Goodz, nice to meet you. We had a terrific day, all 3 of us had to give up due to arm burn........way to go. Ventured out to the outer barge, south barge and also one other wreck which I dont know the name for, got fish on all of them but North thickest.

Neil was out there with his missus in the big 42 ft ex cray boat.

Had a nice dip out there before we left, what a magic day.

Chrisp shold have a post up soon.  

Actually that was Mightymouse's SeaSwirl Striper, with Len, Guy and myself on it.

Indiana, perhaps that was his boat Legendre?

Trolled up a couple SBTs on thge way in and washed the boat down.

Dinner pics up soon!

Sounds like you boys had a great day out, Lucky Buggers!!

Legendre belonged to that Neil bloke that John mentioned Till.

Yeah was a great day.... non stop action and great weather for most of the day.

Thanks again John for getting me and hotdogs out there, top skip and a top day

Yeah Honsu was out there, on my boat. Deffinately was a great day out, plenty of Ambers And couple of small sambos on the other wrecks

Cheers
Justin

hey john f

we seen you go for a dip, the water was still abit cold for me mate.

but it would of proberly helped me!!!

We (me, lamby and chuditch) hit the southern most barge about 11ish (that was us JNG that ran into you guys on the south barge) after spending the morning trolling for tuna off west end. Picked up 4 tuna then a couple of small sambos. Finished it off with a quick dive where the cray pots will be going. Was a bit chilly in the water but a good way to end the day.

Am struggling now at work though after a 5.30am wake up. Roll on 1130pm !!

Really good fun today,also saw Samc and simmo out there.

Who's was the centercab (was it a formosa? I dunno) with the fishwrecked sticker on it?

Forgot to mention JustDhuIt out there too.

Hi guys,

Great day on the water sure had some fun out there and great to see you guys from fishwecked out there aswell

Bring on November for the sambo's

hey goodz

did you guys see the whales?

they were heading straight for us and i was getting a bit nervous with the whale reports of late, but luckerly, about 50mtrs away they dove down and we didnt see them again.

cheers ron

fisho ron...yeah, we headed back to the north barge in the arvo and usd the light PE2 stuff as the arms could not hold onto the stella anylonger....had a ball on the light stuff and emding with a swim was great.

Just had a terrific dinner......fresh amber, good as it gets in my book.

Hey fellas, we had a great day running in the gear and the arms ready for the big fish soon. I pulled a few in on the big rod and then switched over to my pe2 rod, ambers go so hard just love hearing the braid peel off the reel. We jigged till about 11 then drove in with the whales everywhere and then trolled for a bit and got into the sbt. Leah got her 1st tuna with double hookups not hard. Now at work pretty buggered! Il post my report morrow morning when i wake up. Good to meet a few of you fellas out there!

We also kept 2 ambers and a tuna for mum n dad and i kept a tuna for ourselves for a fillet and one for the neighbours. Amberjack a amazing in a curry just like spaniards i believe.

What size AJs we talking about guys?

I'm heading out with a couple of mates tomoz...

We mostly got 3-6kg fish one went around the 8kg though which gave me some curry on the pe2. I got into some sambos aswell they were around the 3-5kg mark

4-8 kg maybe. Biggest going 90cm for us.

Sweet.  Thanks for the heads up, will throw in some ligher gear too then.

sounds like you guys were out there having all the fun. and who said the ban is no good , just look at the fish your getting and the fun your having. no need to go to the gym

bugger. sounds like i missed a riot out there.

were the ajax fussy ??

I found them a little fussy. They liked a smaller target than the Sambos, and they don't respond to raw speed like them either.

I couldn't drop anything they would even bother hitting on PE4, and I don't have a PE2 jigger ATM, or smaller tail-weighted jigs.

Pretty funny, but I ended up jigging with a 7' rod and a reel with no ARB, it was hideous.

hmmm.

which jigs were you using that got hits and what weights?

will r2s do?

think a visit to the tackle shop is in order.  again .

