Sydney Harbour And Offshore (Now With Pics)

[fishmaniac]

Hey all,

I havn't fished too much in the past few weeks and was keen to get out and have a decent crack this weekend. The plan for saturday was to suss out and see if there were any kingfish around and meet up with a mate from work.

I awoke on saturday morning to cold and overcast conditions with a pumping S'ly swell. Not the most pleasant conditions when fishing out of an open tinnie . Anyways, I headed to a few inshore reefs and had a quick jig for about an hour and half. I was not having any luck and the sounder was barren, no kings, no bait, but at least no Leatherjackets!!!

It seems that the larger congregations of kingfish have broken up and started moving out to the deeper reefs. As stated by other raiders' reports, much more effort is required to find fish.

I then met up with my mate from work, his brother and a couple of his mates. They have recently purchased a second hand boat and are starting to get into fishing. I had convinced them to fish the harbour and promised to show them a few techniques. We pulled up at a likely looking location and started fishing. They were using a running sinker rig while i was float baiting. Within about an hour I had landed two legal bream (the larger fish being 36cm) and three legal trevally (the larger being around 40cm) while they had caught their beloved pinkies (undersized snapper). I threw over some flourocarbon leader and explained to my mate how to rig up. Within ten minutes he had landed a nice legal bream and continiued to have improved success. In his words, "loving this new technique".

36cm Bream

Although it was not the day on kings i had hoped for, it was a nice day on the water with a few nice fish and good company. It was great to see how excited my mate got when pulling in some nice sized bream and trevally. At the end of the day i gave them the legal fish i had caught to enjoy with their families.

On sunday i met up with my mate at the ramp to be greeted with heavy fog (what next). So we motored straight out to the sydney FAD to find about 5 boats around it with not one person hooked up. We then went furhter out to another bouy and picked up two undersized dollies before they too went off the bite. We pushed wider to some fish trap bouys we had marked only two weeks ago. They were gone! Spewing as the water was 24.8 degrees now and we knew if they were there it would have been going ballistic!

We began heading due east and spotted some figures in the far distance. We motored out and upon arrival found two other boats out there in apparent open water (ie no structure or floating objects), one of which was hooked up. I asked if they had any dollies and was told "sweep mate". I watched them pull the fish in and it was no bloody sweep! Meanwhile my mate had spotted a bouy.

We motored up and deployed out baits. After lopping my yakka out it proceeded to bolt back to the boat! Instant runs and we were on. Dollies everywhere! Hundreds and all of a good size. We continued to fish for dollies for about 4 hours catching fish after fish ranging between 65 and 87cm on both pillies and livies. After reaching our bag limit we practiced some catch and release. One of the dollies we had released was tagged. That was our first tagged dolie ever caught.

Mahi Mahi Boatside

I had started fishing with my 60b saltiga rod and saltist reel but this just raked the fish in with too much ease even fishing only half the drag i run on kings. I downgraded to my 8lb spin stick. It was quite funny pitching 20cm live yakkas with a 4-8lb stick. I managed to land a pb dollie on the light gear of 84cm which was good fun. After running out of bait we called it a day and headed back in with a nice flat sea.

Biggest fish on each outfit

Upon returning home I noticed my spin reel has become quite rough. This is the second time this has happened and it was due to warping of the main gear under pressure. Considering i was running about 1.5kg of drag I am not happy.

Andrew

Edited May 3, 2010 by fishmaniac

[Basil D]

well done Andrew, you sure know how to track your fish down, My mate told to use light gear when we go out again, the bigger dollies seem wary of the lines.

Bad luck with you spinning reel, hope its new so you can claim warranty, it seems they are all made in china these days.

regards Basil

[Penguin]

Good on you for helping your mates on to a few fish Andrew, and

well done on the Sweep, oops sorry, Dollies the next day

penguin

Edited May 2, 2010 by penguin

[gobbledock]

Nice work mate, and thumbs up for going wide in your open tinnie its something i wouldn't do personally. How far out do you go out? Never fished for dollies, might have to give them ago now that the jackets a here and the kings are scarce. Anyway always look forward to your next report Tight Lines

[quangvo1989]

Great read Andrew and well done on finding the dollies, cannot wait for the pics

Glad to know the LJs didn't give you a hard time, hopefully the kingies will concentrate enough for us to give winter jigging a shot soon.

Cheers,

Ryan

[mikeh191]

Saturday seemed a bit quite for you Andrew, but at least you made up for it sunday with the dollies. I bet our mate was stoked to be hooking dollies for 4 hours, there top fun.

Cheers Mike

[fishmaniac]

It was good to get stuck into the dollies especially considering they were a decent size! They put on some great displays and good runs on the light gear! The only worry I have is if a marlin or monster dollie snaffles the livie!

Ryan, I did not bother jigging wide on sunday given recent reports of ravenous jackets! Will probably looking at jigging when the water temp drops off a bit.

Stream827 i have sent you a pm with some details.

The new gear for the reel is on its way so it all should be good shortly (maybe for this coming weekend)

[monch]

Great results mate, and lol sweep.. who was that guy kidding

Yeh, pitching decent sized livies on 2-4kg bream gear sure does feel weird, but it gives results lol, got my first king (60cm rat) doing that for fun.

Also, what reel were you using which carked it on 1.5kg drag?

Monch