Fishing East Manly Offshore

[Scent Blazer Lures]

Hey all, went off offshore last week, got to Sydney Heads around 1pm. Conditions were ideal, light winds, small swell and overcast, just the way we like it.

We were using a couple Scent Blazer trolling lure chains and a few larger lures with pilchards and stripped tuna inside the bait chambers of the lures. Also, because it was overcast at around 5pm we put some lights in a couple of the lures to increase their visibility.

We trolled to towards the Whale Fad straight out of from Sydney Heads.We got one Dolphin Fish on the Whale Fad and nothing around Manly Hydraulics, we could see some really small dollies jumping around it. We then trolled directly north about 3 NM from Manly Hydraulics, water was really blue and a warm 23 degrees. We were sounding bait fish all the way out from Sydney Heads. We find that a lot of time when we sounding a lots of bait it’s hard to get the fish to bite because they so well fed, so always have a really small lure out there, 3 inches or less.

Eventually we found a fish trap around Long Reef Wide and started hooking up on Dolphin Fish. Not real big all around 60 to 70cm, just legal size. Also they weren’t hitting any of lures on the surface, they were only taking the down rigged lures we had out. We hung around the fish trap for a few hours doing an occasional pass of the trap, hooking up on it and around it as and mainly on the down rigged lures, only one was caught on the surface lure. We caught 7 Dolphin Fish in total and dropped a few fish as well by about 4pm. The barometer then dropped and the fish just seem to shut down almost instantly, so we put out some really small lures out to try and get them back on the bite. We persisted for about another hour and started trolling back towards Sydney Heads.

It was really overcast and coming into evening so it was really dim, so we decided to put some LED lights in a couple of the lures. Not long after we hooked another Dollie on the lit up lure, we got it on the camera as well. We arrived at North Head at about 6.30 pm and hooked nice Bonito about 200 metres from headline. Not a bad fish around 5-6 lb I’m guessing.

All in all a good day out, nothing big but we got lots of ratchets going off which is always fun.

Also have a look at some our underwater pics of the Dolphin taking our lures, most of the time they bite and attack the middle of the lure. I am thinking about putting the hooks further inside the skirt, not outside skirt. Most other lure manufacturers seem to the run their hooks right back so the hook completely exposed outside the skirt. I have been following their lead. I am not sure anymore if that’s the best place to put the hook after looking at our underwater photos.

www.scentblazer.com if want to try some of our lures!

Peter – SB Lures

Edited February 25, 2014 by Scent Blazer Lures

[chocolate]

Love your reports always, Keep it up.