bjorn2fish

What kind of idiot buys a cheap inflatable kayak to fish out of - This sort of idiot👍

Ive already fished out of an inflatable belly boat without putting holes in it - so I figured with the temps dropping, I may aswell get a yak aswell.

Foot room sux bad but the seat is super comfy.

I was chucking big lures for the first 2 hours without a hit - So I swapped down to a 1.5 inch paddle tail. That didnt do much but at least I got a little reddy - Then I decided to troll the 1.5 inch for the last 50m back to the car - thats when the yella scoffed it





 

I'm out here now. Nuff said
 

The fake ZMANS arrived - looking forward to giving these a spin

TERRAIN:  HIGHWAYS TO THE FEEDING ZONES  …  You can sign along to this post !
Yellow Fin Whiting have been showing up in good numbers in both gulfs recently.
But you still need to find them, and fish the right spots … at the right stage in the tide.
YFW are always on the move. Actively feeding on a moving tide. Both in and out going tides.
But there are dead transit zones, over which they will pass through without providing you much of a chance to catch them. These are merely the … Highways to the Feeding zones.
The feeding zones is where you want to be fishing.
In each YFW Habitat there are transit zones and feeding zones.
In the upper gulfs the coastal environment contains a lot more mangroves and samphire beds. Nearest to shore and onshore are the Salt bushes and Samphire bed areas.
On many stretches of the upper gulfs they will also be a mangrove forrest wall.
Through these mangrove forrest flow many small tidal creeks and channels, that pour in and out onto Sandflats. The Sandflats drain out, eventually meeting the ribbon grass weed beds.
In the lower gulfs, the terrain is slightly different without Mangroves and less Samphire.
They are replaced by open sandflats, sometimes with a little scattered reef, and banks of fine seagrass weed beds, that drain out to a weedline of ribbon grass.
Each area has it’s own characteristics and features, which influence the movements and feeding behaviour of the YFW. The all have their transit zones and their feeding zones.
.
WEED LINES.
We start at the deep end, the weedline. This is the first of the habitats in which we find YFW.
The deeper seaside of the sand flats are always bordered by the weed line of sea grass beds. These are usually Ribbon weed or tape weed beds (Posidonia varieties). Often this will be where the bottom of the low tides hold. And were the YFW take refuge on the low tides.
In the lower sections of the gulfs, their cousins the King George Whiting also keep them company at the weed line. Along with many a Flathead too.
The best spots for land based KGW are the weedline areas that receives a natural berley stream from  sandy shallow drains, running off the sand flats.
This habitat is also a favourite for Flathead, which take cover in the weed edges and like to ambush baitfish straying too close.
You will find the larger YFW hanging around here, mixing it with the Flathead and KGW. Large YFW have the speed and morphology to take minnows at the weedline. They are able to chase them down along with any Shrimp that may have come out of the sheltering grasses.
The barrier like structure of the weed beds will mean there is always some channeling through the weed beds, caused by the tidal flows. These channels are the main flow areas during tidal movements, on and off the sandflats.
Focus your fishing at these channel openings, both at the bottom and at the start of the tide.
And in a dodge tide, it is the only place to be. The minimal water flows of a dodge tide will be greatest at these channels, and so stimulate the YFW to feed in that area.

~ King George Whiting, Yellow Fin Whiting and Flathead all found down on the weedline.

~ Find the water flow and fish at the channel openings
SANDFLATS
Sandflats … are never Flat !!!
Sand flats don’t always slope seawards in a continuous gentle gradient. They is more often a series of ridges, gutters, bowls, channels and steps leading down to the weedline.
These are not necessarily dramatically obvious. A 4” to 5 inch depth difference is a significant change in these shallow sandflats.
These structures and variations in the sandflat terrain are the most obvious fish holding areas. The slightly deeper areas of the shallows, are the first areas that YFW will retreat into on a dropping tide, or swim into and hold in, on the incoming tide.
Fish always hold at steps and drops on the sandflats, wether it be the run in or run off.
They prefer to feed on the shallow edges of any deeper water areas rather than in the deep water itself.
If in a fast flowing channel focus on the slow side of a bend in the channel. It is where food would naturally settle and fish will feed. It is where the benthic organisms colonise more with out fear of being swept out by a fast moving tide.
Shallow weed beds of finer bladed, lawn like, seagrasses ( Zostera varieties) are often found on the more open flats lower in the gulfs. They are important for the movements of YFW during the tidal flows. In very shallow water YFW will tend to favour moving along the weed bed edges and take cover in the weed beds. It is an ideal spot to target them in ankle deep water. The water is always a bit deeper alongside the edges of these fine grass weed beds.
Should the wind be a bit strong, YFW will hold on the Leeward side of these beds a bit more. And on light winds with gentle lapping waves, the windward side of these weed beds.

