Frustrating Georges River Blackfish

[jimbo61]

Went out for a bit of a blackfish session this morning in Georges River. Had a batch of fresh weed and my sons blackfish outfit fishing the last of the outgoing tide. The sun had poked through the clouds and the water was flat and the colour of lead - it could not have been better.

My first cast was perfect, landing right where i wanted it. The float settled down and literally a foot into the drift it bobbed. Another foot and down it went a little and then disappearing into he murky water. After a nice fight which the fish nearly won by running me close to some rocks It was landed going about 36cm.

For the next 2 hours though every down ended up with the bait stripped or the bait coming back literally untouched. I tried everthing in my arsenal of blackfishing knowledge. Strike earlier, strike later, 5 second wait, 10 second wait, put less bait on, put more. I even started shaping the baits to "look" nice.

Either the fish suddenly became very shy or thay are small which is a good sign for the river.

As a test just before I left i put the rod down and just let the fish run with the bait. The float went down and then started to run sidways. It stayed under for at least 1 minute out of view before worried i may lose the float I lifted the rod. Nothing! Bait came back on the hook as I put it on.

So with one fish in the keeper net I decided the this fish would be saved from the dinner plate and chucked it back in witht all my weed following it in.

[Jew Stalker]

Bummer, can't say you didn't try everything though. Not sure what else you could do other than that.

[srxwat4]

I am no expert but I have heard that depth of bait being varied helps

[bharris]

had the same prob this time last year just goyta move around yo find the fish

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[VBCB]

Happened to me last week too, got 3 fishes that turned out to be small undersized pigs too out of 50 takes most frustrating thing ever, never understood why, tried the same things you did and also changed hook sizes, nothing would have any positive influence, it was just fail after fail, I assume it's related to the species then... Bloody blackfish

[Ron Howes]

I have found that the first fish comes before you start burlying. The burly attract the schools of chats from 5cm to around 10 cm and they are around the bait in the hundreds. Sometimes you can jag one after striking out of frustration. I experienced this myself just before the big wet and with the water super clear, at Illawong on the Georges River a few weeks back.

Howsy