Harbour Friday 24th February 2017

[fragmeister]

Hi Raiders,

Just read a post from other raiders who seem to be struggling with the kings lately.

Very interesting and timely since I had made a decision last night to try and increase my odds for the same reason - I am not catching any!

I normally catch just a few squid because all my spots of late have been a little unproductive. I mostly fish for calamari close to the heads but just getting 2 or 3 of late seems to take me a long time so I settle for a few squid and some yakkas or slimeys. 

I am not sure what other think ( interested to hear) but for kings  I prefer squid in the harbour and along the heads and slimiest offshore  (but I will settle for yakkas).

So, if you only have a few squid they can get decimated by rats or leatherjackets before a decent king comes along.

With this in mind I planned a trip to put in some time at likely spots and improve my hit rate on squid. I figured some of the spots would probably produce arrrow squid but that also often means a more stead bite because the hang around in larger numbers than calamari as far as I know.

With this in mind I took my sqid rod, my heavy King Rod and my Gomoku rigged up with a jig-head. I decided that I needed 10 squid and that was the main objective for the day rather than actually fishing for Kings,

Well, I got to my first likely spot and it was on from the first cast. I had 10 in the live bait tank in 20 minutes. They were just on the bite and the  technique, jig size and colour made no difference , they just took the jig on the drop and I didn't have to do much apart from reel them in.

So I took the 10  squid and headed into the lower harbour and fished various markers up to and past the tide change with live squid and all I scored was a few rats. Hmmmmmm.

I decided I would venture outside at this stage so I shot out to the Sydney FAD. When I got there the current was racing along which didn't fill me with confidence but I cast a few SP's at the FAD and then did a few drifts with some squid but gave up on that after an hour or so. Seems to me that if I were a Dollie I would not want to be using up energy holding up against a current like that and I would nick off somewhere else. Besides which the temperature was only 21... I think it was warmer in the harbour.

I came back into the harbour along North Head where I send down another live squid and amused myself casting SP's towards the rocks and skipping them back to the boat. This attracted the attention of some small bonito so that was fun for a while.

At about 1pm I headed back in past  lots of markers, dropping a squid down with no luck.

I just finished washing the ink off the boat.  I called that a very successful day because I have found another productive squidding spot.

Hope it all goes better for anyone who ventures out this weekend.

 

 

 

 

Today I decided to try a few

 

[big Neil]

Good report Jim. I think that's one of the reasons we go fishing is the unpredictability of it all. We are definitely a breed of extreme optimists...always living in hope. Cheers, Neil

[austwave]

Good report, good to hear there are some squid about I need to get on the water and have a crack been a slow summer been crook and the boat is in need of a swim.

[GoingFishing]

As always u put in a big effort Jim

 

hopefully ul find those better fish soon

[fragmeister]

16 hours ago, big Neil said:

Good report Jim. I think that's one of the reasons we go fishing is the unpredictability of it all. We are definitely a breed of extreme optimists...always living in hope. Cheers, Neil

Yes Neil, 

Its always worth it regardless of the catch and we all know if its predictable the magic disappears out of it pretty quickly.

Cheers

 

Jim

[fragmeister]

12 hours ago, austwave said:

Good report, good to hear there are some squid about I need to get on the water and have a crack been a slow summer been crook and the boat is in need of a swim.

Well that's 3 reasons so I think it automatically entitles you to day out:  (See Fishing Regulation 5(b) Automatic Entitlements

11 hours ago, GoingFishing said:

As always u put in a big effort Jim

 

hopefully ul find those better fish soon

Thanks.  It was interesting to note that other Fishraiders were out there yesterday also with limited success. I saw three guides out there just doing the rounds for bugger all.

Cheers

Jim

[zmk1962]

Great report fragmeister. 

