# Balmoral Bash - Sat 17-02



## MangoX (Feb 18, 2006)

Was waiting for someone to post.... :? to add my 2 cents......anyway I'm sure everyone will add there reports as we all left at different times...

I arrived at the Balmoral launch site at 5.40 to see Kraley and a couple of other yakkers (sorry about the names...I'm a shocker) eagerly setting up and hitting the water before dawn.

Great conditions, around 20 degrees... not a breath of wind and the water seemed quite warm. (Occy can verify the water temp from his new FF :lol: I'll let him tell that one, hope its sorted out mate).
Water was flat and yakkers outnumbered stinkboats early on. At one stage counted 10 yaks (this includes the peddle boats  ) from our group.










Trolled a CD7 makeral colour and a SX40 silver white bait around to the wharf for zilch. Sun came up and the group was scattered around the wharf and the nudie beach.
Saw a couple of bent rods....nothing happening with my lures, time for a change.
Picked up a couple of Halco Twisties yesterday a Big W after reading some nice things about them. Chucked a 15 gr model at the busting surface action and came up tight on something. Light gear was going to make it interesting.... Salmon I thought but went straight down. Several fast tail beats indicated bonito, maybe Trev...
Took one run and fast run peeling plenty of line :shock: almost palmed the spool but resisted temptation and after a few minutes could see colour. The fish had given up....on its side I could see it was a Mackeral. (I think)
A first for me and happy as it was all the action for me. (Apart from pinkies taking the Twisty when I let it hit the bottom.)

































Great day on the water all the same. Nice to meet some new members on the forum (even if I cant remember names yet). I think everyone left the water by 10 am.

Next time...


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## Guest (Feb 17, 2007)

Fish in question is a Watsons Leaping Bonito :wink:

http://www.sea-ex.com/fishphotos/bonito,.htm


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## onemorecast (Apr 17, 2006)

Again it was good to see many of the group out there and ran into a few I haven't met before.

Beautiful morning netted me only a small 20 cm snapper, despite trolling and casting at many spots of surface action.

The highlight of the day was watching a couple in a very small zodiac fight and finally bring aboard a small but scrappy kingie. There was about 5 or 6 of us pro yak fishers watching (I think with some amusement until they brought it on board). They also had to ask what sort of fish it was.  I was envious but glad for them as they were obviously stoked.

The low point of the day was when a (presumably) naval boat came through to chase everyone out of the restricted zone, then gunned the motor and turned right behind me cutting me off (losing a good $20 squid lure) and sending a wave over the side of my kayak soaking me and all my gear. I was clearly 20 - 30 metres outside the restricted zone. :evil: I think I objected to this treatment somewhat loudly, and with enthusiasm.

One last note was that the family came and met me in the late morning and as we sat on the beach (where we launch) early in the afternoon a huge school came in close to the boats near shore and there was a feeding frenzy that lasted for nearly 15 minutes, unfortunately the yak was already on top of the car


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## Redfin (Jul 10, 2006)

I had a pretty good morning. There was not much surface action so I concentrated on trolling between the naval wharf and the point past cobblers beach. I managed to land a bonito on my first run (approx 6am), Gatesy landed one at the same time. All up I landed 4 bonito and one kingfish. They all fell to a shallow diving 5 inch yo-zuri minnow - . I also managed to loose my favourite lure at the boat (attached to fish) lifting a bonito into the boat - will never do this again on 12lb line. There is something about the swimming action of the yo zuri lures as my Halco lazer pro (5 inch) and Rapala minnow (3 inch) were not touched. Off the water by 8am as I had forgotten my sun glasses and could not see where I was trolling into the sun.

Cheers,

Michael


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## Crikey (Oct 30, 2005)

Hi Guys,

Sounds like a good morning on the water.

Steve, glad to read that the twisty's worked for you and the pics are brilliant, the one of the WLB on the lipgrip is second to none. I was interested in the comment about the pinkies, the one I got yesterday I put down to being a suicidal idiot, perhaps they are schooling under the bait waiting for a feed after the pelagics have carved the bait up.


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## RedPhoenix (Jun 13, 2006)

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

----

QlpoOTFBWSZTWbiWWJoAABjfgAAScAGAEhEEOIon6f6gIAB1EU8KDT1NA9QAB6ganpTxU0xpMEaHkmGoRDFXWEn138nWfz6i8B6qMUzW2c/18TlomMD6zdlHcWTkbLb5NuHeZlLDMDL35U73JYBSDgbEYjGBTgnlbGsXuJcYNZG0kWV6RUOLka507U6yQVSL0/i7kinChIXEssTQ


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## MangoX (Feb 18, 2006)

so a Bonito it is then....

great tip on the Halco Twistie.. :wink: thanx

That pr*ck in the naval boat also sped past me and I wasnt even close to the Naval Wharf. Wave hit me side on....completely soaking me and all the gear, luckily did not lose my balance and that was it. WTF is up with that guy :evil:

Yellowfin: any pics of that minow ? Yo-zuri do make some quality lures...
you were in that red hobie, right ?

