Downrigging

[Sean Uren]

I really have not heard of anyone on the Gold Coast or read anything on here about using downrigging.
Has this been tried and tested in the Seaway or just something that hasn’t taken of here yet???>

My plan or arrival here was to get some livies & start downrigging around the Seaway in search of Mr Kingfish and other fish that like slowly trolled livies.

Be interesting to see if it has been trialed here & what success was had

[Craig]

Not many people use downrigging in the seaway(I’ve only seen one guy doing it), I’ve always wanted to try it but never got around to buying the gear. I think it would work really well, but it would take a while to sort out the best places to try it. I think along the inside of the south wall, over the pipeline, along the north wall from the square rocks east along the line would work well. You would have to be careful around the pipe not to run your bomb into it and stopping the big kings hooked there would be damn near impossible.

The kings say hi!

[Sean Uren]

Sounds good then,
I have a fairly good unit I bought a few years ago,
The company I bought it from are going to send me some free samples in 10 days time to try out on the Seaway Kings.
They have been trialing them out down in Sydney harbour and offshore on the Kings and have had a lot of success.
So hopefully it will a winner in the seaway.
Gear yeah, I might look funny with with big powerful rods in the Seaway,
But a funny story I have from this.
A few years ago I heard there were some big kings in Lake Macquarie,
So we sourced some big green eyed squid & was setting up the downrigger & a guy in a boat about 10m away yelled out a smart remark “”what do you think your going to catch in here with that rod, (TLD 25) in here.
The bomb didn’t even get to the bottom when a 1.2m King grabbed it.
The guys eyes near popped out of his head, He yelled out what the hell is that, I said nothing, its a pigment your imagination.

Once I’ve trialed and tested it in the Seaway, I can lend it to you to have a go before you think about buying one if you like.
Its a rod holder mount one.

[Craig]

Heavy gear is quite commonly used by livebaiters in the seaway, still doesn’t seem to matter much to the real big fish, though if you hook them away from structure you are in with a chance. I’ve been busted off multiple times on 50lb overhead gear, there some big kings in there, biggest I have seen went 23kg(1.7m). Also big cod, sharks, groper will give you some grief if you hook them. It’ll be interesting to see how you go.

[Sean Uren]

I had my first run out the other day in my little poly,
Couldnt find any livies So we just pretty much looked around & flicked a few lures around for 2 tailor & 3 Golden Trevs.
I decided after the last session that the poly boat just isnt big enough for what I need in the seaway.
So today I went out and bought a better boat that will suit the seaway & get me comfortably out to the live bait grounds outside.

As for Kings in shallow water, yeah your 100% right, you lose 90% of the battles with them,
But that to me is more fun than catching them every time.
Some of my most memorable days chasing kings in Jervis Bay seen us go through over 100 Livies, a spool of leader & 2 packets of live bait hooks without landing a fish.
Now I want to fish the weather has turned ugly lol.

[Craig]

The best fishing is when the weather is bad Sean. Not many people go out in it but the fish love it and in the seaway you are reasonable protected. Here’s a good example of what can happen when you fish the bad days.

Seaway and Broadwater Report Monday 18th April 2011

BTW you got 3 golden trevs in 1 day? Thats great going! Just catching one is a fair effort. What lure did you get them on and where did you get em?

[Sean Uren]

Not sure what the lure was, but it was only a small lure the size of the whitebait, cast up in close to the pipe on the northern wall close to the channel marker.
Couldn’t agree with you more, Even offshore fishing is at its best when its uncomfortable to be out there.
Just bought a slightly better boat for fishing the Seaway the other day.
Its a little 3.6m tinny, twin hull at the front and mono at the back.
Took for a test spin Friday night & its a great boat.
Now just going to get it serviced & get out there later this week I hope.
Now I will feel safe heading outside to the bait reefs to catch slimmies and yakkas.

The downriggershop is sending me some new samples to try out in the Seaway on the Kingys in there.

[wayno60]

Hay Sean,

I know this downrigging thing is pretty well known in the southern states but how does it work?, whats the advantages?

cheers
wayno

[Sean Uren]

I have been downrigging for many years now & only wish I started 20 years before I did.
I know lures work on fish, but there are more days when they don’t than day they do, I have noticed most of Craig’s post talk about mainly getting Kingfish in the early mornings and late afternoons, However most guys that use live baits on a downrigger experience them all day long, I like them as they are a gentleman’s hour fish.
U will try not to go into to much depth here, but I might waffle on a bit lol.

I have basically spent the past 6 years targeting Kingfish up and down the sth east coast of Australia from Jervis Bay to Coffs harbour.
I actually learned about it on a forum & the guy who mentioned it didn’t actually ever do it again till he asked me a few years later how I was always catching Kings.
Now Kingfish can not resist a livie that is in trouble, bit like a dog in pack, when one gets hurt the whole pack attacks,
One day we were in Lake Macquarie targeting Kingfish under balloons,
Right on dawn we got a few fish, then went all quit.
Next thing you know there is a massive school of Kingfish well over 200 fish under my boat,
My livies were close to the boat and the kings were swimming up to them and turning away from them like a cat toying with a mouse, the livies were sitting there frozen in fear playing dead.
I sitting there thinking surely one will eat them,
I then rigged up a popper as fast as I could and chucked it out and ripped it back to the boat, heaps kings chased it, but would actually strike at it, tried a 7 inch Gulp. nothing again, they would chase it, but not strike.
In the end I took the balloon of my livie & casted it away from the boat and slowly wound it back towards the boat forcing it to swim, BAM I was on,
This got us to trolling livies & from then on we always smashed them on every trip.

Now the second thing, you can mark the Kings at say 20m, then you can accurately lower the livie to their depth and slow troll your livie at the depth they are holding. This also great for Spanish & Marlin too

One day at the ovens of Sydney we found a good showing of bait on a pinnacle, every pass over we had a double hook up,
My deckie told me to stop and anchor on the pinnacle and we could drop lives down to them,
I said it wont work & he got the shits, so I anchored right on the Pinnacle to prove a point, We had 6 livies in and around the boat from the bottom to the top & not one got taken for an hour,
I then insisted we up anchor and continue trolling, first pass back over right where we were anchored up, bam double hook all day till we ran out of livies.

Once I can finally get out there and source some livies & give it a go in the Seaway I’ll let you all know how it goes.

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