~ The small variations on the sandflats hold the fish
SUBSTRATE on SANDFLATS
Regardless of upper or lower gulf areas, you should identify the substrate that you are fishing on.
As a wading fisherman you can feel and identify the different substrate underfoot.
It is simply either, coarse, gravelly and hard, or soft, silty, and sandy.
I usually move on quickly from the coarser, gravelly areas and onto the finer, siltier, sandy areas.
Coarse gravelly limestone or shell grit areas are not as productive. They do not hold the YFW food so don’t hold the YFW long. It often is a faster flowing area and a transit zone for fish.
You will still catch the odd few YFW as they use it as a highway to the feeding zones. But they won’t hold and feed there.
The feeding zones are characterised by finer, softer, siltier sand beds. Which holds a lot more YFW food. This is where all the benthic dwelling creatures, like cockles, worms and clickers live. All the juvenile prawns that we see leaping around on the surface at night as nocturnals, now bury themselves for the day in the soft sand and silt.
YFW linger a lot longer in these softer sandy areas searching for and feeding on the food it holds.
MANGROVES
Bordering the sandflats on the shoreside in the upper gulfs are often mangrove forests. Amongst the mangrove forest there are clear water ways that channel the considerable tidal movement experienced in the upper gulfs. The tides flow through tidal creeks and mangrove openings and into the samphire beds, or out onto the sandflats. These mangrove openings will hold a greater concentration of fish when the tide is moving.
At times the thick growth and dense mangrove canopy can totally conceal an opening. There are however some tell tale signs of a concealed creek or channel. Ever wondered about those Shags, that regularly congregate on certain mangrove trees overlooking the sand flats. It’s the Shag breakfast club. The shags are there because there is food flowing out there. Minnows, Shrimp and Prawns are being brought out on the falling tide through a creek concealed by the mangrove canopy. The larger YFW are not threatened by the Shags and will also hang out the front of these spots.

~  Mangrove Openings have high flow rates and hold fish
SAMPHIRE BEDS
Once past the mangroves there are obvious narrow channels through the samphire beds. These are invariably gravelly rarely holding benthic species. But they will hold and concentrate YFW passing through that can’t help but see your offering. The YFW like to move up into the muddier samphire bed areas primarily to feed on Haswells crabs and small mud cockles. This is a highway on which you can actually take a toll.
Great spots are Junctions, like one I nicknamed “Gepps X”. It does bring to together a concentration of fish. Even if only a relatively short time at the right time of tide. You can even catch YFW by hand at night in these narrow and restricted spaces.
Google satellite images are the most useful tool you have to help you find the spots and plan your strategy for the incoming and outgoing tide.

~  Fish move into the channels of the Samphire beds
OPPORTUNISTS
This has nothing to do with the terrain. Try casting lures around feeding Eagle Rays on the sandflats.
The YFW often hang around feeding Rays hoping to pounce on food that the Ray has dislodged.
They are in a switched on and opportunistic feeding mode, ready to pounce.
Just offer them your lure instead! This has worked well on a few occasion.
And in the better years now past, when the YFW biomass was not that badly decimated by the pro netting activities, they would also hang around swimmers on metro beaches, in the hope of some dislodged food.
.
 
 
~   A nice Catch wading for YFW
As keen Hunters and Gathers, we always need to stay alert to and aware of all the features in the fish’s habitats and how they will effect our catch rate.
Tight lines all.
Cheers, Des

I have just enjoyed a couple of golden bag out Lure sessions on the “GOLDBARS”.
Two successive days with bag limits of quality fish in the 32 to 41cm range
This time mostly caught on the incoming afternoon tides.




