David LockwoodFishing with David Lockwood





Length Matters

It used to be that weight was the angler’s measure. You caught a three-pound bream, landed a four-kilo flathead, got a snapper nudging double figures. But now length is the accepted rule.
But I guess this was inevitability, since everyone in NSW must fish by bag and size limits these days. So talking centimetres instead of pounds or kilos is just a natural extension of those fishing rules – a way to indicate your catch is above board.
For example, in NSW, a 30cm bream is a keeper, 5cm above the legal limit, and a 65cm kingfish is right on the legal length. But we’ve all heard of the metre-long barra’ taken on a trip to the Top End, too.
Of course, anglers have evolved over many years their own inbuilt measuring devices. Not just the expanding yarn, but the human tape measure. Y’know the one?
“How big was it?” asks your fishing mate. Involuntarily, you draw the arms apart. “Ahhh, she was this big, mate.”
“How big?” comes the reply in a more incredulous tone. “Er, would you believe this big?” sheepishly reducing the distance between outstretched index fingers.
Realising that measured lengths are the new language of the young, the Australian National Sportfishing Association (ANSA) has just released a fish measuring ‘brag’ mat to supplant the age-old angler’s measure.
ANSA has also established All Tackle Length-Only records and awards for the new generation of cm-talking catch-and-release fishers. The Trophy Length for each eligible species has been picked to reflect what are special captures by almost any measure.
Of course, length and girth have long been used by game fishers and marine biologists to estimate the size of fish that don’t make it to the gantry. But now length counts for plenty with our smaller species, too.
ANSA is selling the aforesaid ‘brag’ mats for $10 plus postage. See www.ansa.com.au for details and further information about its new Trophy Lengths under the menu headed ‘Rule Book’.

Angling Injuries

It’s mid-morning when I’m unloaded ashore, my head held necessarily high as I amble to the car. I slip gingerly behind the wheel and drive myself to Manly Hospital. Suddenly, I’m the butt of some jokes among the interns. After all, it’s not every day that you see a grown man with two sets of treble hooks and a 15cm minnow lure hanging from his neck.
This embarrassing accident paled compared with the occasion I dropped a coral trout over the bow rail of the boat in the Whitsundays. There was a hook in one finger, a hook in another, and a fish swinging and kicking madly in mid-air. Down to the aerodrome for some bolt cutters and back to the doctor’s surgery to remove those hooks. Again!
Fact is, fishing mishaps confront us all. Minor injuries such as cuts from flathead spines, bites from chopper tailor, and nips from puffer fish are almost par for the course. Ditto for puncture wounds from spines, nicks from slipped filleting knives, cuts from oysters and slashes from razor-sharp braided lines.
On the big-game fishing front, I’ve seen huge hooks through feet, broken hands from tracing marlin, and anglers stabbed by billfish, and even pulled overboard. Deckies have drowned.
But a lot of stuff is avoidable, like the scar I bear on my back from being washed across a rock platform at Manly on a dead flat day. The ocean rose and bowled me over quick as that. What was I doing standing at the water’s edge?
It’s been almost 25 years since I last sunk the hooks into my brother’s flesh due to an unthinking backcast as he strolled past. Nowadays, I look before I load-up the rod and hoick my bait or lure east.
On a more serious note, Sydney fishing guide Des Toms lost two toes last year after he contracted a flesh-eating staphylococcus bug at Roseville Boat Ramp. He advises everyone to wear shoes when wading about. And during these holidays, we all need to play it doubly safe while wetting a line.

Happy Holidays

By and large, the holiday angler is a well-meaning fellow who wets a line just a few times a year. He or she isn’t practised, so anything can and does go wrong. The bait sets sail in one direction, the sinker splashes down in another, and there’s the snarl to end all snarls.
Tackle attrition rates are extreme at holiday time, so much so they keep the local tackle store afloat for the rest of the summer.
You know the image: a bloke in Stubbies walking backwards, nylon line singing like a tight rope, before a loud snap and recoil! He shuffles back to his tackle box, flip flopping in thongs, to re-rig and do it all again.
But there’s something more than experience amiss on our waterways — it’s etiquette. You can forgive the sun-kissed fellow standing next to you on the lake shore for inadvertently pitching his long-dead prawn over yours. “No worries mate, jump over this side.”
However, the brazen bully angler who doesn’t give a hoot is something else again. He or she makes a beeline for the action, throws, sets up within a hair’s breadth, casts lines all over yours, then abuses you for being in the way.
Just like surf rage, fish rage is rife, especially at holiday time. Do your bit and consider your fellow fisho. Everyone has a right to wet a line in our wonderful waterways and, best of all, there’s room for us all to do it congenially, safely and bountifully.

