Pittwater - have the kingies gone missing?

[ginko]

I headed out on Wednesday, hoping for a king... but it was not to be. I was a bit late out (9am) - and didn't find any yakkas over my usual wrecks - in fact, I couldn't find them anywhere.  I did see some bonnies having a bust-up at the surface (on a prominent headland, and covered heavily by the gulls), and managed to land two (Watson's leaping bonito). One of the bonnies was used for bait.  In spite of covering more than 20km in the yak with good bait, I didn't see any evidence at all of kings on the sounder. There were heaps of very aggressive leatherjackets around all the headlands, and I managed a small bream and multiple snapper when investigating some of the deeper markings on the sounder.    

I haven't really seen much kingie action in Pittwater yet this summer - and my fishing diary shows the same pattern last year at this time.  Has anyone been bringing in any?  If so, any tips you can share?

 

[Volitan]

I find that Pittwater starts off well but by about this time every year It has slowed up. i think that its only a small shallow waterway with a lot of traffic and a lot of fishing pressure, so it shouldn't be unexpected. It's also fed from Broken Bay which has plenty of problems of its own, being principally from excessive commercial harvesting. 

Sydney harbour is deep and fed from the open sea so it holds up much better.

i also think that about this time large numbers of baby mac tuna (and frigates) turn up and pretty much strip the estuary of the resident Australian anchovies, on which the biology of most of the pelagic species there is largely based. I can't offer any real proof of this, just what I observe.

if I was a kingfish I'd go elsewhere too.

 

cheers

[SgtBundy]

I hit Pittwater on Wednesday as well on a yak (yellow PA14).  Started early and got some squid up near Barrenjoey.  I didn't want to waste the live squid early so first bait I dropped was a tailor fillet - literally as it hit the water and sank after I dropped it in (I was still fussing with the rod holder) a king swam up, looked at, and swam away - only one I saw all day.  Plenty of surface action straight after though and pulled in a few frigate macs on fast stick baits but that was it.

Trolled the live squid around for 4 hours but nothing touched it, it came home for Calamari.