And it was such a good start

[GordoRetired]

Headed out early yesterday, Tuesday, with a couple of mates to chase some more Kings. We were on the water and puling away from the Roseville ramp just before 5.00am, headed to the bait grounds off Balmoral.
Into the burley bucket went some of my home made burley and a few handfuls of breadcrumbs were scattered across the water. In no time at all 2 of us were pulling Yakkas onto the boat and into the live bait tank. the third crew member started throwing around a squid jig and while 2 of us pulled in Yakkas he snagged a couple of nice squid. In under an hour we had over 30 Yakkas in the tank. This would have been the best start to a trip in a while so we were all smiles as we headed towards the Heads.

Drove out towards the FAD, stopping a couple of hundred meters short to pop some lures into the water, plan was to troll from there up towards Long Reef Wide and try live bait there for Kings. Off we went, past the FAD, nothing, up to Long Reef Wide, nothing.

Time to get the live bait in, we set a couple of baits down, one on a down rigger and one with a sinker on the line, so one was down around 25m, the other around 15m. cruised around watching the sounder to see if we could find some fish. No luck, nothing showing, not arches, no bait balls, just a featureless bottom.
Pulled up there after a while and decided to head to the Wrecks just off the northern end of Long Reef. Got there and started again with the same live bait set up. Looked better here as we did start seeing some bait balls and a few arches. Then Bang, one of the rods goes off hard, line starts screaming off the reel and almost instantly I see a heap of splashing on the surface about 50m behind the boat.. Thinks to myself, that's not how Kings fight, they tend to stay down and go dirty trying to reef you. What is that. Then off it went, the guy on the rod was hanging on for dear life and saying 'How the f%#$# do I stop this thing', then pop the line went slack. 
When he reeled in what was left the trace had been cut clean through, I called it as a Mako as the way it was splashing on the surface I had seen before, they can even start jumping if they are really frisky. Shortly after I was shown to be close but not 100% as a 5 - 6 foot Hammer head swam past the boat. I could have sworn he was looking at us and laughing, while trying to find the next Yakka to eat. 

Ah well, not the target species but that sure made for some excitement. So down went a couple of baits again and we continued out troll. around 1/2 hour later we were rewarded with a King, like the shark it took the down-rigged bait, and despite only going just over 50cm it put up a valiant fight. So being undersized back it went to fight another day and in go 2 more baits.
Unfortunately that was the end of the days action, we dragged live baits around Long Reef, across the front of the North Curl Curl rocks, across the front of North Head right around to Old Mans Hat and not another touch despite marking heaps of bait balls and seeing plenty of arches.  
So despite the great start of getting all of the bait we wanted we were unable to convert those beautiful baits into King fish.
Never mind we had some fun and it was way cooler out on the water than back on land.

Now if anyone can suggest some good spots out of Sydney Harbour to target Kings with live bait don't be shy in commenting. 🙂 
Till next time

Cheers

Edited January 26, 2021 by GordoRetired
Typo

[Newport Nuffy]

Great update Gordo.  I was out on Long Reef near the wrecks early on Saturday morning - using fresh squid/calamari my son and I boated around 40 kings - largest was around 60cm, smallest around 45cm. The sounder was a mass of fish in some spots and we often had a 3 rod hookup at depths from surface down to 15m - it is an amusing challenge having three angry rats pulling line when you only have two sets of hands!!  Had a great couple of hours, but the kill tanks were empty for the run home!

[zmk1962]

Great report Gordo. That shark fight would have got the adrenaline going and kept the spirits high. Guess that’s fishing. Better luck next time mate.
Cheers Zoran 

[Rebel]

Super report. Well done. Better luck next time.

[masterfisho7]

That one super report Gordo 

[Fab1]

What a great read mate.Hope you have better results next time out.

[GordoRetired]

7 hours ago, Newport Nuffy said:

Great update Gordo.  I was out on Long Reef near the wrecks early on Saturday morning - using fresh squid/calamari my son and I boated around 40 kings - largest was around 60cm, smallest around 45cm. The sounder was a mass of fish in some spots and we often had a 3 rod hookup at depths from surface down to 15m - it is an amusing challenge having three angry rats pulling line when you only have two sets of hands!!  Had a great couple of hours, but the kill tanks were empty for the run home!

