keenist Posted February 25, 2005 Posted February 25, 2005 (edited) headed out by around 7 to be confronted by schools of frigates (or mack tuna?)erupting everywhere. upon closer inspection we could see that they were feedin on 'eyes' about 3cm long. without the fly rod on board it quickly bacame a chaotic scramble, mixing changing lures and ultra fast to dead stop, retrieves we were not to be rewarded. we soon gave up and headed for greener (read easier) quarry. if only i had brought along the 6 wt and a few eye flies! had a few flicks around the markers with sluggos and it became apparent the kingies were on the job. thing was they were only half-interested in the usual stick baits so again it was head in tackle box time. the winning lure became a cultiva popper that scored a few tiny 40cm kings before being claimed by another larger resident. guess thats what you get for fishing bream gear for kingfish around markers. youch! mind you while all this was going on we could see the splash and dash of feeding frigates in the distances pretty much everywhere we looked. the fish seemed more tightly packed up around the clifton gardens area and also down near the mouth of rose bay. it was all too much to bare, so we decided to give them another crack. swapping trebles on the smallest metel jigs to black ones and attaching via loop knots we aimed to minimise the size of the lures, so as to better match the hatch. also we upped to 2500 and 4000 size threadlines in order to fasten the retrieve. and finally.zzzzzzzzzzz-zzzzzzzzzzzz-zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz that sweet sweet sound. made sweeter by the fact that it took us a solid hr and a half to entice one! funny thing was we didn't actually entice it to strike. the fish was jagged in the ass! this continued for another hour or so. the fish staying up, feeding the whole time. we tired before they did and so we left for home. but no, we arrived at the boat ramp at rose bay and here again were thousands of macks doing the mack-attack thing right up against the wharf! much to the bemusement of some travelling asian tourists - who were well into shooting off rolls and rolls of film and video. all in all a good day. frustrating but good. the moral of the story... never leave the fly rod at home, never ever! Edited February 25, 2005 by keenist
Narralakes Posted February 25, 2005 Posted February 25, 2005 Nice looking fish there Keenist, never caught one myself, but hoping this weekend is going to change all that. Well done!
Bashir Posted February 25, 2005 Posted February 25, 2005 little metals can still work on them. YZ pillies in 7gm is a favourite of mine, but now I just make my own slugs from a mould I bought and they work great with a bit of white heat shrink slipped over them.
keenist Posted February 25, 2005 Author Posted February 25, 2005 its also incredibly important in situations where the fish are so one-tracked, to present the lure properly. that is, getting the lure travelling in mucj the same fashion as the rest of the bait. much easier said than done. with the fly however you can cast it in and twitch it, making it look like an injured or shocked bait. this is usually a successful way of hooking up. a metal crashing to the seabed hardly looks natural.
bombora Posted February 25, 2005 Posted February 25, 2005 Great stuff digger. And I think they are Mac Ts. Heaps at DY this morning again. Bombie
Ken A Posted February 25, 2005 Posted February 25, 2005 Looks like a Frigate to me. If it was a mack it would have a few black spots near its pectoral fin. Can't swear to it as the dots would be about where you hand is The other things is that small macks are not nearly as fussy as Frigates & are much easier to catch.
mitch Posted February 25, 2005 Posted February 25, 2005 Nice work Mate. I got into a couple of them Yesterday. I got them using 1/32 oz jig with 3" pearl Blue bass minnows. Dropped another whilst using Pumpkinseed. They sure were feeding on small bait fish but wer easy to tempt once a whole school went bezerk, I cast into the middle of them and got smacked on the drop
bombora Posted February 25, 2005 Posted February 25, 2005 Could be right Ken. Though can't see belly spots on Mitch's pic either. Just thought body shape (chunkier) looked more a Mac T. either way they are both great little torpedoes. cheers Bombie
the_lure Posted February 25, 2005 Posted February 25, 2005 jeeez, all these Mack/Frigate pics are making me itch nice work guys, can't wait to try and get onto a few myself cheers Chris
Bashir Posted February 25, 2005 Posted February 25, 2005 they're definately frigates, even without the dots, you can tell by the smaller length of their rear fins and the head and eye configuration is a bitt different if you look at two closely, but if its got spots then its a Mack, otherwise its generally a frigate.
Trouble Posted February 25, 2005 Posted February 25, 2005 hmm im missing out big time..very jealous fellas how long do these fella's hang around for?
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