lostproperty Posted February 17, 2013 Share Posted February 17, 2013 Weather forecast was for showers but that wasn't going to bother us too much. Heading out from Little Manly @ 5am with myself & Beaver (Adam) on his boat. Sydangler (Ollie) decided to join us fresh from a Friday night session at the Boat Shed so I gave him my ant-seasick combo of Kwells & NoDoze tablets to ensure the day was not interrupted by uncontrollable burley from Ollie haha (worked a treat!). The plan was to head out to the FAD's nice an early with some livies and see if we can bag some legal sized dollies. We hit up inside the harbour for some livies but they took a little while to wake up and start hitting the bait jigs (was still dark when we started). We got a nice big tank full of yakkas and even managed half a dozen slimies as well which was good. On the way out passed North Head we threw out a few slimies to see if we could entice any kings. My slimie hit the water and swam straight around the pipe for the bait tank about 4 times and then got himself stuck on the inlet for the bait pump, leaning over the back of the boat trying to sort out the mess was a nightmare considering I couldn't see my leader in the water and the livie wouldn't stop going crazy. Eventually managed to get the hook out of him and put him back in the tank, he was a bit worse for wear already with a big ring bruised into him from the pump but he held up in the end! Got everything untangled and gave up on sending him out again. Ollie wasn't paying attention but all of a sudden he had interest on his line, what ever it was had him pretty well reefed, his leader snapped and came up looking pretty destroyed. We packed up after 5 mins and headed out to the Sydney Fad, about 5kms out we chucked out a spread of skirt lures to see if we could land any stripies on the way. We had Adam with a purple skirt on the right corner, Ollie with a pink skirt in the middle and close, and I was running a Ricter's Lures Dorodo on the left corner and 2 barrel sinkers to have it running deeper than the other 2. Unfortunately no luck but I was glad I managed to get my lure working properly after last year I rigged it up crudely at home and didnt have any success with its presentation in the water (kept spinning) I ended up buying a pre made skirt rig for $10.95 made by Fish Eagle and it had 2x 6/0 hooks on it. Only problem was the mono was really hard to tie, even a 2 loop uni, so it needs to be crimped I think. We got to the Sydney FAD and water temp was 22.6 deg, nothing happening there and we headed further out to the MHL Buoy and the water temp picked up over 23 which was a good sign. Decided to try a few different things on this trip, using one of my light spin rods I put on a live bait hook and sent out a slimie unweighted and free spooled it down the current, almost straight away I felt line peeling off the spool, didnt throw the bail arm over straight away so we could sort the lines out on the boat, but eventually brought in a nice 55cm dollie, great fun on the light gear and sent him back to grow bigger enough for the table. We tried a few drifts passed the buoy and there was a great action packed hour of catching fish, undersized dollies & rat kings. I have left over bonnie strips from the weekend before that I had salted and frozen, just cast them at the buoy and free spool and instant hookups every cast. Ollie caught his first dollie as well and took some nice underwater snaps of them while he was bringing them in, such great looking fish but still yet to break the 60cm mark on them yet for myself. We decided to make our way back but stopping off a longreef to see if there were any big kings around. We sent out yakkas and by this stage our last 2 slimies had died so we stripped them up and sent them out unweighted. Adam's light spin rod got smashed almost instantly and it was a struggle to get it out of the holder, we were only in 17m of water so it was a good hard fight but we managed to boat it, and spewing it was only a 63cm king, definately put up a solid fight. There was a bit of activity on the sounder but livies, plastics and metals didnt seem to entice any more action. I saw a school bust up about 50m in front of the boat so I put on a new hard body lure I think theyre called FLASH or something, its white in colour about 15cm long, plastic with a weight in the middle so its kind of like a sinking stickbait, cast it out in the area, first cast wasn't quite accurate second cast gave it a good 20secs to sink and started cranking, hooked up straight away and brought in a nice fat bonnie, finally a legal fish (at this stage we hadn't caught anything to take home) but no action after that. The paint was coming off the lure every cast and we called it a day when the bail arm flicked over and my lure kept going (hate loosing new lures!). Decided to have a quick troll of south head as we'd had some luck with the bonnies the weekend before and even trolled up a king on one of Adams Rapala lures. Last weekend his lure smashed my Lively Lure 4" Mack Bait 7 fish to 1 on mine, today was a completely different story, first pass around the heads my rod goes off but the fish swam at the boat and spat the hooks, we kept trolling and I hooked up again to something solid, gave a hard run so I thought it might be a king as it had some weight to it. I was using my new Okuma combo with a heavier duty rod than Ive used before so the feel was a bit different. Once I got colour I knew it wasn't a king but it was a decent sized frigate mackerel, sent him back in the drink after a quick snap. Kept on trolling and hooked up again, as we stopped the boat Ollie cranked in his christmas tree lure and hooked up as well. It was this pattern over and over again and eventually we had about 10 bonnies in the boat and blood everywhere haha. Unfortunately for Adam his lure hadn't been touched! So weird that there was such a change from the week before. Over all a pretty good day on the water and was pretty stoked on trying a few new things that paid off even if we didnt get the fish we were after! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostproperty Posted February 17, 2013 Author Share Posted February 17, 2013 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Rev Posted February 17, 2013 Share Posted February 17, 2013 Well done guys / thanks for the report. Brought the memories of chasing Dollies off Wollongong when I lived down there. Glad you got a feed in the end Cheers The Rev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcel Posted February 17, 2013 Share Posted February 17, 2013 Great report thanks for sharing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beaver Posted February 17, 2013 Share Posted February 17, 2013 Yeah was a good day out with a mixed bag of fish depsite a few early showers. that rat king was a rogue, fought harder than many 70cm kings I've caught before, definitely punching way above its size... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dobson_c Posted February 17, 2013 Share Posted February 17, 2013 Great report. Sounds like a great day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dazzlar Posted February 18, 2013 Share Posted February 18, 2013 Nice report the little dollies are every where its all about having fun & if you catch a feed even better Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mulcahya Posted February 18, 2013 Share Posted February 18, 2013 Any day you get a fish into the boat is a good day. You've done better than that, so it's a great day! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erroll Posted February 18, 2013 Share Posted February 18, 2013 Terrific read there mate and sounds like you had some action at all times during the day. Well done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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