Hello everyone
Well Blue Fin fever certainly hit our part of the coast last week with plenty of Facebook photos and stories exciting every fisherman up and down the coast , but like so many of these reports by the time you manage to get there its all but over , I even headed down to Sydney on Wednesday to try my luck and it seemed everyone that owned a boat was out fishing . We left Sydney harbor and headed out to Browns mountain upon arriving I counted 30 plus boats already there and dozens of others heading in all directions , most on Browns were fishing for Gemfish but there still seemed to be plenty of boats trolling for Tuna . We headed another 20 miles out to Heatons Hill a deep water plateau where we were greeted by another 20 plus boats of all sizes but the bite was 12 miles further north with one boat getting a double hook up around midmorning .
Later that afternoon Sydney boat Tantrum landed a 143.7 kg Bluefin around 4 pm on 15 kg line with a pending ladies Australian and World record , in all there would have only been around 10 fish caught for the day between around 100 boats , while back up off Swansea local boat Sea Baby 4 skippered by Phil McCloy landed a 50 kg fish wide of our southern canyons , looks like we will need to wait until next year before we have another chance to catch one ..
Back on the Farm / Texas grounds reports of Trag and Snapper have been coming in , further down south towards the Perch grounds there is plenty of Kingfish action on both jigs and live baits with most fish around the 80 cm mark and the other good news is the lack of Leatherjackets in the deep water ( so far ) one can only hope this will be the case for a while to come ..
In close there are plenty of Squire around nothing to big from legal up to 45 cm but with plenty of burley you shouldn’t have a problem catching your bag limit . The Merewether to Redhead area in particular seems to be fishing well mixed in with the squire there have been Tailor , Bonito ( large ) Bream , Tarwine and plenty of small Trevally while it’s a similar story down towards Catherine Hill Bay , the only advantage heading south is the number of huge schools of Salmon along the coast between Moon Island and Wybung Head with plenty of fun to be had .
In the lake the water temperature is down around 14 dec but its not affecting the fishing last week I managed 17 nice Tailor in the late afternoon while on Sunday Patrick and myself landed a few nice Flathead up to 60 cm although they were a lot of fish only just size all were released , earlier in the morning Pat and Justin Worley had the same result plenty of smaller fish and only a few keepers . Steve Norris fished on Sunday also managing several fish up to 80 cm at one stage he and his mate Kevin had a double hook up with both fish over the 70 cm mark , who said there were no fish in the lake . Out on Lucys wall the local Luderick fisherman have been catching plenty of fish around the kg mark while the Salmon are still coming into Salts Bay on the run in tide , last weekend there were plenty of boats all catching fish between the 2-3 kg mark and with this weekends forecast not that great its worth keeping in mind .
Along the beaches its Salmon by the bucket full mixed in with the odd Tailor and Bream , the Blacksmiths /Belmont stretch being the pick while down on the rocks Trevally and Drummer have started to pickup , Catherine Hill Bay and Frazer Park a couple of the hot spots ..
As a general note of interest ADVENT ENERGY are planning another Seismic survey ( in 3D ) off our coast sometime between November and April for a period of 4-5 weeks in search of natural gas , the last time ( Jan-Feb 2005 ) fishing on the offshore reefs was affected for months and in some cases years , in 2010 Advent energy sunk a test drill site 20 km off Anna Bay with nothing found , if the information is correct this time it appears the area off Catherine Hill Bay is an area of interest , any type of Seismic testing or drilling should be a concern for all of us , its time to start and contact your local state and Federal members and voice your opinion , I will be doing my best and have a say in for all rec anglers ..
Regards
Jason
