The 2009 Jigging season so far

Hi Everyone

The Jigging season so far has been a blast even though the weather has been against us.

If you have been out with me this season click on this link to see if your photo is there. (You wil be redirected back to the photo page on the Website.)


Here are some examples:



Bye for now
Scotty

Welcome 2009

Sorry about the lack of reports, phone/camera problems and other boats following the Freedom around my favourite kingy spots were the cause. The kingfish are still taking the jigs out wide, they're not in any great numbers but there certainly are some nice ones.

If they don't bite the jig, a live slimy or yaka gets them going, we've been getting smoked on 65lb braid. A nose rigged livey on 100lb leader, 7/0 circle hook dropped down to the bottom and then wound up 20 meters or so usually does the trick.

Its pretty cool to here a punter say "how will I know when I get a bite". Then see the look on their face when the rod loads up and they get dragged around the cockpit. Its brutal hand to hand combat, with most fish around the meter mark.

The new Daiwa Expedition( 3 months ago) are well and truly run in, but with maxed out drags the monsters still manage to find the reef...... I have been contemplating going up too 100 lb braid but I don't think the anglers can take it.
After a few bust offs and a few victims find there way into the ice box, we have been hitting the reef species, mostly pearl perch, mowies and a few nice reds.

The marlin fishing has been slow, we broke the leader on 70 kg striped mid December. It ate a live striped tuna, fished once again on a 6500 expedition . I haven't put in a full day on the marlin, just trolled lures or baits around between kingy spots, just a matter of time. The mahi mahi will turn up any day, there is 23/24c water on the way.
Ever wonder wot the Daiwa reps do on there holidays!!! I promised not to post this pic..... sorry Evan and Pete.... I had my fingers crossed.

Port Stephens season kicks off from February 2nd, there are still a few days left in march, If you want to catch a marlin on conventional, jig or fly tackle, the 2009 black marlin season is shaping up to be the best since 1997 (1200+ tagged during the 4 day interclub tourney).
All the best for 2009. may your lines be tight, may your tackle stay dry and remember .... to loose patience, is to loose the battle
Scotty

Ouch !!!

The rising moon had the fish going crazy with catches of between 30 and 50 Kingy's averaging 6 to 7 kgs. But as I predicted the increase in water temperature this week has slowed the bite. Though the ones we are catching are still quality fish.

The temp has jumped to around 20 degrees and the smaller fish have started to move inshore. Last trip we only managed a dozen or so nice ones but early in the week the bite was still going strong. Wednesday on the first drop we had a triple hook up and boated the first two no problem the third one however was hooked in the side and played up on the leader. The hook pulled and with the Rod fully loaded and I copped a 300gm Lumo Abyss to my left eye.

My charter this day were a bunch of nice guys from Thailand however they seemed a bit over whelmed to see blood pouring from my eye. Lucky Josh from Freddys Fishing World was close by and was able to come aboard and administer first aid ! I stayed for another hour and whacked another 20 quality Kingy's and headed to home. I then spent the rest of the afternoon at Gosford Hospital where they stitched me up and then sent me straight off to the Eye Surgeon for further tests. Thankfully my Mako Sunnies ( the best fishing sunglasses on the market ) protected me from an even worse fate. Who said fishing is not a contact sport ! Lucky Eugene the Jigging Machine was able to help me out and we were back on the water and into it again the next morning.

Spoke to some mates in Townsville and The Townsville Light Tackle Tournament was brilliant with over 400 Marlin was hooked up. This should mean a bumper season for small Black Marlin at Port Stephens - Can't wait for that to come around !

Crazy Fishing

Sorry about the delay in posting reports, to be honest the main reason being I've had heaps of boats following me around on the weekends after posting reports so I won't be doing such regular updates till the game fishing season starts. Some of the boats pull up only 10ft off the Freedom, there are plenty of Kingfish spots in this area and you just have to look around with your sounder. Have a look at some of the sounder pictures that I have posted on previous reports to give you some idea what to look for.

Now for the good stuff, Fishing has been CRAZY ! Everyday 30 to 60 Kingys most being released ( of course ) with an average size of 5 to 7 kgs. These are quality fish all around 80 to 90 cms mark . The leather jackets have been making the occasional appearance but you just have to move to a new bit of reef to get away from the bastards.

The water temperature is slowing increasing so the jigging will start to go off soon.We will then start targeting Kingys with live bait it should see some bigger fish come over the side. The increase in the water temp will push the fish inshore and make them more accessible to the smaller boats. The crowds on the grounds have forced me to leave a few of my secret spots untouched, these spots normally hold big kings that seem to be resident fish, the are not in great numbers like we are jigging at the moment but they are certainly a much better class of fish. This will give me a chance to try out our new tackle.

