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Hawkesbury/pittwater Report For Thursday 28/1/2010


jewgaffer

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Hi Raiders

Postponed Wednesday's session due to the large number of heavyweight jelly blubbers moving out with the new moon period and coming back in after adding to the jelly blubber population and looking as skinny as Olive Oil, Poppeye's girlfiend. Consequently a shortage of trawled Arrow Squid occurred in the morning where we usually go and finished up going out in the Webster aka Galleon with FR Geoff on Thursday instead.

Pulled the wrong reign here, had heaps of small arrows, slimies and yakkas left over from last week and Wednesday happened to get a significant barometric pressure rise of around 6 points (millibars) over 12 hours contradicting the reaction of a low front that didn't come in as forecast, and old Geoff and I copped a hard time on Thursday and I reckon we saw enough lightening to throw away our cigarette lighters and heard enough thunder to blow the wax out of our ears.

On Friday morning Johnnie Doi aka Fisherdoi sends a photo of a good size school jewfish by sms caught early in the run in tide on Wednedsay not far away from the railway which used to be an excellent spot at times with access for landbased fishing but covered with go down there and break your ankle type rocks. I saw a photo of some good size school jewfish, one was released the smallest fish under the 70cm regulation.. jewfish were caught in close about 1/2 mile away from Juno 3/4 of the way up it seems on the same night Geoff and I had to leave the area earlier around the same tide or get a thorough drenching when we reached the boat ramp and as it was the rain started to team down as we crossed the road bridge on the way home.

Result

1 mouse kingfish feeding in with the yellowtail like a nice aunty would but wouldn't eat her nephews and neices for Christmas Dinner. The mouse jumped out of the ridiculous gap between the netting sleeves and the rim talking the line out the thru the opening I started playing what felt like a garbage tin lid, quit and lit one up and immediately ordered a new net to whoever might have been listening as I needed a photo of a garbage tin lid real bad.

2 Anchored up right in the centre of a jew hole out of the wind but the wrong way out of the wind on a whim and threw out the big baits and sat back and waited for the mourays. Geoff fished sensibly and got two mighty small residents to answer the door. No squatters were there at the time.

Here are the gardeners I think

post-829-1264931505_thumb.jpg

post-829-1264931574_thumb.jpg

Apart from that took home twenty left over bought squid, a dozen yellowtail caught after burleying the alcove with big john mixed in with bits and pieces of themselves. The key element to the kingfish that were all around the boat the week before was missing and unlike last Thursday's session with Mik aka Boofhead, there were no sign of any kingfish schools or of the key element, the hardy slimy mackeral schools in the same reliable spot off Pittwater during in a similar part of the high tide and the run over the top in the north easterly.

I would like to thank my good friend Geoff again for his hospitality and especially for the nice steak he put on when we got back and the good conversations were very relaxing and actually freshened the both of us up....

I did a lot of the driving myself during the session and I must say these particular high sided twin hull boats travel along very smoothly indeed, handle chop very well, and are a very stable boat at rest.

Cheers

jewgaffer :1fishing1:

Edited by jewgaffer
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Hi JG,

Mate i got your message but been very busy with work and have not fished much other than ducking out for a quick fish when possible for a few hours.

Glad you got amongst a few jews. We caught one on saturday that was just under size so let him swim away. Lately all we can get is ones about 40 - 50cm. This is a lot smaller than usual.

Lots of pillies in the water again and nice smaller size for bait. Noted at the ramp some people saying that the water police and Maritime doing checks and breath test around the Spit. I didnt notice them and for once i didnt get checked.

In a few weeks my work load will be less and fishing time more. Cant wait. Speak to you soon.

Mike

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G'day Byron,

It seems you're getting out a bit more these days - good for you.

It's a shame no bigger jew hit your baits - I would like to see a decent fish put a smile on your dial.

But with big baits in the water, you were in with the best chance....

I haven't pestered you for that Botany Jew/King/anyfin trip we are gonna do because I strained the back of my neck a couple of weeks ago, pushing my boat off the trailer.

It's easy to push off and I have done it so many times but last time I grimaced in pain.

I must be falling apart or something...

Anyway, give me another week and I'll hassle you again - bring that barometer with you...

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Hi JG,

......Glad you got amongst a few jews. We caught one on saturday that was just under size so let him swim away. Lately all we can get is ones about 40 - 50cm. This is a lot smaller than usual.

