Sydney Rock

Great fishing in May

SYD ROCK & BEACH Alex Bellissimo

alex@bellissimocharters.com.au

We might be heading into winter but the fish don’t know it yet; the water temperature is still warm enough to catch temperate species. As the weeks progress and the weather cools, don’t be deterred, because all manner of species can be caught all through May.

ROCK FISHING

We have seen a showing of solid kings, with the the hook (or having a leader with a swivel and a sinker above the swivel) enables the bait to be forced downwards at the float stopper depth that you want to fish.

Another bait that is working really well is XL sea gars ganged on hook sizes larger than what you’d present ganged pilchards with. I have found that Mustad 5/0-7/0 7766-D with heavy-duty swivels in between make the baiting up process easier. The hooks in between the swivels are nice and flexible, so there’s much less chance of the bait can catch undersized kings to absolute monsters on sea gars. Kings just love the eastern sea gar!

Snapper are being caught in good numbers, both distance casting and wash fishing, with a range of bycatch like trevally and bream. There are times you could catch up to half a dozen great species when snapper fishing. Distance casting with 3-5oz snapper sinkers enables you to get that punch out that you need to get to the sand/gravel beds. Most good distance casting snapper spots require a cast between

Rebecca and Jack Su had fun fishing the ocean rocks, catching rock blackfish to 48cm and a couple of cracker bream too. The rain couldn’t dampen their enthusiasm.

This 110cm king was lost as it was being washed up by the angler on the left. The line snapped and it floated away, dead. The author cast out a set of gang hooks and a sinker for casting weight, made a lot of casts, and eventually jagged it for them.

A great wash fishing bag off the ocean rocks. Robert West, Jim Walter and Adam Spencer caught snapper to 42cm, trevally, bream and a bonito. Lighter gear makes it a fun experience.

sizeable fish showing up as that water temp started to cool down a bit. Kings to 110cm (around 10kg) are falling for live yellowtail suspended under a foam float. Torpedo or turnip floats work great. You can buy float stoppers at just about any tackle shop. Slide the float stopper up your line to the depth you need to fish it at. The float stoppers are great because if you’re fishing several metres and you need to wind on your float stopper it won’t be a problem, because they are small enough to wind on through your guides. If you need to change the depth you are fishing, slide the stopper up further along the line.

You may need to use sinkers to keep the bait down because there is often strong current and white-water wash which may make it difficult to ‘set’ your float. What that means is that the live bait you are using may end up swimming towards the surface, even though you have slid the float stopper several metres up the line. That defeats the purpose of having a float stopper set at, for example, 6m deep. Often the live bait is swimming upwards towards the surface. By adding ball sinkers above becoming distorted and bent, like you can get with more rigid, non-swivel gangs.

Unfortunately, sea gars are not that cheap. They’re normally between $15-$22 a kilo, but it’s worth it. You 70-100m out. Obviously, you have snapper venturing on to the deep ledges which have lots of cracks, boulders and a very undulated surface, but you will cop the wrath of getting multiple snags fishing that sort of territory. A lot of pretty expensive rigs will be lost.

To vastly reduce that problem, try fishing less snaggy areas. Cast out past the ledge drop-off with sand/ gravel edges to vastly reduce the loss of rigs.

There’s a variety of baits to choose from when distance casting for snapper. Half pilchards are OK but they get vaporised by the oftenlarge volume of small fish out there. More robust baits like salted slimy mackerel, salted striped tuna, fresh squid strips and fresh fish baits work a treat.

Some nice rock blackfish (AKA pigs or black drummer) up to near 50cm are falling for peeled prawns, large cabbage weed baits and white sliced bread baits. Some berley may be required (either mushy bread berley or, when weed fishing for a pig, weed berley), providing the current is not a too powerful parallel current for the location you are fishing.

Distance casting has been catching snapper are up to 55cm, with bream and trevally thrown in.

In the washes when snapper fishing, reds to over 42cm, trevally, salmon, bream and more are in the areas, preferably on a half mid to full run-in tide, during the lower light periods. Little Bluey at Manly, North Curl Curl and Long reef are producing some chunky pigs.

deeper wash zones. Good baits include half pilchards or peeled king, banana or endeavour prawns. Rock blackfish gear works well with this sort of fishing. A deadly outfit for the pigs and snapper is the Daiwa Over There 109MH coupled with a 5000 BG MQ reel, spooled with 20-25lb J-Braid Grand and FC fluorocarbon leader.

When it comes to spots to fish for the kings, snapper and trevally, I prefer the deeper ledges. If you don’t like the climb, try the western section of Bluefish headland northeast face, South Curl Curl and North Curl Curl. Further north, try North Avalon and South Whale rocks.

For the rock blackfish, fish the sunken boulders and submerged ledge structure BEACH FISHING

A bigger run of tailor are on this month and next month. They are travelling up the coast towards Fraser Island and slightly north as well. When you hook a 55-60cm+ fish on a light 5-7kg outfit off the beach, you enjoy the experience more, that’s for sure. Watching it wash up the sand, often in the dark, with your head torch shining on it is a great experience.

Often sizeable tailor are caught by anglers targeting jewfish (mulloway). When you consider the big baits used for jewfish, it’s no surprise that often the bigger tailor are hooked and landed by these anglers.

There are times that you can purchase big pilchards,