Cheers

Steve


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## deano (Nov 26, 2006)

MangoX said:


> That pr*ck in the naval boat also sped past me....WTF is up with that guy


Those guys are only civilian contractors hired by Navy - they are not members of the RAN themselves. As a member of the Navy myself, please accept my appologies on behalf of those f***wits.


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## JT (May 25, 2006)

onemorecast said:


> The highlight of the day was watching a couple in a very small zodiac fight and finally bring aboard a small but scrappy kingie. There was about 5 or 6 of us pro yak fishers watching (I think with some amusement until they brought it on board). They also had to ask what sort of fish it was.  I was envious but glad for them as they were obviously stoked.
> 
> The low point of the day was when a (presumably) naval boat came through to chase everyone out of the restricted zone, then gunned the motor and turned right behind me cutting me off (losing a good $20 squid lure).


I met that couple on the beach after I had called it quits for the morning at about the same time as Gatesy. The fish were there but they sure weren't buying what I was selling. River2sea slugs cast into the schools, trolled lures of many descriptions all failed to produce the goods. Damn finicky fish :evil:

Anyway...met the zodiac couple on the beach. Turns out he had caught his mystery fish (the kingy) on a tiny Bream hook with a peeled prawn on it! It measured 58 cm so he tossed it back.

He also said to me "hey...is this your lure"? as he held up a nice looking squidy lure with some green fire line or something on it?. "These things float you know" he said. I told him it wasn't mine but it would be one of the boys out there who had lost it and promised him to track em down. So there you go Eric......send me a PM with a description of your lost lure and an address and I'll put it in the mail for you.

Still a fabulous morning to be out on the water. Hope you went well this morning Kraley. I opted for sleep having been up most of the night with a sick kid. Sure looks good out there though.

JT


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## Davey G (Jan 15, 2006)

good report guys. glad to hear that theres still afew fish in the harbour and that the AKFF team hasn't depleted the stocks too much!


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## onemorecast (Apr 17, 2006)

JT said:


> So there you go Eric......send me a PM with a description of your lost lure and an address and I'll put it in the mail for you.
> 
> JT


Good news on that lure JT, will send you a PM describing it. Happy to pay the postage too or buy you a cold one sometime as that was my No 1 downriggin lure, which I just trying out for the first time on the troll.

Dean I'm also glad to hear that those d#[email protected] in the boat weren't real navy. It does make sense as I know servicemen are trained better than that.

Weather permitting I'm going t have another crack at Balmoral tomorrow morning as I don't have to be at work until 10 am.


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## tugboat (Nov 15, 2006)

It wasn't too bad a morning...
Although I would have liked a bit more surface action.
I left the beach just after pommie matt launched in his red rvolution...
I had watched him earlier miss the turn off of the expressway and found out he ended up heading all the way back over the bridge and then returning.

On leaving the beach I heard a weird squeaking noise from my mirage drive and I put it down to needing a bit of oil. The noise disaapeared so I thought all is well and contnued out. Met up with yellow fin and on his 2nd or 3rd Bonito I was madly zooming around to take a few photos when...
No back pressure on the Mirage drive pedals and no forward movement  
One of the stainless steel rods had cleanly snapped!
I had to now paddle for the rest of the morning.
Topping that was yellowfin was catching plenty of fish and I had not had a nibble even though the sounder was show plenty of underwater action.

I evetually switched to the Yo-Zuri lures yellowfin was using but did not have a black & white colour as he was using... still no takers.

By around 9am I decided to go the soft plastic route and wacked on my favourite Diawa EDM SPs, very similiar to a flick bait but I think the fish find them more edible.
First cast at a the edge of a bait ball on my sounder and whammo a 45cm Bonito attaches itself.
A bit later on doing the same thing and allowing the SP to sink I hooked up on a 40cm Travelly. The morning had finally got better.
I decided to call quits around 10 and started heading back to the beach and thought one more cast as I saw a school of fish on the sounder, this put onto a nice 30cm Bream. 

MangoX thanks for the pics, I usually end up taking pics of everyone else and don't get many of myself...
I've attached a photo of the lures Yellowfin was using.

On a bright note, my Mirage drive was back in action in the afternoon after a quick visit to Sailing Scene who's service is excellent. They replaced the stainless rod under warranty.