I hit the harbour on Friday as well with 2 newbies onboard. Like you, nothing at wedding cake, nothing at North head, nothing in the two bays heading up to Manly (this is usually "bonito" alley for me), nothing at the FAD. Like you found the current is running around 1-3km/h at the FAD-- so we went further to 12mile (found water temp 26C) and hit a schools of mack tuna…. 2hrs of absolute fun followed...great sport about 20 hookups and lands/releases (kept 3  2+kg models for bait next trip)…. We tried a variety of metal and resin skirts but they were only smashing 6inch pink and zuchinni pakulas and only came up to play if we were trolling the teaser as well.

As a bonus also caught a 66cm mani mahi in the mix (keeper), then after tiring of trolling we came back in to bottom bash the reefs at sydney heads (Leads Inner) and ended up with a 65cm flathead (keeper) and a couple of juvenile snapper over 30cm (keepers). So all onboard scored a feed and had a great day out ...(especially the two who had never been offshore before)....

The pressure is on me now to reproduce this the NEXT time they go out with me -- and they have all already volunteered!

Cheers

Zoran

 

[fragmeister]

22 hours ago, zmk1962 said:

Great report fragmeister. 

I hit the harbour on Friday as well with 2 newbies onboard. Like you, nothing at wedding cake, nothing at North head, nothing in the two bays heading up to Manly (this is usually "bonito" alley for me), nothing at the FAD. Like you found the current is running around 1-3km/h at the FAD-- so we went further to 12mile (found water temp 26C) and hit a schools of mack tuna…. 2hrs of absolute fun followed...great sport about 20 hookups and lands/releases (kept 3  2+kg models for bait next trip)…. We tried a variety of metal and resin skirts but they were only smashing 6inch pink and zuchinni pakulas and only came up to play if we were trolling the teaser as well.

As a bonus also caught a 66cm mani mahi in the mix (keeper), then after tiring of trolling we came back in to bottom bash the reefs at sydney heads (Leads Inner) and ended up with a 65cm flathead (keeper) and a couple of juvenile snapper over 30cm (keepers). So all onboard scored a feed and had a great day out ...(especially the two who had never been offshore before)....

The pressure is on me now to reproduce this the NEXT time they go out with me -- and they have all already volunteered!

Cheers

Zoran

 

That sounds like a lot of fun and it s great to hear that your experience was pretty much the same otherwise its tempting to think that I am doing something wrong!

It seems that you were probably the 5th Raider that was in the Harbour on Friday hitting the same markers as me yet  I was totally oblivious to them all!

I think we all need very big Fishraider stickers for our boats!

 

Cheers

 

Jim

 

Edited February 26, 2017 by fragmeister

[tyrone07]

Interesting the water was only 21 at that fad we found that water in close of Broken Bay last week, when we hit the broken bay and Terrigal fads it was probably too hot up around 26.5-27. Can't pick it, this weather this week does not help.

[NBFisho]

On ‎24‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 5:57 PM, big Neil said:

Good report Jim. I think that's one of the reasons we go fishing is the unpredictability of it all. We are definitely a breed of extreme optimists...always living in hope. Cheers, Neil

Big Neil, An extreme optimist isn't what my wife calls me when I talk about fishing but ill run with it..lol

Mark.

[zmk1962]

15 hours ago, fragmeister said:

That sounds like a lot of fun and it s great to hear that your experience was pretty much the same otherwise its tempting to think that I am doing something wrong!

It seems that you were probably the 5th Raider that was in the Harbour on Friday hitting the same markers as me yet  I was totally oblivious to them all!

I think we all need very big Fishraider stickers for our boats!

 

Cheers

 

Jim

 

Hey Jim,

We launched at Ermington 6am (the newbies wanted to experience the harbour scenic trip under the bridge and past the opera house - and I never get tired of it - we have such a beautiful harbour) so we hit Wedding Cake around 630am and had it to our self. A center console showed up at 7am (was that you?) just as we were reeling in our plastics and setting up the trolling gear.

Great idea re some form of visible Fishraider identification. Perhaps instead of stickers - can I suggest a small pennant we can slip over our radio antennas and ziplock into place? It would be much more visible.

Cheers

Zoran

PS -  My call sign is SY404 (I sit on VHF 16 all the time) or boat name "Barrycuda" (big print on the boat).

