Fishing with David LockwoodDavid Lockwood

Nipper Nabbers death threats

Live bait is big business these days – a single nipper sells for 40¢, a bloodworm commands more than $2, and a small bag of pipis will set you back a fiver. Little wonder the blackmarket in bait is booming.
Proving as much, Operation Sandbar recently netted 27 illegal fishers after 12 weeks of day and night, overt and covert, surveillance. Among them were the usual ignorant anglers but, of greater concern, bait-pilfering thugs apparently running lucrative illegal businesses.
The operation seized 16,134 saltwater nippers or $6453.60 worth of live bait. The recreational possession limit for nippers in NSW is 100 per person, but the nipper nabbers don’t give a hoot.
A 29-year-old man from Lurnea was caught on three different occasions with a total of 4,292 nippers. He allegedly obstructed fisheries officers and was then caught selling 2,614 saltwater nippers to unscrupulous bait and tackle stores in Sydney’s south. Their owners will also face charges.
Next, a 33-year-old man from Georges Hall was caught on two different occasions with a total of 4,525 saltwater nippers. He also allegedly obstructed fisheries officers and, later, had his boat seized.
Another 33-year-old man, this time from Guildford, was also apprehended on two separate occasions, with a total of 3,120 saltwater nippers. We have it on good authority that the bait thugs have been operating unchecked for some time at Maianbar in Port Hacking, which was the focus of the operation.
Your fishing columnist contacted a bona fide licensed bait collector being dudded by the bait thieves, but he refused to be named for fear of reprisal. The poor chap has had altercations with the thugs in the past, his car was fire bombed, and death threats were made to his family.

The worm has turned

A new wonder worm called the Botany Bay wriggler has arrived at select bait-and-tackle stores. Actually, the worm has been around for eons, but it’s only now being harvested and sold commercially.
Jeff Cozens, a licenced bait gatherer, reckons his new bait leaves any other live worm for dead. Fished in the same spot against beach and blood worms, the wriggler is simply streets ahead.
“I was pulling out fish after fish while others using lesser worms, fished right alongside me, are hanging there waiting for a bite,” Cozens said from Seal Rocks, moments before heading off to catch a bag of beach worms with his bare fingers.
Something of an authority of worms, Cozens rates a live (farmed) tube worm a 3/10, a blood worm a 6/10, a beach worm a 8/10 and a Botany Bay Wriggler – wait for it – a 20/10. Thus, the worm has turned.
Using wrigglers, Cozens took a bag limit of bream and big winter whiting at The Entrance this week. The biggest whiting landed measured a whopping 43cm and tipped the scales to 920 grams. That’s akin to a King George from southern states.
Among the shops selling the Botany Bay wriggler are Mac’s Bait near Tom Ugly’s Bridge. “It’s everything it’s cracked up to be and I reckon it will out fish any other bait in my shop,” said Andrew Lazarides.
Lazarides wouldn’t divulge any information about how the worms are harvested but says he tests, evaluates and recommends.
“There’s a lot of baits out there but that’s not what it’s about. If it doesn’t produce results what’s the point?
“The wriggler will outfish all other live baits and won’t disappoint. That’s a big call but it’s a confident call. Whiting and bream love them,” Lazarides says.
Measuring about 100mm long, the wrigglers are said to be easiest of all worms to keep alive, which is another reason tackle shops love them. Additionally, due to new marine parks in Moreton Bay, the live blood worms industry is on its last legs.
The bottom line? The Botany Bay wrigglers cost $8 a bag of about dozen worms. The queue starts here.

The King and I

You don’t need a costly study to reveal that communing with nature is a large part of the appeal of angling. Take the call we fielded last month from an excited professional skipper who you might think had seen it all before.
You could tell by the tone in Captain Steve Haygarth’s voice that something special had happened. “What’s the biggest kingfish you’ve seen in Pittwater?” he asked excitedly. “Well, I reckon I just saw it right before my eyes.”
Captain Haygarth was working on his boat when the mother of all kingfish took aim at school of sea mullet milling astern. One of the big bully mullet tried to take shelter near his boat’s transom, but the kingfish lined it up and launched an attack.
“The kingfish was just sitting there, with this mullet in its mouth. I could have gaffed it while it was gagging on the meal,” Haygarth said, adding that the kingfish was easily 15 kilos.
Sharp eyesight, well-honed powers of observation and a pair of top quality polarised sunglasses are key angling tools. But it stands to reason that the more hours spent on or around the water, the more you will see, too.
Among the encounters etched in my grey matter are a jumbo jewfish seen swimming in less than a metre of water off Curl Curl beach, oodles of marlin free-jumping off Sydney on a late-autumn day, and a morning on Sydney Harbour where sharks carved the surface to foam.
Of course, whales are a big attraction at this time of year. We’ve had them breach behind our boat and follow us from reef to reef. But if the weather is against you this winter then try catching that jumbo kingfish in protected Pittwater. A big live mullet might be the ticket.