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## Croc_Hunter (Sep 14, 2005)

Hi Everyone!

Good to meet a few of you at Balmoral, not much success for me though.
I trolled and cast some sps for hours, managing a tiny tailor just before I finished.

Think I'll have to bring along a few metal lures and shallow divers next time, perhaps it'll give me more success.

Congrats to everyone who managed some fish.

Hope for better luck at barlings.


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## Croc_Hunter (Sep 14, 2005)

Hi Everyone!

Good to meet a few of you at Balmoral, not much success for me though.
I trolled and cast some sps for hours, managing a tiny tailor just before I finished.

Think I'll have to bring along a few metal lures and shallow divers next time, perhaps it'll give me more success.

Congrats to everyone who managed some fish.

Hope for better luck at barlings.


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## justcrusin (Oct 1, 2006)

gday guys good to see you all had a good time on the harbour.



> and the nudie beach.
> Saw a couple of bent rods....


What sort of bent rods mango :shock: :lol: :lol:

sorry had to do it.

Cheers Dave


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## MangoX (Feb 18, 2006)

Tugboat: I saw that blue Yo-zuri minnow on your rod out there and thought.. "wow thats a big lure" (was worried about my rapala CD7).
It obviously brained them as I saw Yellowfin with his rod bent for most of the morning while I was just chasing schools around for zip.

did you get them in the US online ?

if so, from where ?

cheers

Steve


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## MangoX (Feb 18, 2006)

:shock: this report has taken a wrong turn.... :?

Justcrusin: now you make my post sound a bit ....



> wow thats a big lure


and



> I saw Yellowfin with his rod bent for most of the morning


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## Flump (Apr 17, 2006)

Great to know all the Bonnies and Kingies (as well as the Tailor) are still hanging around. Couldn't make it this weekend, but glad everyone else enjoyed themselves.

cheers......Nick


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## tugboat (Nov 15, 2006)

MangoX said:
 

> Tugboat: I saw that blue Yo-zuri minnow on your rod out there and thought.. "wow thats a big lure" (was worried about my rapala CD7).
> It obviously brained them as I saw Yellowfin with his rod bent for most of the morning while I was just chasing schools around for zip.
> 
> did you get them in the US online ?
> ...


Hi Steve

Yellowfin and I bought these quite a while ago, think it was at one of the fishing shows in Sydney.
I think what does it for the fish is the lures have plenty of swimming action in the water.


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## Zed (Sep 18, 2006)

redphoenix said:


> Funda said:
> 
> 
> > Fish in question is a Watsons Leaping Bonito :wink:
> ...


Seconded. Anyone have one leap into their net, fillet board, cooking utensil, mouth?

Thanks Funda, for the ID. Still Winter blues, here, glad you all are heating up!

Z


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## tugboat (Nov 15, 2006)

occy said:


> Sorry Tugboat, but I don't feel sorry for you having to paddle. We mere mortals have to do it all the time. :wink:


Yeah the wife seems to agree with you, she wants me to paddle more rather than peddle :shock: says if I go kayaking there has to be something in it for her like bigger arm muscles :roll:


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## tugboat (Nov 15, 2006)

sssssshhhhh.... don't let her know :wink: That way I can keep kayaking and fishing 
If I keep catching large Kingies or Bonito it should count towards bulding the muscles. :lol:


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## onemorecast (Apr 17, 2006)

Dont know if people are sick of hearing about Balmoral so I won't start another trip report but add to this one as I went out agian this morning. (19 Feb)

Launched at 6 am and trolled out past middle head and halfway back. No surface actrion at all until about 7 am and then the waters around middle head lit up. Several big schools stayed around for about 15 or 20 minutes and I picked up 2 nice salmon on a metal slice.

There were lots of different fish around as the stinkboat next to me picked up a frigate mackeral and another landed a rat king. I saw fish leaping out to the water (Watson's Leaping Bonito?) amongst the boil.

The schools appeared to break up but were active back up middle harbour for the next hour between Grotto Pt and Balmoral beach near the middle of the channel. Another fisherman in a stinkboat landed another rat king and I left him and Craig McGill to continue to chase the smaller schools as I headed off to work at about 8:30.

One thing I found out about Balmoral on Sat was that there are showers close to where we launch. So after my session this morning I walked in smelling like a goat and walked out with the shirt & tie on. Very handy


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## kingfisher111 (Jun 13, 2006)

Guys I for 1 will never tire of hearing reports from Balmoral. Sounds fantastic! Keep them coming. Terrific to read by those of us that have to be on the job by 6 or 7 in the morning. :evil: Steve


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