New to shore fishing in Sydney

[GChris]

Hey Aussies!

Glad to see that Australia has such a nice fishing community!

Here is the thing: I'm currently living in Sydney (originally from New Caledonia) and with a friend we decided to try the Aussie water for some shore fishing (Boat renting be too damn expensive for the poor students we are). However, we couldn't get our fingers onto good fishing spots.

Since we live in Central, we first decided to have a look at the harbour so we went fishing around Circular Quay, north of the Rocks (under the bridge) and at the Opera House (where we got kicked out by a cop). We manage to catch up a few fishes (12 in 9hours) but they were all quite small, more or less between 10 to 25cms. We mostly caught Breams, Snappers and 1 flathead.

One of the reasons we wanted to go fishing was to be able to eat some good fishes that we caught, however these ones were far too small to make it on the grill. So, do you guys have any good spot you would like to share with us? Any idea where we could find something to add on the menu? We do not own a car but taking the bus/train with out equipment is fine (we both own a Travel Shimano that can be seperated for more convenient transport).

Here is our equipement:

2 Shimano Ballistix pro Travel Spin 663

2 Crossfire 2500X

Hooks size 2 - 4 - 6

Ball Sinkers size 1 - 2 -3

And a line of 6 lbs

We also use fresh prawns bought at the chinese market for bait.

If you have any tips concerning a location where we could go fishing, or even recommandation about our tackle gear improvement, feel free to share!

Regards,

Chris

[rjc123]

Head over to Balmoral Wharf. Its located in mosman and there's plenty of fish there if you know what to do. Mainly flathead, salmon and trevally at this time of year. A few Tailor aswell. Try using prawns and pilchard fillets. Might be worth trying to catch a small baitfish called a yellowtail that lives here. If you fish one of these under a float off the end of the wharf then you might hook a salmon. If you want to try something different, you can catch squid here. Just chuck out a squid jig and away you go! Make sure you avoid weekends though.. gets pretty busy!

Edited May 7, 2012 by mack attack 79

[luderick -angler]

Try fishing the wall outside of the botanic gardens on the domain side for leatherjackets over the kelp beds long shank hook size 10 and bits of peeled prawn use a size 0ball sinker as a patternoster rig style and jig the bait slowly should work wonders we used to get a bag full here as kids

Edited May 7, 2012 by luderick -angler

[GChris]

Head over to Balmoral Wharf. Its located in mosman and there's plenty of fish there if you know what to do. Mainly flathead, salmon and trevally at this time of year. A few Tailor aswell. Try using prawns and pilchard fillets. Might be worth trying to catch a small baitfish called a yellowtail that lives here. If you fish one of these under a float off the end of the wharf then you might hook a salmon. If you want to try something different, you can catch squid here. Just chuck out a squid jig and away you go! Make sure you avoid weekends though.. gets pretty busy!

Salmon looks nice =D

What kind of hook, sinker and bait do you recommand to first catch the small yellowtail? And then which one to use for the big salmon? Do you need to "prepare" the yellowtail as bait or do you just keep in on the hook and threw it back in the water?

[rjc123]

Salmon looks nice =D

What kind of hook, sinker and bait do you recommand to first catch the small yellowtail? And then which one to use for the big salmon? Do you need to "prepare" the yellowtail as bait or do you just keep in on the hook and threw it back in the water?

For the yellowtail, just use a tiny tiny sinker or no sinker at all and a size 10 longshank hook. Just put a tiny piece of pilchard, chicken or bread and off you go. When i say small i mean really small. Put the hook above the lateral line in the back and fish it under a float. For the salmon use a hook of about 3/0 octopus or even circle.

Good luck

[user1829]

Put the hook above the lateral line in the back and fish it under a float.

when you say: Put the hook above the lateral line in the back and fish it under a float.

you mean the when you put the hook in the yellowtail as a live bait? this should be a fairly large hook, like a 5/0 or larger?

[rjc123]

when you say: Put the hook above the lateral line in the back and fish it under a float.

you mean the when you put the hook in the yellowtail as a live bait? this should be a fairly large hook, like a 5/0 or larger?

Actually 3/0 is fine for fish like salmon.Go a little bigger if you want to but they have don't have a particularly massive mouth. The smaller the hook the longer the livie will survive. And yes, i was referring to the the hook being placed above the lateral line (on its back) and then being fished off the end of the wharf under a float...

[joel.pringle]

Try fishing the wall outside of the botanic gardens on the domain side for leatherjackets over the kelp beds long shank hook size 10 and bits of peeled prawn use a size 0ball sinker as a patternoster rig style and jig the bait slowly should work wonders we used to get a bag full here as kids

Is that spot in Farm Cove or on the Wollomoolloo side?

Hrgh