I think the best results were on Smith Mejume 200g & Sidethrusters, samiki groover(?) and I got a lot of attention on a Yambal Cakra Zero 110g before it accidentally got sawed off.

I got a single fish on a searock, but they weren't exactly loving it. Best jig on our boat was some $9 no-name piece of rubbish!

It was my first time out there on the jigs, and thanks to Goodz I had a great time. Apart from my sounder being out of its depth (literally) we had success. I know we will be heading back to good old 008 and Len again. Not so sure the 30lb on my 180000 Spheros will be too good on the big boys though, anybody got a spare spool to suit that they want to sell?

They didn't seem to care what size or type of jig for us, as long as it had some pink on it. We caught on everything from 120g (I think we got that low, Goodz?) up to 300g. Possibly the bigger/longer ones got hit a bit more. I think we tallied just over 20 fish boated for the day, of which three quarters were Ambers

Yep it was a good day out on the barges, it was the first time we had been there , and there were a few rigs out there, we managed about 8 ambers and 1 sambo , found them abit touchy for a while but found we needed to drift right over the container for best result, at one stage there was twenty boats there with no problems workingtheir own drift patterns, found the best colour was blue and silver and next was green 200g knife jigs.  i took several photos and worked out a few of the other FW rigs which i will post up later , good to see them out there and i dont think you could have got the weather any better

winnie blues was out there. we were the 6th boat out there, and when we left, we were the 18th boat!! seen til, just1morecast, just dhu it, schecky, and a few others. plenty of medium sized ambers, but we were definately over-gunned, with 50-80lb on stella 20k's and torsa 30's. my mate tried a soft placcy on 10lb, but got shmooooked!!  still good fun though, and we even kept 2 for tucker, one of which is getting smoked tonight.

it was really good to see there was no nastiness out there, as everyone was fishing on top of each other, sometimes within a metre or so of other boats. everyone knows the routine of taking your turn on the drift, and there is no need to push in.

Everyone was very calm out there for sure. It was great.

We were getting hook ups on every drift over our marks, but then suddenly everyone started drifting about 50m north of us. Couldn't figure out why most the others did that.

well done boys, I'm mighty jealous as I had to pack box's and start my move this weekend :-(

Hey guys ,what a fantastic day ......Like Cammos we had never had a good with the jigs before ......what a hoot , definately a jig convert .

Thanks to John for helping us along with some advise on location and technique ,what was it ( the more jig like an idiot the more fish you seem to catch ) .

After a couple of  fun catching amberjack in the middle of the parking area ,we started to run out of chage for the parking meter and decided to head for another wreck site that I had logged . There were no amberjack ,but we found it alive with sambo's , we

finally decided that we had caught enough ( 25 fish )  by about 1 and decided to that a slow cruise back to Hillary's was in order ,lunch and beers.

Thanks also to Brody , who got us set out with some new combos and jigs to get the job done ..........

Was a fun day for sure. We boated over 30 fish, several triple hooks up and at one stage we had all 3 lines tangled, wish fish on......managed to untangle and get all 3 to the boat.

We went through several patches, with Chrisp cleaning up first  thing, a fish every drop, then Schecky changes jigs and became the man up till lunch. After lunch, I tied on a 120g shout Stay and it did the business, and Chrisp lost his favourite jig after which things went slow for him.....certainly seemd that jig type made a big difference yesterday....generally, the more expensive, the better.................hmmm.

Convert to PE2, was much easier on the body than the PE5 stuff, and I found tha more pressure you put on the ambers, the harder they went anyhow.

Thanks Schecky and Chrisp for a great day

John

Hey guys, we where there the first time yesterday.

We started with some trolling at the west end ( with not much sucsess, just one tuna). Later we thought to go a bit deeper and spottet the school of boats , as we didnt now anything about the barges, we started heading towarts the boats in the hope of some fish. We followed the drift pattern of the other boats and we did hook up in some nice fish. ( Thanks guys). We stayed until bout 4pm and where the last boat out there. But we didn't spot structure on the sounder and after the last boat left we didn't manage to find fish again.And as i read there must be another barge out there? Is there a way of gettin the marks for that 2 barges?

