Wednesday 17 OCTOBER 2012
Tackle specials and angling politics
from Downrigger Shop
G’day lads,
Spring! And a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of kingfish. Sean from South West Rocks has been out there, doing it:
Given we haven’t got long before the currents kick in, we decided to have another crack at the bar cod out wide. Unfortunately no cod, however the first drop of the day gave Bill a nice double hook-up; 2 kingies with the biggest going 120cm. They went hard for the first couple of house, with several double and one triple hook-up. Late morning the light southerly ran out of puff, the sea glassed out and the fish stopped biting. Better than a day at work!
The first fish in from a triple hook-up; Bill still bringing in his fish in the background.
The other two of the triple.
FANTASTIC! So glad you sent this through Sean, and congratulations on yet another successful session.
Glen has more good news:
Hey Andrew, the game fishing season is slowly getting into gear here. Snared four yellowfin between 30 and 40 kilos on Sunday, and jumped off a striped marlin. The activity was out in 1200-1500 fathoms east of Coffs and the water was blue and 22.7 degrees, but running hard south at 2 1/2 to 3 knots. This made for an uncomfortable day due to the persistent sou' easters and thunderstorms. Still, fish on the deck and you tend not to notice such things!
So good to see one again, Glen!
By the way, a new world record pending with IGFA for yellowfin. Caught off Mexico, 420 pounds:
Ryan from WA caught the snapper of a lifetime, last week:
Fishing off Bunbury WA and finally cracked the 10kg mark. Fish went to 10.5kg!! Great day on the water!
Sheesh, you could throw a saddle on that thing. Well done, Ryan.
Back east, Dan Selby from Sydney Sportfishing has a great Hawkesbury update:
G'day Andy, been a while since I sent in a report. The Hawkesbury has been turning on some red hot action for my clients with plenty of healthy jewfish averaging 8-10kg on live baits and lures, plus a good supply of bream and flathead. The Bass fishing in the upper reaches above Windsor has been the best in years. The weed really copped a good die back over winter after the great flush earlier in the year helped to thin it out. This has opened up some great fishing with 30-40 fish a session to 45cm!!
Looking forward to the Kingfish moving inshore en mass to stretch my clients and gear to the limit!! Keep up the great work with the news letter. Regards, Dan Selby sydneysportfishing.com.au
Excellent, Dan. I was talking to the crew from Western Sydney Bass and Bream at the show over the weekend, and they confirmed everything you’re saying. Hoping to squeeze in a bass session on Thursday arvo.
Corey took a good jewfish too, near Laurieton:
Andy another jew by Cory fishing around Port this week
That’s a good sign for summer, Rod.
Peter J stopped by the Show on Saturday, then hit the Harbour on Sunday:
Hope the show went well for you –looking forward to trying the downrigger and doing some experimentation on jews with it –too good a day on Sunday not to go for a fish- caught this 7 kilo jewie near Goat Island in the harbour –live yellowtail on a two hook snooded 8/0 –dropped another two –yellowtail were there in numbers but reluctant to bite –took an hour to get 8 –this is most annoying when you lose those hard earned jew baits to tailor who generally just bite the yakka in half and make it useless but that’s fishing ! .... Hope this inspires you to keep trying for the jewies-its all about putting in the effort and the rewards with follow.
Too right I will Peter, and thanks for your encouragement. Yep, Spiro from Bluebottle Fishing and I spent a very enjoyable weekend at the Tinnie & Tackle Show, out at Eastern Creek drag strip. Here’s our stand the day before:
And here it is on Saturday morning:
Lots of friendly visitors, and I enjoyed the weekend enormously. The new invention attracted a lot of attention:
Some wacky visitors stopped by:
This was the closest I got to a boat test, just a small one:
The weekend after next, we’ll be at the Newcastle Boating & Fishing Show. Really hoping to see some of our Hunter readers and friends, if you’re passing? The dates are Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th October:
Speaking of the Hunter, Ross had a top morning off Seal Rocks:
Hi Andy Ross from up Port Stephens we fished Edith Breakers and had a ball. We ended up with a few nice snapper the biggest being 5kg and a nice pearl perch. Then a flatty drift on the way home produced half a dozen good sized flathead.
I was at Port myself on the same day, with The Bride. Downrigging for flatties along the dropoff, which you can see in the background of the pic.
But with an icy cold westerly, we decided to bail early.
Rick from RBA Rods in Brazil sent some great pics of his trip:
Hi Andrew, I'm sending some pics of my last Amazon Fishing Trip made October 1- 5. We went to a river called Eve's Black River 120km from Manaus city Brazil. We caught a lot 7-6-5kg Peacock Bass using Fly Fishing and baitcasting.
Can't wait to return next year.
Cheers Rick Morais RBA Rods – Custom rod Builder www.rbarods.com.br
That is FANTASTIC. Thanks so much for sending, our readers will really enjoy it. I’ve heard so much about peacock bass over the years, everyone says they are one of the worlds’ greatest sports fish. Your rods look great on the website, too.
New client Kho from Sarawak has an inquiry for our readers he’s hoping someone can help with:
Hi Andrew, attached is my latest catch. Not very big fish but gives a very good fight on medium tackle. Please send me your heaviest braided line and also a short sample of the 80 lbs. Do you happen to have Shimano parts or know where I can buy? I am looking for the drive and pinion gear of the Stradic 8000FI. Thank you, Kho
Stradic parts. Any ideas, lads?
