Long, Hard Day Saved

[humesy]

G'day,

I was under orders to clean out the chest freezer and upon inspection, she had a point. Even I was surprised at what came out of there. Several packets of burley, an old sweep intended for flathead bait and the carcass of a salmon. How to get rid of it? Take the boat out and dump it overboard as burley of course.

Picked up a mate at 5.30 with weather looking very unlike the forecast. So-called moderate winds were howling and skies were grey. Picked up livies at reliable recent spot in Middle Harbour and set off for squid. Managed three from new location and then headed over to Lady Jane for one last squid session. Looked over to see whitebait leaping in terror so started casting my favourite metal and hooked up to a nice wee bonito on the light spin rod. Good start but the following hours were barron. Downrigging was very hard going in the windy and choppy harbour so we tried anchoring back towards the Spit. Totally dead apart from the squid in the depths who were killing off the livies at will. Couldn't coax the buggers onto a jig jig though.

Dropped off my mate (deadset fishing jinx) and headed to the final sport for the day. It was quiet for a while until I remembered the mountain of miscellaneous fish flesh in the esky. Into the bucket it went and I began mashing for all I was worth. First to arrive were the sweep then swarms of yakkas with pickers below. Chucked around a jerk shad and it was slammed as I ripped it in to start a new cast. The hook pulled after a 5 second burst and before I had time to cast again, my rod with the live yakka was bent to the water. This chunky 70cm king came to the top with a mate following him. Kept casting the jerk shad and had chasers so obviously a good school had moved in with a taste for yakkas. Landed a rat and dropped another king. 5 minutes of excitement made up for the hard yards of the morning.

So there you go. If things get slow, try filling the water with mashed up fish. Oh, and do as your Mrs. tells you!

PS Steve, Roosterman; I concur with your observation of broad shouldered, hard fighting breed of kingies this year.

PPS Geoff, I hope you like seeing your handiwork adorned with a nice fish.

PPPS Byron, I am sure you will remember the king landed landed from the burley trail last year. Its a winning formula.

Edited January 14, 2010 by humesy

[Wantingaboat]

Using sweep as bait for flathead is unusal no? Good looking king though. I love a good burley pot of guts and random other fish attracting things.

[bluebottle18]

I believe K/fish are very lazy B`s and look for an easy feed.

Burley is an answere to getting them to feed.

Now that the population has increased they are becoming less fussy

and have changed their eating habits.

Competition is making them to be competitive and less fussy.

[jim77]

Nice work Humesy - at least you got a keeper in the end and some fun with a couple of rats.

I was out today also and the weather was average. I managed to find a few rats in close near South Head and then got smoked AGAIN in the harbour on my way home.

Now that the population has increased they are becoming less fussy

and have changed their eating habits.

Competition is making them to be competitive and less fussy.

Bluebottle - i totally agree with you on the above. Hopefully in a few more years it will be like Kingy fishing in NZ where they don't even think about bothering to catch and use squid for bait!

[framedtrash]

nice kingbo

i see you have a baitmate with the builtin livie tank

what do you think of them im going to invest in a simular one soon

what size is that live tank 20ltrs? can you fit many livies in there

i think im going to get a simular setup to that one but with a few more rods holders and stubby holders

and i want a larger tank prob around the 40ltr mark

like this one

Edited January 14, 2010 by Framedtrash

[Geoff]

Andrew Another sucessful day on the water , well done. Perhaps we can organise another outing in the next week or so.

Just digressing for a moment , how did you go installing the extra holders to the rocket launcher.

I purchased a RL this week & plan to install it over the weekend. Depending on space I may install 1 or 2 aditional holders

PPS Geoff, I hope you like seeing your handiwork adorned with a nice fish.

Good to see it is working well

Framedtrash Note , on Andrew's tank the rod holders are at the side We dicussed the rear V's side & felt the side one's provided easier access when there is a strike & removing the rod from the holder.

Andrew may wish to comment.

Also check the tank size & position when mounted onto the rear deck. We needed to ensure there was sufficient clearence between the motor cowling & tank when the motor was in the fully raised position

Geoff

[jewgaffer]

PPPS Byron, I am sure you will remember the king landed landed from the burley trail last year. Its a winning formula.

I sure do Andrew that was good that day.. we had direct eye contact with a dozen at a time.. I still think those Kingfish were playing games wanting us to hand feed them, the one I called Henry was the one you caught from memory .. Nice effort once again anyway Andrew ...

That burley mix seems to bring in the fish alright, they sure like feeding on bits and pieces of one another and the best part about it is you can you catch a few for bait and then just keep on feeding them that jelly stuff on top to keep them out in the open longer.. I reckon that burley mix is so good you could probably use the flies off the bait board to catch the Kings.

Cheers

jewgaffer

[sanger]

Nice fish humsey!

Always the way, at the end of the day you throw all your left over bait in and the fish go mental and your left why didn't we do that 6 hours ago!!!!