The Twelve Mile Off Sydney,13/06

[REKLESS]

Gidday all,

Well I finally got to go out with a mate called Grant on his Brand new "Bar Crusher".

The trip actually started on saturday with me launching "REKLESS" , braving the boat traffic on saturday and after launching at the worlds worst boat ramp at little manly located the shoalls of horse slimeys near the bouy at quarantine head .

After a few hours work we had enough to get a good slick going out at twelve mile reef for Mr and Mrs mako.

On Monday we met up at rose bay ramp at 530 and after a little juggling with some idiots (us included) ,the boat was loaded up with my mates Grant,Mad max jonno ,myself ,70kgs of burley (I emptied the freezer)and the worlds supply of fishing gear.We stopped off at quarantine to get some liveys and after a whole 5 minutes we had 12 slimeys and howled off at mach 1 to Twelve mile reef.

The conditions were pretty good,5-10 knots of NW wind and a bit of left over slop from Sundays NE wind that had us pull up everynow and then just to stop falling off the back of the waves.We got out there and found a pro droplining out there and after doing a bit of driving with the sounder (NAVMAN) on 50hz found a good patch of fish that showed promise.

Dropping the anchor in 135m of water is a good trick that is not for the light hearted,at least not for those without the right sort of gear anyway.Grant had spent a bit of money and lets just say that 200m of 12mm silver rope is not cheap,4m of chain with a HD reef pick and two bricks tied to the base of the anchor to ensure that it gets down first ,without tangling around the chain/rope on the way down.

Anyway the pick went down and after a little rigging over went the first baits,the current had a little easterly set in it which could have meant you could have fished there with 1/4lb leads if you wanted to.Trouble is they dont turn alvey deck winches when you drop a bait over the side.We picked up close to a dozen small pinkies which was not what we were after and after a little deliberation the anchor was pulled up and we chugged off to another spot 100m away.

The shark baits went out first along with the obligatory livey and by the time I had them set out to tangle up with each other, grant had pulled in the first fish which I think was a little morwong about 45cm long ,next was a filthy great chinaman jacket that was around 58cm max caught that one and then with the nature of these fish,the bite offs started to occur......and things just went downhill from there.

I have had a bit of previous experience with these critters and pulled out a wire trace made up of 60lb nylon coated wire about 8ft long with three droppers with 2/0 beak hooks.This rig lasted the whole session and while the other guys were re rigging and loosing kilos of lead and meters of wire, it just hung in there ....just lucky I guess,no doubt Max can elaborate here a little.The sinker took a hiding from them as well it may have started at weighing 1/2 lb but afterwards it must have lost 3oz due to leatherjackets (sampling it).We caught over 73 of the things and some were fish that would give 2.5kgs a nudge.

The burley we were generating there was pretty thick and must have rung in all the fish from around ,there was two other boats at anchor with another eight or so drifting and all were getting doubles and a few times we saw one guy get four 2kg plus models on the one drop,hauling that mob up from 130m must have been fun! .

Any way we left the fish biting and seeing that nothing apart from pelagic jackets having molested the now dead bait we headed home to nurse braid cut fingers and to plan the next trip out.The spot for those inclined to get out there is twelve mile reef ,the reef is 21.5 km SE of the heads the position where we located the jackets was S 33' 55.529 E 151' 28.561.The phones still work out to that range but a 27mhz radio is still just in range,a VHF would be the better option and after hearing about the rescent rescue off browns a few weeks ago a VHF might be the way to go due to a greater working range.

Just on another note,there is no substitute for braid line at this place,it rules!!!.

PS Browns mountain was a bit of a blow out due to strong currents out there that day,one boat (THE OFFICE ) was floating 3kg sash weights trying to rech the bottom.....yuck

cheers

Simon

Edited June 14, 2005 by REKLESS

[kikila]

At least you got a nice feed' just love a good feed of jackets not as much fun to catch as mako's. What size is the Bar Crusher? A friend has a 5.3 meter and often fish's wide.

[sami]

After a few hours work we had enough to get a good slick going out at twelve mile reef for Mr and Mrs mako.

Dropping the anchor in 135m of water is a good trick  that is not forthe light hearted,at least not for those without the right sort of gear anyway.

cheers

Simon

52663[/snapback]

g'day mate,

do you guys anchor up when shark fishing?

might have done better drifting with the slick.

[ehor]

Nice report.

Bad luck about the mako's but atleast you were out there on the water

[dannyf]

Hi Si,

Great reading report as usual. Glad to be able to help collect the boys burley on Saturday. Shame we had to cut the "bait collecting" trip short, but after a big lunch on Friday if we had not called it quits when we did I would have been creating burley. I'm old enough to know better about boozing the day before fishing.

Was looking forward to some Mako and chips as well.

Danny

[REKLESS]

I dont think any one did real good on the pelagics on the monday swoffa,I read that there was a few Jellybeans down off Jervis bay canyons and the like but most boats that fished were fishing for "Flathead" in 300 metres.

Kilkila the boat is a 5.3m,nice boat it is to-I would be comfortable fishing in it on the shelf........on the right day of course,we got some figures about fuel usage,this was with a 140 hp Johnson 4 stroke,174km for 80lt of juice,a lot of the travelling was at two thirds throttle at around the 40-50km/h speed,not to bad I reckon!!.

Sami,thats right usually we do drift when fishing for biteys ,the idea is to get a good drift so that the slick is covering as many miles as possible ,thing is that you usually need about 100kilos +of mullet to do the job properly and if you do fish for the things regularly have a chair on board,9hrs on 15 on a tiger on stand up is not good for the discs.The shark fishing was a bycatch thingy.

Danny,you had better come around with the esky so I can free up the freezer a bit.

[djmac]

not much around at the moment

we picked up 2 whalers around 20 -30kg on sunday and was hooked up to a decent shark for around about 40mins until it decided to pop us off, 10kg doesnt last long in those conditions

[REKLESS]

I take it DJ that you were fishing for biteys on the point score ?

[djmac]

Yep rekless i was.

its pretty quiet out though.

plenty of bait around but no predators

im actually surprised at the amount of bait around in close.

its time to stock the freezers lads

[REKLESS]

Gidday telco ,

The ramp at Little manly has a few good points and whole heap of bad ones.

1- It is ideal for launching small boats especially when the NE winds are howling

2-It does have a beach that is boat friendly.

3-It is poplular with the local wildlife and at certain times of the year the Brazilian girls are there in umm .........semi full exposure.

4- the gate there is a hazard and is quite narrow to back a 4WD down

5-at low tide the end of the ramp is literally that ,the end of the ramp

6-No taps around to allow you to flush the motor out.

7-parking can be a real hassle.

8-theft.

Saying that ,I tend to launch "REKLESS" there a lot (4m tinny) as I have found that it can save a lot of time to getting to the spots I want to fish quickly,Shelly beach is the best ramp for that by the way.

Longreef ramp is my vote for the worst and most dangerous ramp of the lot on the sydney seaboard if not the east coast.

Simon