Latest jewy hunt

[mrsquid]

Hi raiders

I was itching to get out Friday night but the weather gods were having none of it and after spending 2 hours squiding in the rain with fellow raider Herdsman (HI mate) my fate was sealed, with only one small arrow in the bucket! It was going to a night at home taking orders from the boss!

Saturday night couldn’t have come fast enough, I wasn’t as prepared as I would have liked but the weather had cleared , stars were paying the occasional visit and at 1230am I was idling away from tunks armed with only 2 two small frozen squid, 2 loafs of Coles finest white bread and a few kg’s of pilchards for burly .

I’d been doing lots of research on Middle harbour over previous week so with lots of fresh places to explore the game was on! First stop was close to the spit bridge to see what bait life was around and maybe pick up roaming king or jewy but after half an hour of hard work I moved on, still needing some livies! If I had any chance of success tonight I was just going to have to work harder! Next stop was the drop offs around Bantry bay entrance, I anchoring up and burled hard with bread and pilchards, after half an hour…. nothing!!!! Ahhhh although its only 230am i'm stressing! if I didn’t get good baits in the water soon I was going to miss the big one! Next plan was to head out of the dark and into the light of Roseville boat ramp. Always the optimist I tie up and throw out some bread…… 5 minutes later…NOTHING. “This won’t do!!” I Untie and follow my gut to my old reliable.

Maybe I had been a little quick to leave Roseville and give up on the exploring but after only five minutes of been anchored up in the dark of middle harbour I was on the bait!!!! Toma!!, minutes later I’m dropping over the side my first butterflies yakka on double snell 4/0 hooks. Same again on my other heavy duty rod and just for a laugh I put a small butterflied yakka on my 2-4 kg rod armed with 10lb braid, 10lbfluro leader with 4/0 gangs hooks  (i’m only new to tying snell knots and it’s hard in the dark!)

After an hour of burying and catching yakka’s I get my first hit which would set the tune for the night. I strike; feel the weight of the fish and it’s over ahhh. At about 400am and coming towards primetime, I had dropped 2 fish so I brought out the big guns!!! I replaced a yakka for a full squid on one heavy rod hoping this would break my bad luck or dare I say bad technique. Minutes later it’s not my squid but my 2-4 kg rods that roars into life! seems the old gang hooks had found there target.

First feel and there’s plenty weight, my drag is screaming as the fish makes a run and adrenalin rages round my body! but after 30 seconds without any great pressure the fish just seems to give up and I slowly reel in a heavy lifeless weight (for this rod anyway) it wasn’t until I see silver did the fish sense its fate and spark into life, for a few nervous seconds my drags strains and the fish darts under my tinny, but again it chucks in the towel and before I know it, it’s on its side next to my tinny, armed with a new gaffe I secure the fish and it’s in! Wooo Hooooo.

Ok it’s not the monster I wanted but @ 62 cm I was pumped and it was only 4am still plenty of time for more action!

Just as the light starts to creep into the sky, my heavy rod with butterflied yakka bends over, I rush to grab the rod from its holder but i’m too late all over! It didn’t hurt as bad this time with one fish on board, but still!! Something was letting me down!!! With daylight pretty much here and my baits been attacked by every small tailor in middle harbour it’s not long till i’m staring at my last 2 yakka’s!!! I hadn’t expected to use so many and was kicking myself for burying up 3 maybe 4 ahhhhhh and to make matter worse I dropped another run. With the 2 big rods baited and waiting I piece together a mixed bag of yakka parts onto the ganghooks on my 2-4kg rod, just as the bait reaches the bottom bang I’m on woo hooo this fish has some play, I carefully guide it away from my anchor rope and after what’s seemed an eternity I’m shocked to see not a jewfish but nice snapper (that will do)!