Thanks a lot

Seb

maybe you guys can give me some advice then.

we only got 2 and i thought they were sambos not sure now!

everyone was nailing them all over the place.

anyway, i am no expert on jigging and was only the second time trying, i got the boys to try 5-6 differant colors, from yello's, yellow+red,blue,pink,purple, silver all of 200g i think they were.

they are cheapy knife jigs as well, but as till said, there best boat jig was a cheapy.

in the end i got 1 of them to switch to a bait rig and thats what they got them on, plus the big skippy. good old squid

also not a set jigging rod, just some penn snapper rods i have, not knowing to much i told the boys to whatch evryone else and do what they are doing,

so the questions are.....because the boys and myself want to have another go at it soon.

1..should i be buying a set jigging rod/reel, if so who has one for sale and how much.

2..should i be getting some better jigs..i think there is some 300g ones in there as well.

3..is there something were doing wrong(except for the drinking part) i didnt mind because i fished the top 30mtrs all day, thats were i got my sp/mack last year.

either way the boys had a great day and couldnt belive the amount of fish people were bringing in.

any info appreciated

cheers ron

Fisho-ron.......a year ago I was using some old bottom bash gear and knew nothing about jigging.....and after several very painful hours out at the barges last year, I got one Sambo despite fish all over the sounder. Now, I own about 3 grand worth of pure jigging tackle....does that make me an expert....umm, no.....I have had a couple of 17 year olds on my boat who have made me look like an idiot (not hard some would say....).

But now I catch fish on jigs reasonably well, and have started venturing into the lighter line classifications, if only so you can get one of those Hosu photos with the rod in your gob......Sunday was one of those special days where all 3 of us stopped fishing at 10.30am as we had caught so many fish we were completely stuffed....so we headed out exploring the other wrecks....which were another 15 m deeprr....MORE PAIN! 

I suspect your setups were very heavy and slow speed, and the cheap jigs wold not have had much action without going spastic.....which can really only be done for short bursts.

So, for Sambo/Ambo jigging, I recommend going as light as you dare to make it more pleasurable (still pain!), and there is heaps on this site by guys who know heaps more than me, but as  general purpose jig set-up: 

- PE4 short jig rod with LONG butt, as expensive as you can afford.....the rod makes all the difference.

- PE4 reel, around 1m retrieve per wind. Stella 8000 or Saliga 4500 perfect but exy.....lots of cheaper options. I like speed, so have gone Stella 10,000 at 1.18 m per wind.....great for fast retrieve which I still think makes a difference particularly with the straighter jig types but a little harder on the crank......I like it, others dont.

- Jig gloves....I dont have any, on Chrisps sage advice (thanks hotdogs for the blisters....).....get some!!!!! Schecky seems to like yellow filleting gloves.....each to his own!

We all had the most success on PE2 on Sunday, as the Ambers seem much more particular.....Luke indicated this and he was right....definately more fun on PE2 and all the Ambers released very well (except the ones I had for dinner last night).....I have a 7ft general purpose Daiwa Tierra flick ord and Tierra 4000 reel that I took out to flick at tuna....definatley not the perfect set-up, but after seeing the boys having so much fun with their dedicated PE2 jig outfits, I had a go and it was actually a joy to use except the butt was too short, and knocked over the biggest fish of the day.....a big Sambo would have found me out though..... Will be getting a nice PE1-2 jig rod for the Tierra, should be sweet.

Demersal jigging....well, that is a whole new game, much harder, but much more rewarding........generally much lighter, and much slower and listen to Daz, Chrisp, Honsu and the others biys whi actually k now what they are doing.....at the start expect days getting no fish at all........if you cant handle that, stay with bait. 

Looks like everyone had a good day. Well done. Will have to get out there one day.

where are these barges?

Are we talking fads or something else...

