GoingFishing Posted January 20, 2015 Posted January 20, 2015 Gday Raiders Ive had a pretty busy weekend so haven’t had time to post up this report until now. Decided to fish out from Botany Bay with two of my wifes cousins ( Brownie Points in the bag) who have done a-lot of land based fishing but never from the boat. The plan was to catch their first king and both were very excited. The forecast conditions were for up to a meter swell and 5-7 knot winds, and for once they got it right, it was an absolute cracker of a day on the water with perfect conditions apart from the single rogue wave/breeze every hour or so. Got to the boat ramp at Foreshore Rd at 5am to find a que about 10 boats long ! whoaw, understandably i wasn’t the only one excited by the forecast. Launched about 20 mins later and headed to the tug boats for livies, we tried for yakkas for about 30 minutes and could only get absolutely HORSE size yakkas easily 30-35cm each. Ive tried fishing large yakkas before as livies and have had little success. So headed out with only one livie between the three of us. We were past cape banks at 6 and headed straight for the FAD, i originally didn’t want to go to the FAD because the last time i was there it was full of rat dollies but thought it would be fun for the first timers. About 1km away the FAD we found warm water sitting at about 23.4 degrees and threw out the lures. We trolled around the FAD for an hour without a touch. Strange considering this time last week it was infested. We then headed over to the Peak and tried sounding up some bait balls in the hope of jigging for some kings, we moved around for a good hour and only found one bait ball which quickly disappeared and i couldn’t find it again. Three other boats stopped by and none had found anything or had any luck either. This was around 8am so i dont know if anyone had any luck later in the day on Saturday. So having failed at the FAD & The Peak i thought i could save face by heading over to the cliffs and trolling for Bonito, headed straight for the cliffs off Coogee and started trolling south back towards Botany, about 5 minutes later we got hit and as expected by a Bonito which put up a great fight on the light gear. We continued to troll the area and end up with 3 Bonito. I could see enormous amounts of fish on the sounder so i threw the anchor in and burleyed hard to see what wed find. What happened after this was a day never to be forgotten. Bonito, Rat Kings, Massive Sweep, Trevally and mix of other fish all feeding under the boat easily visible. No sooner had our baits hit the water than they were being torn to shreds by what seemed to be starving angry fish. Single hook ups, double hook ups and even at one point a triple hook up. I decided to throw a small ball sinker on each line to try and get the baits past the sweep ( always first in line). There were some big fish down there though we got bust off every single time by the larger specimens. We must have boated 11 rat kings and got bust off just as many times. No legal kings for dinner but we did end up taking home 4 Bonito, 1 Trevally and two very happy passengers who both managed their first kingie. Only rats but still awesome fun none the less. We also cought two fish which ive never seen before can anyone ID these fish please?, the green with black dots and Mr Angry with the big spine and velociraptor teeth? I returned these two to the water as i don’t know the eating quality ( if any ) and as I couldn't positively ID them I couldn't identify a legal size limit. It looks like most people had an awesome weekend out which is great to hear. Cheers GoingFishing
MV Sunray Posted January 20, 2015 Posted January 20, 2015 Lucky you got to the ramp at 5am. I heard (second hand info) they closed it at 7am because it was full. Nice haul well done sounds like a great day out.
brad_tate Posted January 20, 2015 Posted January 20, 2015 Mr Angry looks like it is possibly a Gunard of some description, and the second one definitely looks like a cod. Hopefully one of the experts on the site will ID them positively for you.. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Scratchie Posted January 20, 2015 Posted January 20, 2015 Great report and well done on taking out the relos and getting them some good fish. The second fish is a wirrah cod for sure. The first I'm not real sure of! Well done Cheers scratchie!!!
