HawkesburyParadise Posted April 27, 2022 Share Posted April 27, 2022 Hi all I started my journey around October last year and with all of your help and comments, I am now averaging at least 1 fish per session. Along the way, I've changed rods, added new line(braid and mono) to my reel, learnt about tackle and fished in a number of positions learning about tides and depth. Most of the fish I've caught have been under the legal limit, vast majority being babies. I would like to catch bigger fish at least legal size and I would like to have some tips. - Time of day - Tides - Is it necessary to have a boat? - Heavier rods/reel? - Avoid bait and use lures? - Specific baits Finally, feel free to suggest If I should change nothing and just keep having a go. HP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noelm Posted April 27, 2022 Share Posted April 27, 2022 (edited) Time of day, very early morning, or late afternoon tend to be best. Tide, depends entirely on where you fish and what species you're after. Boat necessary, no, it does help move around, but plenty of good fish caught without a boat. Heavier rods, reels, no, lighter gear will get more bites of used correctly. Use lures instead of bait, no, both methods work, but, bait needs to be fresh or live, old frozen Prawns and Squid are not the best. Specific bait, for sure, but depends on where you are fishing and what for. Edited April 28, 2022 by noelm Typo 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noelm Posted April 27, 2022 Share Posted April 27, 2022 Probably the easiest species to "specialise" in would be Flathead, pretty easy to find, easy to catch on lures or bait, and readily available from the shore. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little_Flatty Posted April 27, 2022 Share Posted April 27, 2022 I agree with @noelm's points and @maccapacca's point about targeting a given species. As a rule, you do tend to avoid smaller fish with lures and live (fish + squid) baits. If for instance you start to trap poddy mullet and use them live, you're going to encounter the bigger flathead, mulloway, tailor and even bream (!). See reports by @jenno64 and @Isaac Ct (in Sussex Inlet) for numerous examples of using live mullet. For lure fishing, I suspect more time with @DerekD might be in order. He'll cover off everything you need to know. I'd be happy to do the same with you, given the time. Targeting a specific species or group of species is fairly important in most cases. As an extreme example, you'll have a hard time catching Luderick if you don't target them specifically (using cabbage/weed). Bream/flathead are more forgiving, but you will get better results if you focus on areas where they are likely to be (e.g. dropoffs, structure, nipper beds etc) and offer them baits and lures that they are likely to take. All of these species are fairly reliable once you have worked them out. As one example amongst many, @motiondave often does well on bait, when landbased, on bream and flathead. Look into what he does. Once you start targeting your species more specifically, you will end up putting yourself in the right spots at the right time, using the right methods. Do you have any specific goals for us to work with? For instance @maccapacca had the goal earlier in the year of catching a flathead and achieved it. This is an example of a decent goal. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Restyle Posted April 27, 2022 Share Posted April 27, 2022 (edited) Plan your trips with what your going to target. Don't just go out to target "whatever eats your bait" or "everything". Fish have different size gobs, eat different baits and prefer to hunt in different areas of the system. An Example is; Bream like structure like rock walls, poles, etc. use crabs and small fish strips as bait on a 1/0 hook. The fresher the better, but isn't all that necessary. Prawns are a pretty good all round bait as they are found in every system, but that don't mean only fish with them. Live baits like poddy mullet or prawns tend to filter out the smaller stuff & unwanted fish, but you have to go through alot more effort to obtain them. It is best to use more species and area specific baits. for example nippers for whiting on the sand flats, pilchards and mullet slabs off the beach for salmon, tailor & jew, Beach worms off the beach for whiting, dart, jew and bream. Fish as light as possible & move around. Don't cast in the same area over and over again, instead cast in various areas of the spot you're fishing even if it doesn't look all that productive. You don't really need anything heavier then 14lb to start off with. Use appropriately sized hooks for what your targeting. don't use a 4/0 for bream, but instead a 1/0 or 2/0 hook. The rough hook sizes i use for targeted species are Whiting - 1 to 2 Bream - 1/0 to 2/0 Trevally - size 1 to 1/0 Kingfish - 5/0 to 7/0 Jewfish - 7/0 to 9/0 flathead - 4/0 Tailor - 1/0 to 3/0 gang hooks Salmon - 2/0 to 3/0 Bonito, mac tuna - 2/0 to 4/0 A great time of the day to fish is the morning/dusk period, its generally more productive but this can vary with species of fish as well. Tailor, kingfish, salmon & bonito are common during those periods, but can be found throughout the day but may be hard to tempt with a bait. The tide turns can be a good time to fish, but this mostly applies in areas of high water movement like the Georges and Hawksbury rivers. It doesn't matter too much off the beach as long as you find a suitable gutter to fish in. The rising/falling tide will change where the fish are on the beach. The benefits of a boat is movement and accessibility. If one spot isn't producing you can change up your tactics, bait or turn the engine on and try somewhere else. If you really want a boat, try a kayak at first. Edited April 27, 2022 by Restyle 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HawkesburyParadise Posted April 27, 2022 Author Share Posted April 27, 2022 30 minutes ago, Restyle said: Tailor - 1/0 to 3/0 gang hooks Why gang hooks? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaac Ct Posted April 27, 2022 Share Posted April 27, 2022 2 minutes ago, HawkesburyParadise said: Why gang hooks? Sharp teeth, they will often get into such a frenzy they will swipe at near the bait, so they give more of a chance of bigger fish but also help to prevent being bitten of. That is at least my logic. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little_Flatty Posted April 27, 2022 Share Posted April 27, 2022 1 minute ago, HawkesburyParadise said: Why gang hooks? Also helps with bait presentation. Often you are presenting a whole pilchard as bait and the gang keeps it nice and straight. