Advice For Middle Harbour

[roosters123]

Planning a fishing trip on our 3.5 metre tinny with an 15 horsepower engine. Planning to launch at Tunks park and work ourselves around middle harbour and maybe up to balmoral. Wondering if there was any advice on a broad area's of good spots (not expecting to you to give me your best spots).

I remember going there and seeing numerous boats anchored around a supposedly sunk boat. If anyone knows where this is it would greatly appreciated. Any advice on bait and bair gathering grounds would be appreciated . And also types of rigs and what sort of fish i should intend to target. Any advice that would help in our success would be appreciated

[Linc]

Hi Mate, I found it pretty tough on Saturday morning in Middle Harbour. Getting bait was no problem around balmoral, just look for some structure in the water and you'll find the yakkas.

The only notable fish I got were 2 sambos between 45-50cm and a 40cm flatty and they were all not too far from the bridge, salmon on livies.

Sugarloaf bay was completely dead, couldn't even get a hit and the other few spots I tried on the inland side of the spit bridge were just filled with tiny pinkies. I'd concentrate on the outside of the bridge for the best chance at some decent fish.

[roosters123]

thank you, for collecting yakkas i haven't had much success. Should i use a hand line with a yellow tail rig (sabiki) and by some pre package burley and burley up

[LeoB]

thank you, for collecting yakkas i haven't had much success. Should i use a hand line with a yellow tail rig (sabiki) and by some pre package burley and burley up

G'day

It's a hell of a lot cheaper in the long to buy 2 loafs of bread some tuna oil and mix it up with some salt water into a pasty consistency and throw a small handful over every minute or so.

For bait you can use tiny pieces of peeled prawn, mince, bread chicken, you name it. But don't forget as soon as you add bait to a sabiki you need to cut it down to three hooks, which also makes them a lot more manageable.

Cheers Leo

[roosters123]

yeah ive caught them with or without bait on them do you have any preference or do they both work

[cameldownunder]

Catfood and $1 bread as mix, then just throw the baited hook in there. I have tiny floaters (1g) witch I can slide up and down the line. As soon as the floater goes, I can "strike" and the yakka is on. size 12 long shank (easy to remove).

I would try around chinamans beach ( after the 4 knot zone at middle harbour yacht club going out) I caught a great variety of fish: flathead, bonito, jews, bream.

From there you also can check the weather, swell, wind and see if you want to give middle head a shot or outside grotto point up north. With 15HP you should be able to get in back fairly quick.

[Linc]

G'day

It's a hell of a lot cheaper in the long to buy 2 loafs of bread some tuna oil and mix it up with some salt water into a pasty consistency and throw a small handful over every minute or so.

For bait you can use tiny pieces of peeled prawn, mince, bread chicken, you name it. But don't forget as soon as you add bait to a sabiki you need to cut it down to three hooks, which also makes them a lot more manageable.

Cheers Leo

I didn't think it mattered if u add bait to sabikis? in vic we had to cut down to two hooks to use bait. but is the rule here in nsw definitely 3 hooks max? mind u for yakkas u often don't need to bait sabikis anyway

Edit: will start a new topic on this as I'm curious to analyse the rules stated on the fisheries website a bit

Edited December 10, 2013 by Linc

[quochuy]

For yakkas, I go double snelled size 12 hook with minced beef, no burley.

Take a bit of minced beef, roll it a bit to form a pea that you hook thru and massage around each hook.

If yakkas are not visible, try to throw in three or four peas of minced and if they are around they will usually come up to the surface.

I like to have the hooks about 1m from the surface so when I see the bait disappear I strike :-) but sometimes you need to let it sink deeper so just strike when they nibble.

If they are around and hungry you should be able to catch one every minute or two.

[roosters123]

thanks for all the advice,very helpful

[roosters123]

by the way i caught about 8 fish all together. Lots of little snapper, a legal snapper, and a monster bream. Also got a tailor on the trawl on the way back to the boat ramp. Hooked a massive fish on the trawl that sent the reel scream somehow it got off. All in All a good trip.

[Linc]

Thanks for the report mate, glad to hear you had a good time. Question is: did you manage to find any livies after all the talk about them? Also you did well to find a legal snapper amongst the babies, I couldn't find one over 26cm!

Edited December 17, 2013 by Linc

[roosters123]

with great difficulty