antonywardle Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 (edited) Hi A mate from my football team asked if I could take him and his son out for a fishing trip. His sons birthday was coming up and they'd not had much luck when chasing fish in their own boat before having to sell it. S we picked Easter Saturday and headed out from Woy Woy. Weather was pretty good, and not much swell to speak of, the conditions were looking excellent, but as can be the way with fishing, nothing was biting, it was really quiet. I'd decided to try experimenting with my setups as it was meant to be a fun day, but all we got was spikies and puffer fish and the puffers were doing a lot of damage. I lost quit a few rigs and sinkers and I had nothing to show for it. I tried a big plastic on a metre trace at the end of the sinker and this happened to it. As a comparison, this is a before and after photo So I ended up switching back to my standard setup and finally, after about 6 1/2 hours, I found a patch of flathead, and landed the first fish of the day. Next one to land was the birthday boy and within 2.8 seconds of landing one, he was giving his father a hard time about not having caught anything!. That slowly change around as Dad pulling in a 520mm model which turned out to be the pick to the days fish. This nearly killed him and he retired not long after. We continued on catching and with some experimenting still going, I tried a sinker plastic that @zmk1962 was trailing. The plastics on then suffered the same fate as the big rubber, but on a 3/0 circle, they ended up catching quite a few. I ended up baiting some of them after adjusting my riggs to make sure I was only using three hooks. The sinker rig is some doubled over 100LB braide on a 3/0 circle with some head shrink and a lumo bead on a big snap, because that what I had lying around. You can see the remains of the small squid plastic! All in all, I was happy that my new T-knot riggs held up and that all of the snelled circles all held. I didn't have any gear failure, other than that which was nipped off by the puffer fish. At about 1:30pm, we called it a day, and went home with a good feed for my mate and his family. Hard to believe, 6 1/2 hours for nothing and then another 90 minutes to make everyone's day. Edited April 21, 2019 by antonywardle missing word Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big Neil Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 Good onya for taking them out and getting on the fish (eventually). You sometimes never know what that bit of extra perseverance will produce. Good job. bn 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yowie Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 Unless you saw one, I doubt they were puffer fish. Small chinaman, or yellow, leatherjackets are most likely the cause. I predicted a few weeks ago that they would be turning up soon outside, as they appeared inside Port Hacking for the first time in some years. My neighbour's brother fished in Botany Bay a couple of days ago, near the airport, and was hit with a plague of chinaman jackets, just big enough to eat. They will ruin outside fishing for a while if they turn up in big numbers like they do every 5 or 6 years. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabm Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 A couple weeks ago, I lost most of two 4” shads which came back exactly like that., I was very careful with the 3rd & managed to hook an unlucky calamari on a jig head. Were you fishing the bottom? But, I’ve also been plagued by Jackets in Botany Bay last few weeks, Although they often take everything by snipping the braid. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grandad Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 (edited) Off Marley its Green Toads that are the problem Bagged out on flatties and caught as many Green Toads. Grandad Edited April 21, 2019 by grandad 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hookerbruce Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 Out off Jibbon the flathead grounds have heaps of green toads. Caught plenty up to 35cm on thurs in among a boatload of flathead. The toads swam over to the boat as soon as I stopped and hung around chasing baits down and up only lost 3 rigs . There were a few small jackets. Used a slightly heavier sinker, thin slivers of bait that went thru the water easier and threw my line out 10-15 m. This seemed to beat them to the bottom 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yowie Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 The green toads swim fast enough to catch a lure, or a fast moving bait. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antonywardle Posted April 21, 2019 Author Share Posted April 21, 2019 It was green toads. They puff up on the surface! We landed a heap f them. Sorry for any confusion. One Jacket was landed too, but it was tiny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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