donuts on the pittwater once again.

[leonardgid]

Hello there everyone, the reason im posting a fish less report is not because i have nothing better to do , its so that you know what our waterways are like at the moment, So! Thursday the 14th found me on a friends hired boat , ( his wife's late Christmas present), for my part , i bought 10 witches hats and a smorgasbord of fresh , frozen and live bait, total cost about $150,(bait consisted of fresh green eyed squid, fresh mullet, fresh pilchards, fresh school prawns, frozen chicken gut, chicken strips,live squirt worms,live yabbies, live pippies, ...we also had boiled wheat mixed with tuna oil and chicken pellets for burley armed to the teeth with bait jigs, yamashita prawn jigs, 4 bream rods 6 pound main 4 pound fluoro traces, 2 snapper rods etc,etc etc ,to cut a long story short, we fished from 9am till 4.00pm high tide was about 3.00pm. we landed about 80 squire to 29cm, and each and every one of them was returned into the water unharmed , I have to tell you all that its very hard to return a 29cm fish into the water when you have nothing in the keeper net, and fisheries should B$$$$Y well change their laws and allow people with no catch what so ever to at the very B$$$$Y least take 2 of these deep hooked fish home , im sure that allot of us would be happy with 2 just undersize fish instead of nothing at all ( providing that no other legal fish were caught during that session), you all might be thinking that we are amateurs that dont know what we were doing , its not the case , we had good local knowledge of the area, maps, a depth sounder, so we were able to position the boat exactly over the right spots were we were fishing , the only thing other then the squire that we caught were big slimmies and yellowtail. i was really surprised that we caught no bream at all , anyway that me for now untill the next fishless report, thank you for reading

[tasksta]

Wow have to say i disagree on both fronts.

Firstly The laws are there for a very good reason, if your so desperate for a feed maybe you should go to the fishmarkets.

Secondly im just back from pittwater and had a great day. We lost count of rat kings, caught a hammerhead, bonito, three huge bream a soapie and some small trevs. Also the yakkas were in swarms.

Thirdly if your catching 80 small fish, i would suggest to move or swap technique by number ten.

[Fish-On]

Mate I've always struggled on pittwater; now I stick to what I know, sydney harbour. You were definitely armed to the 9s. If the fish were on it would have been a massacre

[ALEXANDER]

Just for your info there are large bream on the eastern side of pittwater / just off the back of palm beach in 2 metres of water between the sand and kelp about 2hrs before high tide and1hr after

best bait beach worms as these fish are comming in to spawn and are use to a feed of worms comming in from palm beach / also jews are around flint and steel at the top of the tide on beach worms

[Frantic]

hmm time between 9am and 4pm well prob the worst time of the day it dont matter what bait you got . if you had said between 4pm and 9am thats a diff story .should be plenty of big bream around with anzac day looming .due to there migration up the east coast. and the big jewies chasing the mullet as well .

[nbdshroom]

I understand your pain at not being able to take home a few fish to feed. For good and for worse, laws define clearly where the line is drawn. They don't have to make sense either. Although it is a good point you made about deep hooked fish (or even those that come from the deep ocean and can't survive being dragged up to the surface). It does seem kind of (minor) waste to chuck them back to die. I guess at least the carcass will feed the rest of the fish there.

Edited March 16, 2013 by nbdshroom

[reubs]

I must say pittwater is magic early in the morning right on day break when the schools are busting baitfish around the moored boats...I was there a few weeks back and landed a 50cm flattie and a 40cm Mack tuna on plastics...the flattie fell to a zman grub and the Mack to a zman paddle tail minnow...we also picked up a squid which escaped through the holy net! Nothing quite beats casting to a bust up and hooking up on the drop...you guys definitely sounded prepared though and I understand your frustrations but at the end of the day would you really be happy with 2 miserable fish? At least you hopefully had a great day out on the water

Tight lines

Reubs

[smoked1]

There is no need or justification to keep undersized fish. These laws are in place not only for you but for the future generation. I know one day your kids will be able to enjoy catching big reds if we all follow the rules.

As for deeply hooked fish then a quick snip of the line and less handling time might do the trick.

Better luck next time... thats fishing!