fishDavid Lockwood’s Guide to Fishing – July

There’s an old proverb that says winter either bites with its teeth or lashes with its tail. But while the weather commands respect, the fish are brimming with health-giving Omega 3 oil and ripe for eating.
It’s for this reason that the very best sashimi emanates from cold water. Take the prized – albeit overfished – southern bluefin tuna. When devoured raw, the fish leaves a wonderfully unctuous coating on the mouth.
Of course, any seafood lover worth his salt will source fish from cold water. I’m familiar with a top Japanese restaurant in Maroochydore, also a popular haunt of that lauded Sydney chef Tetsuya, that flies fish in daily from the southern states.
But for we anglers, sourcing fresh fish is much easier. To the usual list of suspects hanging around after the Indian summer, you can now add Australian salmon, tailor and trevally, maybe barracouta, cowanyoung and snook before too long, and most definitely luderick and squid to the list.
Oh, and don’t forget the prized John dory, arguably the best-eating winter fish of all. Dangle a live bait over the side and you should be ably rewarded.
Of course you need to stay safe on the water in winter when the threat of hypothermia increases. But with the East Australia Current in retreat and the cool southerly and westerly winds upon us, it’s time to forsake the armchair angling for some cold-water trips instead.
Even in the protected estuaries you’ll find fish for the frying and, with shorter days, you can sit down to that healthy fish dinner at a respectable hour.
Harbour highlights include loads of luderick, leatherjackets, plenty of bream and trevally. Guide Craig McGill also lost a trevally to a big kingfish mid-week and there have been giant schools of Aussie salmon parked between The Heads.
Hawkesbury guide Ron Osman has been landing oodles of fat luderick and leatherjackets in Brisbane Waters. Bream and trevally are also about Broken Bay if you berley.
On the beaches, tailor and Aussie salmon are the targets. But don’t discount the chance of jewfish and bream around the rocky corners.
Smaller jewfish are snapping in the estuaries, and July is the month for them and hairtail in Cowan Creek. The catch is you have to brave the night cold.
Bream are on the chew at Flint and Steel, only on the turn of the tide, and leatherjackets are even more common. Aussie salmon and tailor are lurking down deep.
Offshore, the 100-metre reefs have been absolutely loaded with bait fish, big kingfish and bonito. But there were packs of 80-120kg oceanic whaler sharks snapping at just about every hooked fish up off Terrigal way.
Kept at bay for much of June, Central Coast charter skipper Paul Minto says he’s “back to eating baked beans.”
But the lean pickings for fellow charter skipper Scott Thorrington are because of fish-pilfering sharks and line-snipping leatherjackets.
Meantime, at least one Sydney tackle shop said it’s been the quietest three weeks on record. Cold, windy and wet, winter mightn’t be conducive to rolling out of bed, but providing you stay safe the fishing is firing.

Contact this column at david.lockwood@bigpond.com

Fishing Key July 2010Fishing Key —

AS   Australian Salmon
Schooling fish that enjoys the cool winter waters. Troll minnow lures, cast small metal lures or saltwater flies, try soft-plastic lures and pitch live baits to the fish. Enjoy the sport of catching and Aussie salmon and keep one or two fish for a robust fish meal or the hot smoker. The fish doesn’t keep or freeze at all well.
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. Or try using the latest soft-plastic lures jigged around the harbour wharves, jetties and rock walls on ultra-light flick sticks and 4kg braided line with a 4kg monofilament trace.
JD   John Dory
A stealthy predator usually caught in ones and twos from the harbour’s deep holes and wharves where schools of yellowtail gather. Use a live bait suspended in mid-water under a bobby cork. Fights like a wet sock but taste incredibly good, though you get a small return in fillets. A real winter treat.
LU   Luderick
Herbivorous, with a taste for green weed, luderick are one of the most common fish in temperate estuaries. They inhabit deep rocky shores, sidle-up to pylons and piers and school over seagrass beds. Suspend some green weed bait (collected from the rocks or around ocean pools) about three metres below a perfectly weighted float. Berley with chopped weed and sand. First hour of the run-out tide is best. Bleed the fish, fillet and skin them, and cook and serve as you do veal schnitzel.
S   Snapper
Fish the inshore reefs in 30-50 metres of water with 6kg-10kg tackle. Anchor up and berley with chopped pilchards and chicken pellets. Drift a half pilchard bait on a 4/0 chemically-sharpened hook back down the berley, with a pea-sized running sinker or just enough lead for the bait to waft down to the bottom. Dawn and dusk is best.  
T   Tailor
An aggressive schooling fish, named for its ability to slash baitfish to ribbons, the tailor is a snap to catch. Troll or cast and retrieve lures around the schools of fish hunting around headlands and estuaries in winter. Or cast a pilchard from the shore or boat during the flood tide and at night around Sow and Pigs or The Spit.
TR   Trevally
A soft-mouthed schooling fish that generally lays low in the water column. Use plenty of berley, light line and soft baits such as peeled prawn, tuna cubes or pilchard fillets. Drift the bait to the bottom on a 1/0 light-gauge hook. Go slow when fighting the fish or you will tear the hook from its mouth. Bleed and eat fresh.