Thanks to my sponsors, Daiwa and Sakana we have some new tackle arriving this week. New 6500 expeditions, new Saltist overheads matched with heavy duty rods from the Sakana guys. They will be loaded with 80lb Braid. Just what we need to pull out live bait eating studs.

With this tackle we will be bait and switching marlin this season. If you think Jigging is fun you should see how 80kg Striped Marlin goes on this sort of tackle.
Daiwa have released the new Saltiga Extreme Reels, they are 6500 and 4500 size, same as the old Saltiga range. Daiwa say these are the ultimate jigging reel they have ever designed. They have the new Hyper Digi gear internals and a new lubricated drag system with zero start up inertia. These will be available from December . The new Extreme Rods have hit the shops this month already.

Daiwa rep Evan Spary knocked over a heap of kings up to 30kg in NZ on ease on this tackle. Hit the Daiwa icon on my home page for more info.
The new Sakana Jigs are being shipped as we speak. I will post some pictures so you know what to look for.

Click on the below images to enlarge, then use your browsers back button to return.







The warm weather has got the bream moving onto the flats in the Brisbane Water, Sunday, my good mate Ian and I got out the Stratos and whacked a couple, Ian hooked the worlds biggest longtom that thankfully fell off at the boat. Ian has leadered 100's of marlin with me but this creature would've had us reaching for the firstaid kit. Roll on summer.

New Tackle

Great News ! The Sakana Website will be up and running next week ( finally )
At the moment they will be advertising their Rod Range including some pretty neat Jigging Rods. We have been using The Sakana Saltwater Pro Overhead No. SP5610JH. This is a 5ft6 Rod Rated 30 to 50lb for Jigs to 250 to 400gms. We have fishing this on a Daiwa Saltist 30t. This is a great outfit for
50lb tackle. Its a very easy outfit to use due to its light weight and also narrow spool width and has accounted for several fish over 8kgs in the last few trips.
The Sakana Jigs will hit the market in the next 14 Days. We have put a lot of time into testing these Jig Patterns and Colours to get them just right. THEY ARE THE BOMB !

Today I caught up with Fred from EJ Todd ( Loomis Distributors ). He had a sample of a Jig Rod called a "Fake Lez 50H" . This is one of the best Jig Rods I have ever seen.

The prototype Sakana Jig Cranker Rods we have been evaluating on the boat are up there and these should be ready for next season.
Keep an eye out for the new Daiwa Sacrifice Sticks, they will be back on the market ( Hooray ! ) sometime before Christmas.

Update !

Sorry about the lack of fishing reports but I have had a few issues mainly with miserable weather not letting me out but also with boats following me after reading my reports. This week in particular really pushed me over the edge with a commercial drop liner from Sydney setting his gear after watching me for an hour or so. He steamed straight over to our spot and set his gear right on the patch of fish we had been jigging on all morning. There was a fair bit of yelling from yours truly before he decided to leave us alone...P.S Lucky Eugene the jigging machine was with me for back up !!
But back to the good stuff..Bag Limit catches every trip ! We have been releasing heaps of nice ones but the average size is 4 kgs with enough nice ones mixed in to keep us one our toes.

We had a group of Humpback whales pay us visit last week , we had to stop fishing for an hour or so because they were so close. They we taking turns diving under the boat and rolling over and looking at us. At times dragging their tales along the keel of the little freedom. We were crapping ourselves !

The pictures are not in any particular order as I lost track who was on the boat
each day.

Things are looking great for the next few weeks with the lowest winter water temperature we've had for a few years. This will hopefully extend the jigging season into Oct/Nov.

F%#K'N JACKETS

We got a weather window yesterday, and ran to the grounds with a cool westerly wind, that dropped to nothing by mid-morning. The first hour the guys released a few rats well under the 65cm limit. I found a patch of nice size kings that were eager to bite, but they were mixed up with a big school of jackets that were also willing to bite.

We started fishing with about 8 or so outfits. Buy the end of the session we had only one rod and reel that had enough line left one it to reach the bottom, and that included re spooling 3 of my reels and 1 of the guys. Add to that 25 plus jigs, flouro leader and snaps. The jackets would bite you off on the drop, on the retrieve, even when fighting a king.

The final count, 12 nice keepers around 4/5kg, with 2 good ones over 90cms, 1 bonito and only 1 jacket. We just made it in before the wind and rain, it could be a couple of days before we get out again. Meanwhile I'm heading to Freddy's Fishing World to restock the boat with line and jigs.