KINGFISH AND JACKETS!!!!

After the previous charter of little fish hopes weren't high for today's trip but conditions were perfect! With lots of fish caught earlier in the month and this being the first good weekend in ages, the ocean was a parking lot. It seems like everyone had taken up jigging! But there was worse to come! The current had stopped, the water was green and cold, full of algea and ferrocous leather jackets! The option to fish out wider was taken but fish were just as scarce. One lucky jigger caught a nice big squid on a knife jig. The other jiggers decided to swap to bait fishing and caught some long finned orange perch. The afternoon saw us return to closer grounds and all the other boats had given up after losing all their jigs to the dreaded jackets.For the next couple of hours kingfish were slowly added to the esky but you had to be careful of the jackets.It was obvious that the boats before us had lost lots of jigs as we were jigging up jigs with 60m of braid, must have been an expensive trip out for many. A quite day fishing overall but not too many jigs lost and some also recovered - looking forward to more current and the dismise of the leatherjackets.

Jigging at Last

Another two weeks of bad weather had again cancelled all jigging trips. This was the first and we were hoping all the kingies were still there after two weeks of strong winds and big seas.The charter was made up by Peter Hay, Michael, Phil,Bill and friends. The area looked barren of fish, they had all gone. After an hour the fish came on for a small bite with only one keeper out of the handful caught. The move out wider was much the same with few fish caught. We hung in there till late hoping for a repeat of the late bite, but it just didn't happen, there was no fish to be caught, very disappointing.

KINGIES GALORE

Bad weather had cancelled our weekend trip but they were able to move it to midweek. The charter consisted of Dan Ryan and friends, James Taylor and some new jiggers. We picked the right day as conditions were perfect and our favourite jigging spot was empty of all boats. The fish were a little hard to find as waves of dolphins kept the fish on the move. After 10 or so fish it was decided to fish wider. Fishing was much the same there but with a lot more boats and a hungry seal stealing the biggest fish all the time. The catch rate was slowing so we moved back closer to jig on the tide change. At 2.00pm the kingies started to school up and the feeding frenzy went till dark. Our first time jiggers were braining them - Phil's slow jerk and wind was the most effective catching the most fish. The smallest fish was caught by Dan, it was smaller than the jig, what skill
or what a hungry fish.The fish went off before dark and everyone had a full esky.

KINGFISH FEVER

Today's charter was organised by Tak from http://www.deepwaterjigging.com.au/ . Recent bad weather had forced many cancellations but today's conditions were perfect. All the kingfish have been caught in closer of late so we fished in 65m of water off Botany Bay. From the second drift kingfish were everywhere, with multiple hook-ups on every drop.I sure was busy netting fish and filling the kill box! Deborah's PB of 21 from the previous charter was beaten this trip, now it stands at 22, what an angler! Fish were constantly returned with 100+ caught for the day. Although the fish were of average size our first time jigger had a ball and everyone took home a full esky.

NEW JIGGERS AND A GOOD CATCH

Today's jiggers were a new group formed by Peter, conditions started off bad but improved throughout the day, it's been hard to fit a charter in with the weather conditions. Again we fished in 80m east of Sydney and after finding the fish and the right drift hook ups started.It wasn't long before the fish were in a feeding frenzy and triple hook-ups all day! The fish were all in the 75 - 85cm range with the odd 8kg fish. Bag limits were reached and fish thrown back all day!

Non stop kingfish action

Today's charter was a late decision with the crew only finalised late the night before and what a day it turned out to be! There was a break in the weather with the westerly winds finally forecasted to ease for the day. We were one down so I took the oportunity to have a jig myself.

We fished the water 80m deep off Marouba and it wasn't long before the fish were found.Single hookups at first progressed to triples and at times everyone was on a fish. Bag limits were quickly reached and fish were constantly returned to fight another day,all
up over 100 fish were caught. The size of the fish was down with most in the 75-85 cm range, with the biggest fish being caught by myself going 97 cm. The fish were in a hungry mood and all types of jigs were quickly consumed and I pulled out my special spanner jig to show you don't have to spend money on fancy jigs!

My two new jiggers were completely worn out and happy with the days catch, hopefully the arms will recover to jig another day. The best jigger on the day was our lady jigger Deborah who had a personal best catch of 21 kingfish. We also jigged up 3 bonito and 5 barracuda.