As I had been fighting the snapper the other fish were tearing my baits apart taking close attention not to get hooked and before I know it i’m baitless. This wasn’t an all-time session but I had landed one small jewfish and a small snapper! I pulled up anchor a tired but happy man and with the sun breaking through the clouds I returned to tunks.

Good luck everybody

Fast facts:

Fish size: 62cm Jew

Water temp: 20.4c

Bait: butterflied yakka

Line/leader 10lb braid/10lb fluro on 2-4 kg rod

Rig: swivel and light sinker running to 4/0 gang hooks

Weather: overcast

Burly: pilchards

Tide: jewfish 1 hour before low. snapper just after turn

Moon:????

[rjc123]

Nice report again mate!

Your pulling in jews just about every weekend at the moment. Great work!

You don't get too many legal snapper in the harbour so well done on landing one.

Still, nothing wrong with a nice schoolie like that!

Cheers, Tom

[plankton]

I can't wait for you to catch a big one. I imagine your report ... the captivation equal to that of come poet come Mulloway master, Robert Adamson. Check it out:

http://www.robertadamson.com/fish/FW_0897.htm

[Scratchie]

Great report Mr Squid. I agree, if you catch a monster your story will make for great reading.

Well done!

[erroll]

Very good read there mate. I think we can all relate to the first few hours of your trip. Fortunately for you, the latter hours made the difference. Well done for fishing hard.

Cheers

[Jacques.va]

Nice work report mate. Seems you have figured out the art of Jewfishing

[sydangler]

Nice work mate. Always good when a plan comes together. I might have to get out and chase them tonight.

[davegroves68]

I had the same deal on saturday night. Really quiet at first, then started to fire up after midnight.Got 3 jews in the end.

Dave.

[col35]

great report squid your doing a lot better than i am , i was wondering why you butterflied your livies( is that cutting them open)

Also do they work better than putting the yakka out alive ?

sorry for sounding dumb im just trying to get some tips and tricks all info helps cheers

[mrsquid]

great report squid your doing a lot better than i am , i was wondering why you butterflied your livies( is that cutting them open)

Also do they work better than putting the yakka out alive ?

sorry for sounding dumb im just trying to get some tips and tricks all info helps cheers

Thanks mate, no such thing as a dumb question when your chasing jewfish! I'm no expert and have only recently started using yakkas as bait for jewfish , but I've had more success with butterflied bait! When I'm out I normally use squid but sometimes 1 live and 1 butterflyied yakka, every time i get the fish on the butterlied bait, but then again I've dropped allot of fish lately so it's here nor there I guess! one theory is you will defiantly get the attention of passing fish sooner due to cent trail, but then its up to the fish if its presented well enough or the fish is'nt been fussy... Got to love this game there's defiantly no set rules just some general guideline, you just try everything till you find what works!

Thanks for the comments guys, tight lines for all

[herdsman]

Hi raiders

I was itching to get out Friday night but the weather gods were having none of it and after spending 2 hours squiding in the rain with fellow raider Herdsman (HI mate) my fate was sealed, with only one small arrow in the bucket! It was going to a night at home taking orders from the boss!

Saturday night couldn’t have come fast enough, I wasn’t as prepared as I would have liked but the weather had cleared , stars were paying the occasional visit and at 1230am I was idling away from tunks armed with only 2 two small frozen squid, 2 loafs of Coles finest white bread and a few kg’s of pilchards for burly .

I’d been doing lots of research on Middle harbour over previous week so with lots of fresh places to explore the game was on! First stop was close to the spit bridge to see what bait life was around and maybe pick up roaming king or jewy but after half an hour of hard work I moved on, still needing some livies! If I had any chance of success tonight I was just going to have to work harder! Next stop was the drop offs around Bantry bay entrance, I anchoring up and burled hard with bread and pilchards, after half an hour…. nothing!!!! Ahhhh although its only 230am i'm stressing! if I didn’t get good baits in the water soon I was going to miss the big one! Next plan was to head out of the dark and into the light of Roseville boat ramp. Always the optimist I tie up and throw out some bread…… 5 minutes later…NOTHING. “This won’t do!!” I Untie and follow my gut to my old reliable.

