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What a day! Squid, Yakka, 12 kings, Jews, bream and mackerel


FishyMcFishFace

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Never have I seen such a mixed bag of decent sized plate fish landed in enclosed waters as I did today. I haven't had a chance to fish much last year, and when I seldom get my boat out its plenty of bait but no good'uns, not a single kingfish for a very long time. Weather cloudy, seas calm, no rain, and perfect temperature for fishing.

Arranged to meet the king slayer @Pickles at Roseville/Rose Bay Boat ramp... same thing innit? 

Unfortunately what I wanted to hear was Rose Bay which is probably because its 12mins away from my place😆. Turns out it was Roseville lol. Bob the absolute legend said he could still come around to collect me because we may fish in that general area, so I tried for some squid while they filled up on some yakkas. Trying to redeem myself, I thought to myself at least bring some bait to the party, I aimed for 3 squid at least. After an hour managed just the one squid off the wharf on a small slow sinking white Yamashita, better than nowt! Bob and his mate Peter arrived with a heap of perfect lollipop sized yakkas!

Currently the tide was heading low @Pickles used his spider senses to conjure up a spot which is supposed to be good for Jews and all sorts at this turn of the tide. We put out some fresh yakka strips and livies, gave the burley a chop, and within 20 mins the iconic 30/20lb green bait cast outfit of Bob's went off and Peters also, in this time we landed at least 10 fish fish  a very nice sized tailor, 2 Jew fish a mixture of rats and ranging from 60 to 74cm. Peter was on fire, 2 jewfish.. I still have never caught one!! Maybe this was my chance?  I tried metal lures (Halco Streaker) and caught a good sized slimy mackerel, which I can't wait to try smoked. That was all I caught in this spot.

Tide was turning so we tried for some more squid, Peter caught his first which was big enough for more than a few baits. Moving on to the next spot, I saw some weird looking concentrated bust up, looked like a black oily mess about 2 metres wide with guls getting a feed, tried flicking some metals here but nothing took.

There was still a chance for me to catch a legal king, at the next spot somewhere in Sydney Harbour there were a couple of boats there, plenty of bait showing on the sounder and we could see the kings coming by every so often in waves. Here I lost count how many kings we landed, I was using very heavy 80lb braid and 100lb leader, the whole time I think it had an effect on the hook up rate compared to the other fellas. However, I finally landed my legal king measuring bang on 65/66 for some sashimi for later. We threw everything at them, livies, squid strips, I tried my lure whilst the bait did it's thang. WOW I hooked up on the Streaker metal again, I was rocking a 15lb/30lb snapper rod, was sure this was a salmon until it really started to fight as it got closer to the boat, it was undersized king lots of fun and fought hard on this lighter set up.

Tonight I'll be smoking the Tailor and Mackerel and enjoying the delights of kingfish sashimi.

 Had a cracker of a day thanks to Bob, was great to meet Peter we were all buzzing at the end of it

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1 hour ago, FishyMcFishFace said:

Never have I seen such a mixed bag of decent sized plate fish landed in enclosed waters as I did today. I haven't had a chance to fish much last year, and when I seldom get my boat out its plenty of bait but no good'uns, not a single kingfish for a very long time. Weather cloudy, seas calm, no rain, and perfect temperature for fishing.

Arranged to meet the king slayer @Pickles at Roseville/Rose Bay Boat ramp... same thing innit? 

Unfortunately what I wanted to hear was Rose Bay which is probably because its 12mins away from my place😆. Turns out it was Roseville lol. Bob the absolute legend said he could still come around to collect me because we may fish in that general area, so I tried for some squid while they filled up on some yakkas. Trying to redeem myself, I thought to myself at least bring some bait to the party, I aimed for 3 squid at least. After an hour managed just the one squid off the wharf on a small slow sinking white Yamashita, better than nowt! Bob and his mate Peter arrived with a heap of perfect lollipop sized yakkas!

Currently the tide was heading low @Pickles used his spider senses to conjure up a spot which is supposed to be good for Jews and all sorts at this turn of the tide. We put out some fresh yakka strips and livies, gave the burley a chop, and within 20 mins the iconic 30/20lb green bait cast outfit of Bob's went off and Peters also, in this time we landed at least 10 fish fish  a very nice sized tailor, 2 Jew fish a mixture of rats and ranging from 60 to 74cm. Peter was on fire, 2 jewfish.. I still have never caught one!! Maybe this was my chance?  I tried metal lures (Halco Streaker) and caught a good sized slimy mackerel, which I can't wait to try smoked. That was all I caught in this spot.

Tide was turning so we tried for some more squid, Peter caught his first which was big enough for more than a few baits. Moving on to the next spot, I saw some weird looking concentrated bust up, looked like a black oily mess about 2 metres wide with guls getting a feed, tried flicking some metals here but nothing took.

There was still a chance for me to catch a legal king, at the next spot somewhere in Sydney Harbour there were a couple of boats there, plenty of bait showing on the sounder and we could see the kings coming by every so often in waves. Here I lost count how many kings we landed, I was using very heavy 80lb braid and 100lb leader, the whole time I think it had an effect on the hook up rate compared to the other fellas. However, I finally landed my legal king measuring bang on 65/66 for some sashimi for later. We threw everything at them, livies, squid strips, I tried my lure whilst the bait did it's thang. WOW I hooked up on the Streaker metal again, I was rocking a 15lb/30lb snapper rod, was sure this was a salmon until it really started to fight as it got closer to the boat, it was undersized king lots of fun and fought hard on this lighter set up.

Tonight I'll be smoking the Tailor and Mackerel and enjoying the delights of kingfish sashimi.

 Had a cracker of a day thanks to Bob, was great to meet Peter we were all buzzing at the end of it

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20220125_170344_compress12.jpg

20220125_171243.jpg

An honour and a pleasure Steve, I had a great day too - God is good.

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1 hour ago, kingie chaser said:

Great report, great day out, great company, great feed on the way.

Looking forward to see the food on the table & maybe a recipe or 2 in the kitchen 😋

 

Smoked Slimy Mackerel mate, it's insanely tasty. Re-thought the 'slimy' to Pacific Mackerel. I turned my babyQ into a smoker using Hickory chips, covered in olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic and mixed herbs. Also did this with the Tailor 😋

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