......Mike

Mike there's a lot of smallies around alright, I'm not sure about upper Middle Harbour but there's got to be literally hundreds of schools of undersize jew spread all throughout the Hawkesbury system at the moment... The slightly larger jew under spawning size are also in there in big numbers too and the good thing is they're staying in there and are being caught in among the jew that are far too immature to go outside and fend for themselves...Put this all together and it's a great sign for the Hawkesbury of a good cycle coming up as they grow. I think we must have gone thru a really bad cycle over the whole autumn to winter period the year before last in the big freeze we had when, if you remember it was so constantly cold all the way thru since the Autumn so cold that it seemed almost every fish bar the hardiest vacated the Sydney area with the first show back being hundreds of flathead that hit the Georrges and the Hacking in the September before last... Although little did we know, the jew must have been in good numbers outside during that long cold period and spawning very well off Sydney to produce these sorts of numbers, yet they simply didnt come back into the estuaries and stay... I was going out fairly regularly then even went on hairtail weekend and kept my eyes and ears open and nobody was hardly getting any fish anywhere, in fact it was so constantly cold for weeks on end with hardly any what you could call relief days whatsover from the southerly fronts that came in one after the other and even reports on our site from mid Autumn right thru till August were noticably few and far between..

At the moment up there good jew fishermen have been finding where they are and catching some good size fish mostly during the night time I'd say, yet it seems that the jew that are going home to roost in the traditional holes are mainly undersize and the bigger jew among them presently appear to be only two or three kilos at best, so at this point of time I think there is a need to fish closer to the mouth of the river or in your case Mike in the main Harbour..Although the days have been producing some school size jewfish in pockets in the Hawkesbury, I think there is a need to make sure to fish on into the early hours if you want to get onto some of the big mulloway that have been coming in and then it seems just going back out again

Cheers

jewgaffer :1fishing1:

..........I must be falling apart or something...

Anyway, give me another week and I'll hassle you again - bring that barometer with you...

Sorry to hear that Tony I don't know about bringing a barometer, I think I better get George to remind me of the necessity to bring the first aid kit and the oxygen :D

Cheers

jewgaffer :1fishing1:

Bad luck, Byron on the biggies not turning up!! BUT any day on the water beats a day on land!!!

Cheerio

Roberta

I don't know about that Roberta lately I seem to be fishing under some sort of a voodoo or something, it's not the fish and I'm always happy to see colour even if they are only small I'm at least positioned ok and that will suddenly change anyway.. since the start of this year things just keep on going wrong one after the other, like if I notice at a gaff out of place it'll manage to finish up under my thumbnail... if I get busted off it will be on a bait jig with a tiny peice of the bait that I'm fishing with.. if I'm ever perfectly anchored I'll soon be part of the crew a yacht that's slipped off anchour things like that seem to be never ending so that you can eventually just sit back and fish if you know what I mean.

Anyway Roberta I'll try and make sure everything goes along a lot smoother in future and just keep on fishing away and doing reports but I think everyone can relate to a whole series of things going wrong one after the other when they are hoping to have as many good days out on the water as they can these days

Cheers

jewgaffer :1fishing1:

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Good read Byron. The number of small jew must be a good sign for things to come. What's the growth rate of Jewies?

Anyway, good to hear that you're out on the water again.

Cheers

Peter

Peter I thought jewfish were a failry fast grower until I saw a fishing show where a young bloke from WA was fishing with a chap in Melbourne and at the time he was saying that the growth rate of jewfish was not far below the growth rate of dolphinfish. So if that is the case it could be that after they reach are a certain size they might grow quite a lot faster from that point on compared with their early growth where they seem to pause, fatten up and then get longer, some become so fat all the way around at a metre that you have to fit two slender jew into the same length alone to go home with a nice catch ...

I think rather than spawn and waste the eggs, mature jewfish being superior in the way they are and intelligent and advanced enough as a species spawn in a manner where their eggs will flow directly into an estuary and get the timing right, for example as the run in tide picks up in an easterly wind etc but naturally the trade off to having say such healthy numbers is that a lot of jewfish fry are decimated by flathead to balance out the numbers you could say.

Cheers

jewgaffer :1fishing1:

Edited by jewgaffer
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