My usual fishing sessions, most often involve some of both the outgoing and the incoming tides.
It is interesting to ponder on, which tide has the best fishing.
There has always been many a discussion amongst Yellow Fin Whiting fisher people as to which tide  is better to fish. The incoming tide or the outgoing.
My view is that varies. Generally it changes with the peak tide cycles, prevailing at that the time of year.
.
Yellow Fin Whiting’s lives revolve around the tides. Especially across the sandflat habitats.
The tides are what provides them access to their feeding grounds or wash out food to them.
So it is no surprise that their feeding behaviour and movements change and mirror the tide cycles.
They do most of their feeding on the biggest tide of the day.
They probably have evolved a 24 hour digestive cycle to match and so have developed a 24 hour hunger/feeding cycle. Hence they soon form a feeding routine that coincides with the biggest tides of the day.
.
Follow the Tide height cycle. By around the end of February the evening tides start to get bigger than the morning tides. This is when I find the YFW feeding behaviour starts to switch from AM to PM.
In the earlier part of the Yellow Fin Whiting lure season, from early October to February, I prefer fishing the bigger run off morning tides. From March onwards I prefer the bigger incoming evening tides.
However I am selective of the tide sizes I choose to fish! They are different tide heights that work better for the outgoing and incoming tides.
The big morning tides of early season, see a lot of YFW move into a wide area of samphire beds and sandflats. The bigger the tides the more fish that move in.
So early season I like to fish the runoff of the biggest morning tides and have a chance of catching the most fish as they beat a path back to deeper water in the outgoing tide.
When it comes to the evening incoming tides late season, it is the opposite. I don’t want to go chasing fish far and wide, spread out by a big incoming tide.
I pick the smallest evening tides to fish. When the fish will be concentrated in a small area. When the competition to feed in a restricted space heats up.
There are exceptions to the rule … but that is a story for another day.
.
There is a slight shift in the availability of food and subsequently successful lure choices with these two tidal situation.
The early season big morning tides, which usually happen before dawn, provide access to a lot of juvenile prawns and Haswell mud carbs. Surface lures are highly successful during this period.
In the smaller evening tides, surface lures also take their share of fish, but subsurface lures are more successful. Especially on the smaller evening tides when the fish are restricted to the more inshore sandflats holding Clickers. So it is reasonable that a subsurface lure bouncing and puffing up the sand along the bottom is likely to be more successful.
.
My go to favourite lures did the trick on these two Golden Sessions. The Bassday Sugapen 95 on the surface, earlier in the run off. Then most fish taken with the Ecogear ZX 43 in the run in, bouncing along the bottom.
There was a new kid on the block this time. It was my first use of the Chasebaits Armour Prawn Vibe 50mm. I had accidentally ordered the wrong colour. I thought I had ordered orange, the go to colour for YFW. But nonetheless it took a nice whiting in the limited time in the water on both sessions. I have yet to figure out the best tow point, the assist hooks to rig, or the best action for these. They look very promising as a sub surface whiting lure and I am keen to try them some more.

 
The Ecogear ZX is a good all rounder and able to attract a variety of fish. Flathead regularly fall victim to this lure. They are a delightful by catch and provide a great fight in very shallow water on your ultra light whiting gear. I managed to land a nice 51cm Flathead in my second session.  I missed a couple on the first day, mainly due to too fast a retrieval speed that I was using to attract YFW.

 ...    It pays to have a few spares when they swallow the whole lure !
 
One of the great pleasures of fishing is getting connected with nature. Becoming in-tuned with the varying seasons. Observing the changes in the habitats and the changes in your target fish’s behaviour.
I find it perfectly summarised in this quote from the famous Canadian, Author, Naturalist and Outdoorsman   … Roderick Haig Brown
"Invoke a mental and physical discipline that goes beyond making a successful catch or kill. Its central virtue is knowledge, intimate and thorough, transcending the pursuit”
Tight lines all.
Cheers, Des

Last night I was fishing at Glenelg; when I was leaving, I saw a few decent schools of YFW cruising the shallows. I hadn't seen them schooled up in such numbers this summer.
The other thing that caught my eye was an enormous flatty stalking the schools of YFW. I've never seen such a big flatty in the metro waters. If I wasn't on my way to catch the last tram of the night, I would have stopped and thrown a couple of lures at it.

With lures I now buy only from Aliexpress. They are much cheaper and even the cheapest lures are durable enough if rigged correctly.
My go to lures are the cheapest. They have cost be about $1.80 for a pack of 10.

These are not very stretchy. Because a jig head holds them firmly in place and they lack stretch they will last only a couple of casts before a tommy rips the tail off. But if rigged on a worm hook and a Carolina rig, I can catch a dozen tommies before losing a lure and when they cost less than 20c per lure you can afford to lose a few. I also find them easier to rig on a hook than Zman lures, but you can't take them off the hook multiple times like Zman if you make a mistake rigging them. I like to rig up several before a session and keep them in a lure box ready to go.


The other Alixpress cheapies are very much like Zman lures and use the same plastic, so have the same stretchy durable qualities. I just ordered three packs of 6 lures and they cost $12.50. They come in good quality packaging.



 

I also wasn't sure about what size weight to use. I read a lot of people recommending to use very small weights. I bought a range of styles of weights in 2gm, 3.5gm and 5gm. I found the cheb style of weight very versatile and easy to change, but now use the bullet weight a lot more as I'm using a Carolina rig mostly. I found the 2gm weights were not very useful and were too effected by wind and current. Now I mainly use 3.5gm, but on windy days I use a 5gm weight, mainly because fishing from a jetty, the wind easily catches your line and you need the extra weight to keep a tight line on the retrieve, otherwise the wind will just put a big bow in your line.

I put this post up in a Facebook group last Autumn ...
 