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pickles Posted April 28, 2022 Share Posted April 28, 2022 (edited) A few thoughts to add to the collective wisdom of the guru’s advice already offered. * DONT USE ANYTHING TNAT WILL IMPART SCENT TO BAIT OR LINES (insect spray, suntan lotion, perfumes etc). I always wear a hat, long sleeve shirt and pants and covered footwear. * Polarised sunglasses really help see what’s going on (but look in shadows not the glare on water surface). * change of tide (an hour before and an hour after the tide change - either high or low tide) can often be most productive. * use bait (or replicated lures) relevant to time of year or season e.g. prawns commonly run in summer on new moon. Garfish common in cooler months (just started in the harbour now). Squid and cuttlefish are bigger at this time of year and common etc. * keep light (head torch etc) and noise to a minimum for bream and jewfish - but kingfish love noise and surface splash (I always have playlists happening for Kingies). * match your gear to the species - hook size and shape, line, rod, reel etc. * For most bait fishing, my choice is circle hooks for most species, except trailer where Kendal Kirby (J) hooks ganged is preference and whiting (J) hooks also. * Fish with a buddy - “share the love” and it’s safer, also good to have a “net man” to help land the fish. Edited April 28, 2022 by Pickles 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebel Posted April 29, 2022 Share Posted April 29, 2022 Dawn or Dusk. Learn about tides. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ken_Oath Posted May 8, 2022 Share Posted May 8, 2022 (edited) If you want to get your average fish size up it would help to use lures and/or live bait. Live nippers and worms are good for bream, whiting and silver trevally and can either be collected from the beach or bought from some tackle stores. For flathead live poddy mullet are probably the best bait, to get them you can either use a trap(home made or from a tackle store) or you can catch them using a size 12 long shank hook, a small float and white bread for bait and burley. For lures it's worth having a cranka crab for bream and afew soft plastics for flathead. The best times to fish in general are low light periods around sunrise and sunset until you get a feel for the area and how the fish behave. For example my in my local system I know that bream will come up onto the sand flats as the tide is rising and can be caught in less than a metre of water while flathead prefer to sit in the deeper dropoffs as the tide is going out. for this type of fishing you shouldn't go too heavy, I use 6lb braided line and 3-14lb leaders sometimes even dropping down to 3lb flouro mainline for bream on the sand flats. I've got a 28ft boat but I still do almost all my light estuary fishing land based and use the boat more for trolling lures and fishing reefs or headlands. So it definitely isn't essential but fishing from a small boat with an electric trolling motors or a kayak does give you more options. Edited May 8, 2022 by Ken_Oath 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ken_Oath Posted May 8, 2022 Share Posted May 8, 2022 I wouldn't recommend it if you don't have experience rock fishing or want to catch fish consistently but my favourite fishing is throwing 14-50g lures from the rocks on a 20lb setup. You don't necessarily catch more legal fish but the target species, Tailor, bonito, kingfish and salmon are fun to catch, putting up a decent fight even when undersized. It's far from the best way to catch a feed but if your after bigger fish, a small undersized kingy is bigger than any bream Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HawkesburyParadise Posted May 9, 2022 Author Share Posted May 9, 2022 On 4/29/2022 at 6:42 AM, Pickles said: A few thoughts to add to the collective wisdom of the guru’s advice already offered. * DONT USE ANYTHING TNAT WILL IMPART SCENT TO BAIT OR LINES (insect spray, suntan lotion, perfumes etc). I always wear a hat, long sleeve shirt and pants and covered footwear. * Polarised sunglasses really help see what’s going on (but look in shadows not the glare on water surface). * change of tide (an hour before and an hour after the tide change - either high or low tide) can often be most productive. * use bait (or replicated lures) relevant to time of year or season e.g. prawns commonly run in summer on new moon. Garfish common in cooler months (just started in the harbour now). Squid and cuttlefish are bigger at this time of year and common etc. * keep light (head torch etc) and noise to a minimum for bream and jewfish - but kingfish love noise and surface splash (I always have playlists happening for Kingies). * match your gear to the species - hook size and shape, line, rod, reel etc. * For most bait fishing, my choice is circle hooks for most species, except trailer where Kendal Kirby (J) hooks ganged is preference and whiting (J) hooks also. * Fish with a buddy - “share the love” and it’s safer, also good to have a “net man” to help land the fish. I've had lots of bites with prawn but perhaps its the frozen ones, somehow the fish remove it right the hook. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noelm Posted May 9, 2022 Share Posted May 9, 2022 Everything eats Prawns, if nothing is left, chances are it's Toads taking your bait, if you are getting sharp bites and losing bait, it's nearly always baby Bream and Snapper. The only time I use Prawns is during summer when they are "natural" because it's Prawn season, and even in the boat Snapper fishing, if I'm around Windang Island, it's Prawns for bait, everywhere else, it's Tuna or Pilchards. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slothparade Posted May 10, 2022 Share Posted May 10, 2022 If your looking to catch something bigger in general, go a big bait, big sinker, heavy rod, reel and line. Chuck it out and wait for a ray or shovel to come along. They will give you a nice run. I enjoy a nice shovel nose now and again, neasy to handle and pull like a truck. rays not so much, but theyre regularly avaliable and then the fishings slow or just want something big, theyre my go to. Definitely live/ fresh bait aswell can also help. My favorite dead/ frozen bait is tuna, its stupidly oily and leaves a massive oil cloud in the water, ive always had success with it. If in doupt use what is regularly avaible there, thats what they would be used to eating. if in a heavily crabed place, mullet, as this would be regularly avaliable for the fish from people dumping the pots out Dawn and duck/ night, works well for most species. as said before, drop the leader down a bit, it definately helps with getting more bites. good luck 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebel Posted May 10, 2022 Share Posted May 10, 2022 Super Info from the Raiders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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