No Birds

[Keofferam]

After the last few wet weekends today looked a treat. Got the boat set up last night and headed out at a lazy 7am on an absolute pristine Sydney morning. Normally if I head out that late there is a flotilla of boats heading out but this morning the water was dead flat all the way from Cockatoo past the bridge and really all the way out as there was very little boat traffic.

Weve been spoilt all March with the harbour holding bait and tonnes of Bonito and Salmon but it looks like they have moved on. I didnt see any surface activity and no birds feeding- no boats fishing either! just a couple on the drift or bottom fishing. I had three lines out the back but nothing all along from Bradleys Head out past North Head and about a 1k out from Manly.

No birds, no fish, and not that many boats on such an amazing morning. Still it was great to get out on such a nice day,

Might be time to change strategy, either more bottom bashing or heading out wide to the reef systems.

Any ideas?

[Robofish]

Hi,

I had a similar experience today in Broken Bay - for a while now we have pretty much been able to catch bonito, mack tuna and even striped tuna on demand by trolling around, today the spell was broken - one hit and none boated! It did us a favour to be fair though, it broke our pattern of trolling and drifting baits for flatties - we decided to flick some plastics around off Patonga and picked a few up (I have wanted to sharpen this part of my game for a while). I will be back next week and see if the bonnies etc are back.

[southerly]

Still heaps of bait in the harbour, saw beakies, pilchards and masses of yakkas yesterday. Maybe the pelagics are having a couple of days break.

David

[austwave]

Yeah we found it to be similar Friday.

[kurtisjohnthomas]

This has been the case for atleast 4 weeks

[davegroves68]

Hi,

I had a similar experience today in Broken Bay - for a while now we have pretty much been able to catch bonito, mack tuna and even striped tuna on demand by trolling around, today the spell was broken - one hit and none boated! It did us a favour to be fair though, it broke our pattern of trolling and drifting baits for flatties - we decided to flick some plastics around off Patonga and picked a few up (I have wanted to sharpen this part of my game for a while). I will be back next week and see if the bonnies etc are back.

Got a couple of good flatties in a 10 min session at Patonga while the wife and freinds had lunch in the Pub Took the girls for a dayout on the boat and couldn't resist a quick throw.

Edited April 9, 2011 by Welsh Dave

[Robofish]

Dave,

it was our first time fishing Patonga - we dropped a trap for poddies by the creek entrance and then flicked plastics around 40m from the eastern side of the bay. We didnt get any poddies but picked up flatties, flounder and a big shovel-nose shark.

Is that the place to fish there or drifting across the bay?

[dimitritaifalos]

Yep, same here. I also went out late, around 7am, and it was a magic day. Saw some surface action around spit bridge and threw lures at them but nothing doing. Headed out past middle head and saw an odd surface splash here and there but nothing significant. Took a run down to rushcutters and back to see if anything was happening there and anywhere in between but it was dead quiet.

Ended up trying a few spots near North Head and Little Manly and at one stage had a bucket full of live yakkas and swarms of them under the boat. Then the kingies arrived and we threw everything at them. Lures, sps, live yakkas, baits, fresh calamri and couldn't get a strike at all. Did boat around 40 fish though, ranging from small snapper, wrasse, rock cod and the like but no keepers. I must admit though, it was sooo good to be out on such a fine day.I reckon its a case of the fish being there but off the chew, so give it a few days, and it could all turn around. Water temp was 20.5 in most places.