Maybe I had been a little quick to leave Roseville and give up on the exploring but after only five minutes of been anchored up in the dark of middle harbour I was on the bait!!!! Toma!!, minutes later I’m dropping over the side my first butterflies yakka on double snell 4/0 hooks. Same again on my other heavy duty rod and just for a laugh I put a small butterflied yakka on my 2-4 kg rod armed with 10lb braid, 10lbfluro leader with 4/0 gangs hooks  (i’m only new to tying snell knots and it’s hard in the dark!)

After an hour of burying and catching yakka’s I get my first hit which would set the tune for the night. I strike; feel the weight of the fish and it’s over ahhh. At about 400am and coming towards primetime, I had dropped 2 fish so I brought out the big guns!!! I replaced a yakka for a full squid on one heavy rod hoping this would break my bad luck or dare I say bad technique. Minutes later it’s not my squid but my 2-4 kg rods that roars into life! seems the old gang hooks had found there target.

First feel and there’s plenty weight, my drag is screaming as the fish makes a run and adrenalin rages round my body! but after 30 seconds without any great pressure the fish just seems to give up and I slowly reel in a heavy lifeless weight (for this rod anyway) it wasn’t until I see silver did the fish sense its fate and spark into life, for a few nervous seconds my drags strains and the fish darts under my tinny, but again it chucks in the towel and before I know it, it’s on its side next to my tinny, armed with a new gaffe I secure the fish and it’s in! Wooo Hooooo.

Ok it’s not the monster I wanted but @ 62 cm I was pumped and it was only 4am still plenty of time for more action!

Just as the light starts to creep into the sky, my heavy rod with butterflied yakka bends over, I rush to grab the rod from its holder but i’m too late all over! It didn’t hurt as bad this time with one fish on board, but still!! Something was letting me down!!! With daylight pretty much here and my baits been attacked by every small tailor in middle harbour it’s not long till i’m staring at my last 2 yakka’s!!! I hadn’t expected to use so many and was kicking myself for burying up 3 maybe 4 ahhhhhh and to make matter worse I dropped another run. With the 2 big rods baited and waiting I piece together a mixed bag of yakka parts onto the ganghooks on my 2-4kg rod, just as the bait reaches the bottom bang I’m on woo hooo this fish has some play, I carefully guide it away from my anchor rope and after what’s seemed an eternity I’m shocked to see not a jewfish but nice snapper (that will do)!

As I had been fighting the snapper the other fish were tearing my baits apart taking close attention not to get hooked and before I know it i’m baitless. This wasn’t an all-time session but I had landed one small jewfish and a small snapper! I pulled up anchor a tired but happy man and with the sun breaking through the clouds I returned to tunks.

Good luck everybody

Fast facts:

Fish size: 62cm Jew

Water temp: 20.4c

Bait: butterflied yakka

Line/leader 10lb braid/10lb fluro on 2-4 kg rod

Rig: swivel and light sinker running to 4/0 gang hooks

Weather: overcast

Burly: pilchards

Tide: jewfish 1 hour before low. snapper just after turn

Moon:????

Hello mate, i was expecting to see the bed and bimini? what happened!

[sydangler]

great report squid your doing a lot better than i am , i was wondering why you butterflied your livies( is that cutting them open)

Also do they work better than putting the yakka out alive ?

sorry for sounding dumb im just trying to get some tips and tricks all info helps cheers

Putting a butterflied bait bait out in a spread is always a good idea (not just cutting them open its filleting them from the tail to the head and removing the spine and tail). Some days the butterflied baits will out fish the livies other days its the other way round. I would put money on the livie getting the bigger fish.

More recently I've only been butterflying them up to the start o the gut section seems to last longer.