally hooked up to some fish on Friday.

We headed out rather late and lazily on Friday morning a little more disorganised than usual (left a bung out when putting the boat in). Started squiding at 5.30am at the Spit and pulled in about 10 squid in an hour. As Middle Harbour hasn’t really been doing it for us lately and with such good weather conditions we headed straight for the main harbour in search of kings around the markers. Eastern cake looked like Pitt Street so we went to the Western marker which only had one boat on it throwing plastics.

Found fish on the sounder and dropped the baits with the motor still running.

Hook ups were almost immediate. Next 20 minutes was hectic with four fish in total, 2 60’s and 2 75s. Johnny had several hook ups but either failed to get solid hook ups (on a single hook rig pinned in the arrow) or was busted off due to suspect knots. Things then shut down and the fish appeared to have moved on. Tried several other markers but couldn’t locate any fish.

Apparently the well known harbour guides struggled to find fish last week and other boats we spoke to were struggling so we were pretty pleased with ourselves. Just goes to show, all things being equal, how much luck plays a role on your success.

Notes and tips (for what they are worth)

Squiding

- We haven’t had much trouble getting squid this season averaging 9 squid per session. We’re so confident now that we no longer start at 2-3am and instead head about 5am as we find are getting most of them an hour or so after sunrise.

- As we rarely get snagged when squiding I have recently downsized my squid outfit from a medium spin outfit with 10lb braid and 12lb mono paternoster rig to a lighter 3kg outfit with 6lb braid and 8lb mono paternoster rig. Seems to have paid off accounting for more squid having caught at least 30 or so squid since downsizing to this outfit. Round 8 on the 23rd I caught about 15 squid from the total of 20 we caught between the two of us. At one stage I had a squid every cast. Bit early to call but I put it down the lighter outfit.

- Oranges and browns in the 2.0 and 2.5 sizes seem to work best in the deeper water off the spit bridge.

Kings

- Fish were caught about 7.30am an hour after the turn of the tide and were tending to hold up on the western side of the marker with the tide coming in. Have noticed this in past years on the markers also.

- We didn’t anchor up allowing us to track down the fish after each drop and saved me a lot of trouble when bringing fish to the boat as I was able to fight fish around the bow without having to worry about the anchor rope

- Last couple of seasons I used to use a single hook rig pinning the squid in the hood just behind and above the head but the squid didn’t swim well and leaves the arrow exposed. Whilst it’s early days I’m convinced that my double hook rig is the way to go as I’m reckon 9 out of 10 times a King will go for the head as 3 of the fish caught on the main 9/0 hook positioned in the tentacles of the squid. Only one of the rats was hooked on the snelled keeper hook pinned in the arrow of a headless squid I put straight back down having just caught a fish on previously.

- When cleaning the keepers one the fish had a half digested yakka in it, the other had nothing in it

- Whilst squiding at the spit we were talking to an experienced Raider member before xmas who successfully fishes for kings and jews. Turns out that he doesn’t have a live bait tank and never has. As it turned out on Friday morning most of our squid were dead or half dead having been bashed around in the live bait tank on the way out. But that didn’t seem to bother the Kings one bit which makes me wonder why we bother with a live bait tank.

- Finally caught some fish on my new Kingie rod. The 7 foot Shimano Tcurve KingMack proved to be perfect with the soft tip allowing fish to take the bait and the length making it easy to manoeuvre around the bow of the boat when fighting fish

Hopefully will have a pic to come. Camera battery was low.

[Piss'n'Broke]

Well done kingiemaster on getting into some!!

Dead or alive makes virtually no difference,,, we aint got a livey tank but we still score consistent results on fresh "dead" squid we bagged that morning.

D&G

[plankton]

Yep good stuff Kingie Master. It seems that you're fairly confident in your ways.

You mention that you're using a paternoster rig on your squid rig - is this becasue you are using a jiging action to catch them. There are certiantly heaps around at the moment. I am catching them on my lunch break .

[kingiemaster]

You mention that you're using a paternoster rig on your squid rig - is this becasue you are using a jiging action to catch them.

Hi Plankton,

We squid from a boat in 10-60 foot of water around the Spit. I use a paternoster rig as I can drop it straight over the side and jig the bottom while drifting. Even at anchor we often get squid when the rod is sitting in the rod holder bobing around, although it's better to cover some ground and work the jig. Sometimes we go over a bit of weed or snags when drifting in which case at most I might lose a sinker not a $15 jig.

Furthermore as I don't use a triswivel I can change jigs and sinkers quickly to suit conditions.

I generally don't use a patternoster rig squiding from the shore or when chasing calamari squid over kelp beds.

Dave

[Piss'n'Broke]

Hey mate were you fishing outa a 4.1M unpainted tinny the friday night before Xmas??

Dan

[Steve07]

Good session & a couple of nice kings too.

Great report,well done!

[bjneville]

Great report KM.

I like the notes at the end. Really helpful for those of us trying to learn. Good format.

Tight lines,

Qw