A few people have mentioned they lost a few jigs, just how many little ambers are out there with expensive jigs hanging from their mouths? I know I lost 2 and cammos lost 1. The fish weren't huge but they still managed to steal some metal!

about 10k off west end of rotto, usally marked on the mapping gps's, but just head west and look for a carpark of boats.

Will check it out on the gps during the week...

Smith Jacknifer and evergreen caprice lost to the Amber gods, thanks to some dodgy braid and likely dodgy  albright tied under duress (tied whilst watching Chrisp and Schecky on a double hookup)..........cahhhh....ching.

we were out in my seafox saturday and sunday both days on wrecks southwest of rotto ,fishing pe 2 to pe 6 and caught a heap of skippy 2-3 kg and sambos 4-6 kg sounds like it was good on the northern aggs though , i also had a skippy inhaled by something that kept me busy for about an hour on my stella 4000 before it frayed through my bimini, it must have been a big noah!!

...

I was out there on Sunday on JNG's Haines Traveller. Plenty of ambos going around. Surprising no sambos....

Then Monday I went out with SAS's new Boston Whaler. What a beaut day. Didnt find much of the ambos this time. Got one and a skip. Ended up at the derwent and jigged up 3 SBT before we saw birds.
Trolled over and hit a big school of them. All of them just sat around the boat. Was mayhem on everydrop and then I decided to switch to popper!!
Wait til you see the video!!.......
Best 2 days of weather so far!!

Didnt know that was you...there was alot of FW guys out there. Plenty of bling out there.

The Haines is a great boat for the size.Fairly large cabin space and still ample space to fish 3. Rides really comfortably, even at speed, 30kn+

The Boston Whaler is a Conquest 255. Obviously a whole lot better and with two 150 Verados (very economical). Its a very comfortable walkaround. Very stable, 3 of us on one side. Plenty of console room for electronics. The nicest part was the throttle control, full electric dual control. Currently has Lowrance HDS 10 and Navman 8084. Just need to upgrade the Navman to a Furuno 295 and a scrub!! (boat was covered in Tuna blood yesterday)

BUT it is more than double the price of the Haines. I reckon Haines Traveller are good value boats.

This is the boat he bought.

http://boatsonline.com.au/boats-for-sale/used/power-boats/boston-whaler-255-conquest/73851

hey honsu saw you out there on monday it was pretty average fishing compared to what sunday sounded like but was such great day on the water

that boston looked great we stayed out till 230

was not too happy with one boat out there  they caught a little sambo and left him struggling on the surface only to go try catch another why do people go out there if they wont look after the fish we got the little guy down on the realease weight

Good onya Supervisor, good to see ya goig the righty even if others are not.

Gotta say, almost everyone on Sunday was very well behaved boating wise and responsble with releasing fish. I never saw one fish on the surface, but must say, I think the ambers go back much easier than sambos.

The only poor form on the day I saw was from my good self.....we headed up wind of a 580ish  trailcraft but by the time we got the sea anchor in, had drifted almost on top of them, and by then had a hookup.....sorry fellas, my bad. We hit the motor and dragged the amber and the sea anchor 10 m away, but bad form all te same.

Apart from that, everyomne was excellent, and always nice saying gday to others close by. After a while, we did head off to get some fresh air....plenty of other wrecks within 5 km to choose from. 

I think everyone drifted within a few metres of someone else at some point in the morning particularly. Everyone was pretty cool about it, which pleased me after some of the pinging stories I hear about.

If you go out there ready to get agro you may as well stay home and kick someones cat.

hey honsu did i hear you lost the sounder out there?

what was the prob?

Something is not registering on the Navman 8084. No bottom or depth reading. Got the new Lowrance HDS10 but no transducer for it as it was gonna used for plotting only. Oh well.....we found fish regardless.

Mates plan was use it and later replace it with a Furuno

yeah lost as in not working that must have sucked

ooohh... yeahhhh.....but Im glad we found other fish on the surface.

how deep are the barges i was looking at getting into jigging and just want to know wat im looking at

110m