Scratchie Posted January 20, 2015 Posted January 20, 2015 P.s you don't want to eat a wirrah cod. Probably better eating your thongs!
lillie Posted January 20, 2015 Posted January 20, 2015 The cod looking one is a wirrah known as a old boot. The other one looks like a sergeant baker. Glenn
mayo Posted January 20, 2015 Posted January 20, 2015 1st fish is a sargent baker 2nd wirrah cod also called old boot, both pretty crook to eat,
JohnDory Posted January 20, 2015 Posted January 20, 2015 Scratchie, Never done it but I have read that filleted and skinned after removing the slime they are pretty good. If you try it let me know. JD
Yowie Posted January 20, 2015 Posted January 20, 2015 (edited) Reddy time is correct. That baker is the male of the species, the long dorsal fin at the front gives it away. The bakers are edible, just have to be careful of the numerous fine bones. As for the wirrah, a shit sandwich would be more tender and tasty. Edited January 20, 2015 by yowie
Scratchie Posted January 20, 2015 Posted January 20, 2015 Scratchie, Never done it but I have read that filleted and skinned after removing the slime they are pretty good. If you try it let me know. JD Are you talking about the thong or the fish??? Either way, I reckon similar taste!
GoingFishing Posted January 20, 2015 Author Posted January 20, 2015 Cheers fellas it was a great day out. MV Sunray I did see the driveway closed on the way out from the ramp around 12pm the security had to move some witches hats for me to get out. Thanks for the fish ID gents, not sure I'm up for a "shit sandwich" haha so I'm glad I let those fellas go
JohnDory Posted January 20, 2015 Posted January 20, 2015 Just gone to far thinking of thong slime Just eat that cod if you dare, JD
Keflapod Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 You guys crack me up. Shit sandwiches, thong sandwiches, I guess you can put anything in a sandwich (except soup I suppose). My rule of thumb (and I don't know what thumbs have to do with rules) is to fillet, skin and debone the fillet. Then egg'n'breadcrumb the fillet before frying. THEN you can see if it tastes as good as the fine dining described above. I have to admit that my nose doesn't seem to work anymore and my taste-buds could well have died a slow death, but only YOU can decide if you like them or not. If I understood it right, those sergeant bakers have two sets of lateral lines, so when deboning the skinned fillet, run your fingers along the flesh side of the fillet. This will tell you where the lines of bones are. Cut them out then fry the boneless fillet... I bet you'll like the baker and there are stacks of them over the hard reefs.... Tony
GoingFishing Posted January 22, 2015 Author Posted January 22, 2015 Tony That's an interesting response. Everytime I ask for a eating quality I almost always get a range of answers with yes/no. I guesses that's normal and expected considering every person has their own taste.
Aqua Naut Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 mother in law fish buddy...give it to the mother in law...lol sargent baker
GoingFishing Posted January 23, 2015 Author Posted January 23, 2015 All on Deep divers? Hi Teflon I assume your talking about the Bonito, I normally throw 2 shallow and one deep diver out. The lure I use for Bonito is a Yeptide LM-110 in a variety of colors. Theyre a great all rounder and I find them to be very reliable. Ive caught Bonito, Mahi Mahi, Salmon and Tailor on this lure. Depending on your speed they go from 0-2m deep. I troll at about 4-5 knots so theyre normally about a meter below the surface. best of all, you can pick them up for about $8-$9 each.
Guest no one Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 Nice, do you ever remove the front hooks? I did on mine because the line kept tangling after it popped over a wave while trolling.
GoingFishing Posted January 23, 2015 Author Posted January 23, 2015 I did try that once and found my hit/hookup rate took a steep decline, almost all my hookups have the front treble through the side of the mouth. I find tieing a heavier flourocarbon leader on a uni to uni knot of say 40lb keeps a stiff hold at the nose and prevents the line from bending and tangling up the leader. This has it's benefits but also it's downsides, though admittedly if your using good quality leader the fish rarely seem to mind and I can't say using a heavier leader has reduced my catch rate
Xsite Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 Wira cod is very good eating if prepare right Meat is tough but sweet so bbq or deep fry is a no no We cut them in cube and long stir fry or better on a steamboat chinese style Cheers
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