Sounds like you are having similar luck to us. Over the last couple of weeks we must have boated something like 100 King fish, all but 4 undersized. We have had them smashing dead bait, Pillies, Slabs of Yakka, pieces of frozen Squid but not showing too much interest in the live bait. That is why we persevered with the live bait yesterday hoping that we could tempt some of the bigger fish. Still even the Rats are fun to catch 🙂

[GoingFishing]

Its been strange. Despite the very warm water off Sydney i havebt heard any reports of dollies in good numbers on the FADS yet.

Better luck next time champ

[Pickles]

Great report Gordon, It’s exciting when you get smashed and the reel screams, pity it wasn’t a monster Kingie, but good fun never the less.

I know the feeling with a “rat attack” (my best was 86 off Longie last summer, but all 68cm and less, mostly less). The more you’re out there the more chance you have though.

gret to read your detailed report.

[Keflapod]

Hey Gordo,

Kingies can drive you mad. They make no sense sometimes.

If livies dragged by their noses don't work, try something else. Drop'em a jig or a freshly dead butterflied yakka or as one old-timer said, cut the tail off a livie and send it down (I've never tried that one though).

There is always SOMETHING that will get them to bite - squid strips, cuttlefish heads+guts or even yabbies!

You gotta work out their mood on that day.

[PaddyT]

Best chance is drive away from the rats-work an area thats got bait but none of the pesky little ones that summer always holds-or -do what i do and wait till March

[GordoRetired]

4 hours ago, GoingFishing said:

Its been strange. Despite the very warm water off Sydney i havebt heard any reports of dollies in good numbers on the FADS yet.

Better luck next time champ

I have been to the FAD and Wave Rider 3 times over the last 2 weeks, only seen 1 Dolly caught. Problem is that the water out there is barely over 23 at the moment... Needs to warm up a bit then they should turn up in numbers. Apparently they are getting a few bigger ones on the troll away from the FAD.

[GordoRetired]

4 hours ago, Pickles said:

Great report Gordon, It’s exciting when you get smashed and the reel screams, pity it wasn’t a monster Kingie, but good fun never the less.

I know the feeling with a “rat attack” (my best was 86 off Longie last summer, but all 68cm and less, mostly less). The more you’re out there the more chance you have though.

gret to read your detailed report.

I need to get some lessons from you as I understand that you are the master of Kings 🙂

[GordoRetired]

1 hour ago, Keflapod said:

Hey Gordo,

Kingies can drive you mad. They make no sense sometimes.

If livies dragged by their noses don't work, try something else. Drop'em a jig or a freshly dead butterflied yakka or as one old-timer said, cut the tail off a livie and send it down (I've never tried that one though).

There is always SOMETHING that will get them to bite - squid strips, cuttlefish heads+guts or even yabbies!

You gotta work out their mood on that day.

Not tried much with Jig's. Got smashed by Rats on dead baits though over the previous couple of trips but on this one we stayed with live bait in the hope of tempting the bigger fish even though we expected to see less fish. Going for quality over quantity. 🙂 Never mind, hope the next trip is more productive although that may not be for a week or so based on todays forecasts.

[Pickles]

Always happy to go out with a fellow Raider, you’ve got my mobile - or pm me. Being retired, most days are AOK. I honestly think kingfish are one of the easiest fish to catch - just got to find them and target them.

HOWEVER, Kingies can be capricious like Keflapod said. Some days they will only take small cuttlefish (No1 bait), other days squid is all they want and then again they can ignore both and only take small Yakkas or slimies. One day a few weeks back I caught them on un weighted, cooked frozen prawns (meant for Jewies) and I couldn’t get a bait to the bottom as they kept getting smacked by Kingies and I’ve also caught them (not landed them) on bread - go figure. Mind you, some days I like steak, other days Laksa.