fishDavid Lockwood’s Guide to Fishing – January

You can learn a lot from fishing guides. Take the following two stalwarts from Sydney harbour: Craig McGill and Stuart Reid. Using the heads and guts from fresh squid they caught previously for bait, the dynamic duo scored some beautiful kingfish to 90cm from around the harbour channel markers, while getting blown away by some much bigger brutes.Kingfish will continue to reward the harbour, bay and estuary fishers this month. While most of the fish are rats, there will be plenty of big fish for those prepared to fish midweek, as the aforesaid guides do, around key structures such as channel markers, and with big baits.
Meanwhile, the melee of Australian salmon and tailor continue to mix it with the kingfish in our bays and harbours, as well as taking up station around the headlands and close-in reefs. Bonito are mixed in with them and jumping on trolled minnow lures. I am expecting even more bonito as the water warms up this month.
Out wide, striped and small mackerel tuna have been about in huge schools and that food source, along with the sauries and slimy mackerel, should see marlin about. Try the fish aggregating devices or FADs for mahi mahi or dolphin fish, too. January is the beginning of the productive part of the game fish season.
Hawkesbury guide Ron Osman has found the jewfish snapping like there’s no tomorrow, but just one fish in 10 is a keeper. I expect a run of school-sized jewfish in the 4-6kg bracket this month. Fish around the bridges over the big rivers and, at night in the lights, try lures for even bigger fish.
If you’re after a sure-feed, flathead are reliable in January. Drift and bounce frogmouth pilchards along the bottom on a falling tide in the early morning. Or cast soft plastic lures around the upper reaches. You won’t find a better time to tempt the fish or a better brace of fillets on the tooth.  
All of a sudden, the blue swimmer crabs are on the march in the Hawkesbury, with locals taking a half-dozen keepers after a half-hour check of the hoop nets. Spend a day trapping and you will be dining in high style over the holidays. Prawns are also about our coastal lakes and lagoons in January. Get scooping after dark and dragging by day.
It’s been a terribly slow start to the beach-fishing season but, with anglers standing shoulder-to-shoulder over the holiday period, pitching live worms into the surf, there will be oodles of whiting taken for tucker. The whiting schools will be shadowed by jewfish, so soak a whole fish bait from dusk to dark.
Given some good weather, it’s an opportune time for boaties to fish the 40-metre reefs. Use a two-pronged attack, with lightly weighted baits and soft-plastic lures for snapper, and big live baits and squid heads for jewfish and kings.
Out wide, except for a couple of dolphin fish, the fishing has been quiet. But Glen Hunter from charterboat Billfisher hooked a striped marlin on the 12 Mile last month and a striped marlin was released earlier.
As touched on, there are plenty of striped tuna and small mackerel tuna have been boiling. So the 120-metre mark is the place to start trolling and live baiting for marlin this month.
The forecast is for an El Nino year, a long hot summer, with very little rain. A lot of fish will push well upstream, so don’t be afraid to look for kingfish and jewfish in upper Middle Harbour, Cowan Creek and so on.
With hot water predicted to sweep along our beaches, there is bound to be plenty of sharks about. Moreover, it could be a bumper year for sub-tropical species. In previous El Nino seasons, we’ve had spotted mackerel to 6kg in the harbour and sailfish offshore.
It might seem obvious, but the best way to score fish in January is to wet a line. Increase your effort, enjoy the warm weather, do dinner aboard while fishing or tuck in alongside the rods set from the beach. Enjoy the well-deserved summer holidays and savour the fine fishing and memories.

Fishing KeyFishing Key —

B    Bream
Berleying with chopped pilchard and floating lightly weighted pilchard fillets back into the berley using light tackle and fine line. Suitable method from both boat and shore. Hook size No 1 to 2/0.
F    Flathead
Drift with whitebait or frog-mouthed pilchards hooked through the head and bounced along the sandy bottom. Glue reflective tape to the sinker for added flash and appeal. Early morning sessions to avoid boat traffic is best.
J    Jewfish
The jewel in the crown for estuary fishers. Choose a deep hole next to some hard reef or a bridge pylon, berley with chopped pilchard pieces, and suspend whole pilchard baits, live baits or squid strips a metre off the bottom. Best during the last of the flood tide and at dusk. Patience needed.
K    Kingfish
Fish the deep shores or around the channel markers with live squid or strips of fresh squid. Set one bait a few metres off the bottom, another mid-water with a small ball sinker and drift another slowly down the berley trail. Medium-weight 8-10kg tackle and 4/0 hook. Fish must be 60cm to be legal.
L    Leatherjackets
The Fonz had one, as did Elvis, and Arnie. The uniform of every hirsute bikie in Sydney, leatherjackets are also a salvation when the winds blows and the weather turns nasty. Dangle a peeled prawn bait on a size 8 long-shank hook around the wharves, the kelp beds and reefs in the harbour. If all else fails, try the cloak room of the Skull and Cross Bones hotel in Milperra.
S    Snapper
Autumn is a great time to sharpen the hooks and head to the 40-metre reefs in search of snapper. In late April/May, as the current slows, the 120-metre reefs are also fishable. Either way, Autumn snapper tend to include fish in the 2-4kg range. Think big and arm yourself with 10kg tackle, fish a whole pilchard on a 4/0 hook, and you will land the big reds.
T    Tailor
An aggressive schooling fish named for its ability to slash whatever poor fish crosses its path to ribbons, the tailor is an easy fish to catch. Troll or toss a silvery lure around the schools of fish seen jumping in the harbour in winter, cast a pilchard bait from the shores, or soak whole pilchards under the full moon and during the flood tide at Sow and Pigs or below The Spit bridge.
Tun    Striped, Mackerel and Bonito
If its sportsfishing you want go chase the schools of small tuna zipping about the heads at first light. Best with a boat, stealthy approach, 4kg tackle and some silver lures. Or try the fly rod. Bonito can be taken by trolling minnow lures.
W    Whiting
A shy and retiring fish by day, but a pussycat at night. Insomniacs make the best whiting fishers in the harbour. Use live worms and fish over the flats or off the beaches. Those areas with lights such as Manly and Balmoral are most productive.