Pay a visit to the fish factory and pick up some fresh bait, mullet, both fillets and whole fish and whiting heads, they seem to do better than mulies up there

Turn up the hill on Durlacker street, next to the Heritage pub, and turn left at the end, should be about 400 metres down on your right

 will defo do that, had heard you cant beat whiting heads for snapper

thanks for the tip 

There are a lot of boats (car park full) but only a small portion are normally in the Fishing Fiesta. The Fiesta week is a good fun with lots of things on and weigh in from 4pm to 6pm, which is worth a look. Catch some butter fish in the bay and snapper love them also. Enjoy your trip and may see you trip as normally great weather.

 We have fishing the Fiesta before, great comp really well run, great weigh in every night. Get to see some cracking fish that's for sure. We fished very casual but always wandered down to the weigh in 

 thanks guys, yeah the temptation is to avoid it but it strikes me as a great opportunity to learn from the experts.

will try to embrace and will definitely give a full report when i get back

Straith,

Hoping to get there myself in May (for the umpteenth time !), we are booked from 3rd until 25th and staying in Denham, battling some health issues at the moment but blood counts are looking promising, so will all come down to whether or not docs give the OK.

If I make it, will keep an eye out for your Hydrofield and come say hello, I'll be taking my Barcrusher 730HT, blue in colour.

Rods I usually take:

24kg combo for out past Steep Point.

Demon Blood 72MH (PE 3-5) with Saragossa 500 & 30lb line for most of the fishing inside Denham Sound, a bit heavy but you need to skull drag at times to beat the sharks, also gives you the upper hand if you hook into a big cod.

Terez 7'2" 15-30lb with Sustain 5000 and 20lb line for soft plastics (although have found this a bit light if you start getting sharked).

These are the three main setups I use up there, but also take along a light spinning rod for whiting, squid etc and a couple of jigging rods for if the urge strikes.

If you are into trolling then whatever takes your fancy, personally I rarely troll, for some reason I tire of it very quickly.

And a few spares rods for emergencies in case one goes overboard or gets broken.

And as Carnarvonite said, whiting heads fron The Fish Factory are killer bait. Squid also top bait, either catch it there or take your own (we do both).

Also if you hook any of those lizard fish, put a hook through them and send them back down, the fish love 'em.

Will also mention that the last couple of trips we have started using NW blowies for bait, heard about it years ago but avoided the temptation until recently. Killer bait, especially on the pinks.

Good luck and hopefully see you there.

Straith,

To answer your other questions, paternoster we only use when fishing outside Steep Point/west of DHI, expect to snag up at some stage out there but no worse than bottom bouncing anywhere else.

Inside Denham Sound we fish a running sinker down to a swivel then half metre to metre 100lb jinkai leader with single hook (or couple of hooks snelled), snags really a not a problem fishing inside, sharks always more of a problem than snags...

Not sure about GTs, I've heard they're about, but never chased them, Carnarvonite or stephenm on this site may be able answer that for you being ex locals. There's definatelly some huge tailor to be caught though.

We've found that the mackies are usually a bit quiet come May, but others may disagree. We've done OK trolling in close along the cliffs west of DHI on mackies and yellow fin tuna at times, but that was more March/early April.

Feel free to PM me your number if you want, although I'll be keeping an eye out for your boat at the ramp. What dates will you be there ?

Now I just have to get the final OK from the docs, will all come down to blood test results next Monday, fingers crossed !