PDA

View Full Version : Got out off Sydney & Finally some warm water


imnotafish
02-03-07, 10:17 PM
Went out off Sydney once more on wednesday to find some nice flat seas, no wind and finally finally some warm blue water. Strangely enough cos of that massive eddy working the waters off sydney, the current bringing the hot stuff was coming up from the south. There were three distinct licks of water with massive temp breaks. (22 at the heads - then 23 about 3 miles out - up to 24.9 about 5 miles out, then back to 22.5 at the wave rider and as you got further out it went back to 23.5 and apparently toward the shelf it got closer to 25.5). Step one get dollies finally paid off, as the wave rider produced like a storm cloud in the wet season. 10 small to mid sized new season dollies took our little yakkas (we only had two small enough), then our pillies, and finally even a small rogers popper. After an hour tho it was shut down time, and the time was at hand to search for greener pastures. Trolling a few lures out to about the 12 mile mark found water only one degree warmer than the 22.5 at the wave rider, less than was expected thats for sure, and the concensus was that the warmest water seemed to be the 24 stuff closer to shore. Another five miles back in we had proof, with 24.2 then 24.7 then 24.9 beautiful blue waters shimmering with promise. Suddenly, a fin, and not a shark either but a sizeable black marlin just tailing around on the surface in front of us. One of the smallest dollies we caught had been kept live in the tank for just such an occurance, and after a hectic 30 seconds of "where the is the f****** livey rig", and "get that lure in" etc, we had the bait in the water. Twas all to no avail tho, we were too slow and the fish was too uninterested. Anyway it was enough to get us well gee'd up for the next day. Drifted in the arvo for a marble flatty and a decent mowie before the big storms blew u;p and time to head home.
Thursday was much rougher. sometimes the forecast just aint up to the mark. must have been cos of the storms. What was meant to be 1m swell on 1m seas was at least double that with a fair bit of wind chop on top. Still after the day before it wasnt gonna stop us (now in two boats with two more accomplices!). But what a difference a day makes. the water was pretty similar temp wise, but the current had almost stopped, and the no run no fun rule was in full effect at the wave rider. Two dollies between both boats, and smaller than the day before too. At least we got Shlaterz got on to his first dolly ever. Not huge by any means but still bought a smile to his face! :cool-smiley: Went back in to the fisheries FAD trolling xmas trees and hooked a little fish on the way by it. We stopped and thew some unweighted pillies down at it, for much better results. An hour and a half of pretty tasty, and just generally pretty dollies (tho pretty small) kept us happy before twas time to head home leaving em biting. Kept shlaterz happy for the day anyway.:hot tail:
Also when we cleaned the fish we found these strange fish in their stomaches. I was struck by how they looked like they had bands like a coral snake (but less colourful) on their bodies. And that their heads were much bigger than their bodies.
We found 5 of them all up in the stomaches of the dollies we got off the wave rider, but none in the other dollies of the fisheries FAD.
Does anyone know what they might be??
The arent frost fish - thought maybe they r a sea snake or something except the had sort of whiskery fins running the length of the body top and bottom??
Ideas please!!!:3d hi:
Stef

TomMc
02-03-07, 10:31 PM
them fish look like sea snakes to me, maybe you should send a photo or one of the snakes to fisheries and see wat they say?
Tom

imnotafish
02-03-07, 10:58 PM
Yeah i should have frozen them i guess so i could send em off but im sure they cant be too obscure. i will email a few people who might know but if anyone does know would love to hear.
emailed a mate who was out there at the same time as me and got this response

"By the size of eye and general appearance I would say
a deep sea species that rises to the surface to feed at night.
and was probably eaten at the first hint of light - it was a cloudy morn
too- so not long before we got out there. I would say the dollies prob travel down up to 20 or 30 meters, and at first light they slowly move toward the surface using the first light to find prey by their shadows !!! as fish like this retreat to deeper darker water the dollies are rising beneath them easily see their outlines in the first hour of light.
this is not the type of fish to be swimming around on the surface
in broad daylight."

p.s. beneath is a pic of shlaterz boat - the 5.4 m plate alloy dolly slayer!!

JOC00L
03-03-07, 01:02 AM
Sure are wierd ass looking fish. Baby Hairtail???:rolling laughter: :rolling laughter:

Sweet looking boat. Who made it?

xtosea
03-03-07, 08:08 PM
Nice to see a few Dollys around. Last season got 2 9kg Females and they had something similar to those skinny long things in them. No one could identify it for me either. They looked like this.
Beats me!

xtosea
03-03-07, 08:09 PM
I found this on another site the other day, and i must say Dollys eat anything and everything!

imnotafish
04-03-07, 02:02 AM
what the f********* r those wierd puffbals kamil???
i thort the snake things r weird!!
anyway have sent the pics of them to a marine biol so will let you know as to what they r
cheers mate
S

dkfisher
04-03-07, 01:41 PM
ok the snake things are weird but what the hell are thoses things

TomMc
04-03-07, 06:09 PM
holy hell they remind me of them furbie things! there just plain WEIRD!!!!

Bass flicker
04-03-07, 07:45 PM
Im super keen to hear what those things are! If you cant get an I.D on them you could send an email to the Icthiology department at the sydney museum. I got to do a behind the scenes tour of the fish specimen collection. Those guys REALLY know their stuff!

TomMc
04-03-07, 08:19 PM
umm this reminded me about an article i read a year or 2 ago it was about these long thin fish that bit onto the tounge of the fish and sucked all the nutrients out and the fish eventually died!
Tom

imnotafish
04-03-07, 08:49 PM
Hey bass flicker have you got an email address for the museum by any chance?

Haji
04-03-07, 11:52 PM
I believe that juvenile eels (elvers) travel long distances over many parts of the world's oceans and look something like your snakes. Will be very interested to learn what they are. Dr Julian Pepperel, a regular collumnist for some of the fishing mags would know for sure. He may include his email in his articles, otherwise a call to one of the popular mags should enable you to pass details on for him to get back to you.
Cheers
Haji

dkfisher
13-03-07, 05:03 PM
hey stef
had a mate look at the pic of those snake like things, he thinks they may be juvenile oarfish but his going to chase it up for ya within the next few days

dave

Bass flicker
13-03-07, 10:11 PM
This should get you to the museums fish finder. Im sure you can get in contact with someone from there.

http://www.amonline.net.au/fishes/fishfacts/index.cfm

xtosea
13-03-07, 10:23 PM
Those hairy things are porcupine fish, the other fish, the conclusion i came to was either Oarfish or Bandfish as has been said

dkfisher
14-03-07, 06:22 PM
mate has had a look around and also thought they could be juvenile conger eels but realistically, could be just about any juvi of the Anguilliformes. hard to say for sure with a specimen at that size.