[fragmeister]

24 minutes ago, zmk1962 said:

Hey Jim,

We launched at Ermington 6am (the newbies wanted to experience the harbour scenic trip under the bridge and past the opera house - and I never get tired of it - we have such a beautiful harbour) so we hit Wedding Cake around 630am and had it to our self. A center console showed up at 7am (was that you?) just as we were reeling in our plastics and setting up the trolling gear.

Great idea re some form of visible Fishraider identification. Perhaps instead of stickers - can I suggest a small pennant we can slip over our radio antennas and ziplock into place? It would be much more visible.

Cheers

Zoran

PS -  My call sign is SY404 (I sit on VHF 16 all the time) or boat name "Barrycuda" (big print on the boat).

This is my boat. ( except that it has rocket laucher on the Bimini and a MinKota on the port bow now.

I will keep a look out ...

 

Cheers

 

Jim

 

[fragmeister]

15 hours ago, tyrone07 said:

Interesting the water was only 21 at that fad we found that water in close of Broken Bay last week, when we hit the broken bay and Terrigal fads it was probably too hot up around 26.5-27. Can't pick it, this weather this week does not help.

Yes,  a little odd at the moment.

I swam at Neilsen Park yesterday and it was not warm. It was high time so you would have expected the warmer water to be pushing in on the tide. Normally this time of year it is around 23 or 24 degrees but I would have picked it at under 21 degrees.

If you take a look at the water temp charts it says something different and clearly the marlin getting caught in close would support this. Beats me!

 

Cheers

 

Jim

 

[JimT]

On 24/02/2017 at 5:57 PM, big Neil said:

Good report Jim. I think that's one of the reasons we go fishing is the unpredictability of it all. We are definitely a breed of extreme optimists...always living in hope. Cheers, Neil

The optimist.........yeah we're going to catch fish

The pessimist.........nah, won't get any 

The realist.........just go fishing !!!!

(another) Jim..........

[tyrone07]

47 minutes ago, fragmeister said:

Yes,  a little odd at the moment.

I swam at Neilsen Park yesterday and it was not warm. It was high time so you would have expected the warmer water to be pushing in on the tide. Normally this time of year it is around 23 or 24 degrees but I would have picked it at under 21 degrees.

If you take a look at the water temp charts it says something different and clearly the marlin getting caught in close would support this. Beats me!

 

Cheers

 

Jim

 

The small black we got last week came in a temp break from that colder water which was around 22 and went to 24.5, just full of life. Was hoping to get out this week and give it another crack but work commitments unfortunately doesn't look like I'll get a chance tomorrow looks to be the pick. The southerly should hopefully bring the warmer water in again

[zmk1962]

2 hours ago, fragmeister said:

This is my boat. ( except that it has rocket laucher on the Bimini and a MinKota on the port bow now.

I will keep a look out ...

 

Cheers

 

Jim

 

Nice rig Jim !  Very tidy.

And here is BARRYCUDA ... just finished the conversion to hardtop in late Dec and this is what she looks like now in the driveway ... I am yet to take a good watershot !

Cheers Zoran

 

[fragmeister]

The conversion look great. Did you do it yourself?

Cheers

Jim

[zmk1962]

I designed the overall hardtop shape, dimensions and angles of screens...then worked with a local guy who has this type of business and who did the majority of the construction and modification of the existing s/s framework (we reused as much as possible of the existing framework). Some jobs like installation of the glass and wiper motors were 2 man jobs (so I was the apprentice) and then I did all the re-wiring and installation of washer bottles etc on my own.

Another local guy did the new clears and storm cover. 

The hardtop and full glass screen have made a HUGE difference in terms of comfort....should have done it sooner!

Cheers

Zoran

 

[ACJ]

Its real reassuring to see others had as hard a time as me in the harbour on that Friday (24). There were heaps of fish on the sounder at the standard harbour marks, but wouldn't take a live squid in the 2 hours that I harassed them. I finally pulled a tiny rat in the 40s out to sort of salage the afternoon but the doesn't really count. I spoke to a few other crews working plastics and down rigging livies who also reported the same outcome.