Jack Murphy has some great tips on fishing photography, in his weekly blog report:
Ever struggled photographing a fish of a lifetime? Check out today's blog for six tips that will have you shooting like a pro. Find it here:www.jackmurphyfishing.com.au/apps/blog
Cute German tourist says: Hey, Jack: my eyes are up here! Thanks champ, I never miss your weekly blog. Thanks too to Robin Newcombe for his great review of our downriggers, in this months’ Boat Mag (page 46):
http://theboatmag.boatmags.com.au/?iid=69034
Very grateful to you, Robin.
And now for something really exotic! Ryan, with an Africa report:
Here is a photo of a tiger fish I caught in Botswana in the Okavango delta. One catches Tigers when the barbel fish move up the river, this is known as the barbel run. When hooked they fight very aggressively and jump nicely out the water. You can see this fish has a good dentist! Regards Ryan
What an amazing looking fish Ryan, well done. Still overseas, and regular readers might remember Jan from Oman and the pics he used to send in showing cracking sailfish and mahi, caught in the Red Sea. One of our regular readers and contributors took up Jans kind invitation to fish with him in Oman but unfortunately the weather didn’t play ball. Nonetheless Jan has generously extended the invitation to all our readers:
Thanks for the mails. Now we are in business again. Whenever you are in this part of the world please drop in. Accommodation is free and fishing even better. Yes it was nice to have Wayne here, just a pity time was not enough to go fishing more than once.
Good on you Jan, I hear you have some massive GTs there. Car and trailer drownings at the boat ramp are something we cover regularly in the weekly report. In this case Ruslan was on hand for a sad saga at Botany ramp, last Sunday:
… took the boat out today at 4am from Botany Bay wharf ,and got back at 11am to find some poor bugger drowned his car ..don’t worry the boat is ok just floated away 4 police cars, 1 ambulance ,1 marine rescue boat and 1 water police boat all turned up for a bit of a laugh...
And for the fishing report 17C water temp very clear and no fish.. spent 6 hours casting out minnows and squid jigs and nothing.. also I’m after a jigging rod and reel set up and if you can recommend a rod and real set up for plastic lures, both for boat use. If you can please email me some prices that would be great
Will do Rus and thanks for this news.
And that’s not the only accident this week. Marc writes:
This is what happens to a trawler when u take on the Ballina bar on a run out tide with a 2-3 metre wave coming thru
The wave blew the front and back of the wheelhouse out. Image the amount of water and force required to do that.
Nasty, but a good reminder to us all.
Matt Reid has been out nailing them again. If you’ve got a spare day this weekend and you live in Sydney, do yourself a favour and give the man a call:
Hi Andy out today Sunday in the Harbour and found the squid a bit hard but with the squid we did get, we turned into kings. I don't have any bookings for this weekend coming if anyone would like to chase Sydney kings….. Matty Reid Raptor Charters 040488014
John C has a question he hopes readers might help with:
Hi Andrew, I spoke to you on Saturday at the Tackle and Boat show about identifying this fish caught at Browns Mountain, see attached photos.
Dave T from JB – who’s very switched on to anything angling – is calling it for a blue warehou. And he’d know, having seen everything that swims come across the Huskisson cleaning tables, over the years
Hi Andrew, some Priests from Sydney come down every couple of months to enjoy a day out fishing with Simmo. It was a really good day out for them last trip with plenty of snapper and morwong coming in and even Simmo's signature rock cod! The weather was kind, the fishing was good ...what more could you want except for the bread. Jervis Bay can still fish well even if we have had some wild weather lately which kept every one home except the hardy few who fished the creek with some good bream and flathead coming in. Regards from JB, Dave and Kate
Well mate I would have said Simmo’s signature is a stubby on the cleaning table!
To politics, and Peter is justifiably upset about yet another grey nurse closure. Is there any promise the NSW government made to anglers, which it hasn’t broken yet?
Just read your newsletter email. I thought I'd let you know about the new restrictions imposed on Mermaid Rocks out off Crowdy Head.
http://www.manningrivertimes.com.au/story/364436/reef-no-go-zone/?cs=1845
Also see that DPI Fisheries now have a dedicated webpage for GNS aggregation sites. http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/fisheries/species-protection/conservation/what-current/critically/grey-nurse-shark/new-fishing-and-diving-rules
Basically no bait fishing within 200m off Mermaid Rocks. This area is very shallow and far from an "aggregation site". What it is, is simply a rock break offshore that conservationists want locked up. Seems like any offshore rock or island in NSW will eventually be declared a GNS aggregation site. Technically we can still fish with lures around the rocks but bait fishing is banned and mark my words this will be only the beginning.
Yep, it is the beginning. We saw last week that Fisheries Minister Katrina Hodgkinson has effectively given the greenies their dream - an entry level marine park, right in the heart of Sydney. Soon marine park rangers will walk on water, like they do in Port Stephens:
One bit of good news – Dean Logan at the Marine Alliance is threatening a High Court challenge, against Federal Environment Minister Burke’s ocean lockups:
Good on you Dean, that’s a great way to go. Until next week my friends and as I always say – please keep the pics and reports coming in! I could fill the report each week with the nice feedback we get, and it’s all thanks to our contributors. Cheers,
Andrew Hestelow
Managing Director