HAND CAUGHT YELLOW FIN WHITING
As the YFW lure fishing season is starting to wane when Autumn progresses.
I resort to catching them by hand!
At this time of the year YFW are more active in the evening tide and into the night.
They have shifted from their major meal of the day being Breakfast to now being Dinner.
It is not so much water temperatures. But rather it is all to do with the tide cycles.
The YFW behaviour is as strongly driven by the tide cycles as much as it is driven by the water temperatures.
Autumn water temperatures are still holding above 20C and their metabolism and appetites have not yet slowed down.
The evening tide is now the larger more dominant tide. YFW use the largest tide on the day to access many otherwise inaccessible feeding areas.
Their daily feeding cycle and movements have now changed to feeding more in the evenings using the larger evening tides of Autumn.
Morning runoff tides and mid day lure sessions are far less productive now. The better lure fishing sessions now occur during the evening run in tide.
Particularly an evening after a warm day with a strengthening evening breeze and a large tide pushing through the mangroves.
.
However there is only a limited opportunity for lure fishing, before night falls. Whiting Lures don’t work in the dark, and so bait fishing for YFW in the night run off tide is very productive this time of the year  …  Or alternatively for a challenge catching them by hand.
 
In a previous post on YFW Habitats and the food source they held,  I covered a favourite YFW food item. Haswell’s crabs.  ….
It is their love of these little critters that gives you the opportunity to Hand Catch a few YFW at this time of the year.
Under the cover of darkness in the evening tide, the YFW will hang back in the very shallow waters of the littoral zone, as the tide drops. In the narrow channels that run between the Samphire beds.
They wait for the Haswells mud crabs to emerge from their mud holes, that are under and around the samphire beds.  They YFW will linger a long time amongst the samphire beds. A long time after the high tide has dropped, and in very shallow water.

If you are equipped with a bright headlight you can momentarily hold a stunned YFW (not Mullet!) in the shallows long enough to try and grab him.
 
I missed a few by hand tonight. A very still evening meant the tide did not push in as high and not as many fish came in. But nonetheless I managed to catch a dozen on bait in the couple of hours after dark.

 
Try hand catching. A good fun alternative to lure fishing them.
 

 
Cheers, Des

No gut bruises off this guy tonight😉. He was hanging out with a bunch of perch 

A lot of tools you swing have a fat bit at the end - so do my rods 
I originally used fat bits of cork because my guts would get bruised during Jewie season. (I used to fish for them regularly with heavy live bait gear)
Jabbing the rod butt into your guts on the strike and holding it there during the fight can leave a mark with skinny,/poorly shaped or metal butt caps. 
 
I always fish around structure so you have to hit them hard and fight them hard when using heavy-ish bait gear. In one spot I have to strike, then run 30m up the bank, to change the line angle, so I had a chance at getting them out. It was a clumsy affair with lots of adrenaline based gut jabbing. So by the end of the season it was hard to find a spot that isn’t bruised, to rest the rod on. 
 
that’s when I started thinking about comfortable butt caps
The added bonus I hadn’t considered was the ergonomics of having a fatter butt while casting. My rods had slight tapers before I shortened them. But making the butt fatter means you don’t grip as hard. 
 
it not a huge deal but it is noticeable- and it was a pleasant surprise the first time I used one - even my bream rods have them now
 

You're onto it Chuck!
The Strike & Hook Footy Tipping Comp is setup and ready to go. You can follow the link below to join in.
https://www.footytips.com.au/comps/strikehook?p=tipping
Password: tipping 
Good luck fishos  

Seems the Seacliff club has 2 cams now.
Here's the other 'original' still going https://www.ipcamlive.com/slsc

Thanks @bjorn2fish 
Perhaps we can move this great post to that section as an ongoing reference . Ta. 

I've been fishing for over 40 years, so grew up with fibreglass rods, monofilament and bait.
Now I have rod rack full of carbon fibre rods, it took me a bit longer to switch over to braid, but up until recently I was still a bait fisho and just didn't use soft plastics or other lures (except squid jigs). I bought plenty, vibes, hard bodies, soft plastics, and would give them a try but next session I would be back to bait.
But this summer I have taken the time to focus on soft plastics. Sure I still pump nippers for YFW and use gents for garfish, but I've spent most of my time learning to use soft plastics.
My target species for learning more about soft plastics has been the humble tommy ruff and 90% of the time I've targeted them off Glenelg jetty. I think a common species of a local jetty has been a very useful way to learn and is basically full circle back to when I was a kid fishing for tommies off Pt Vincent wharf.
Tommies are an interesting fish on soft plastics. They are fairly abundant and readily take a soft plastic, but when hooked, they go nuts with rapid head shakes and early on I was dropping many fish. First thing I changed was my rod. I was using a Daiwa Crosscast Rockfishing rod, it's a light rod with a fast action, rated for 3-10gm lures. at 7'8" it was a good rod for casting distance, the fast action was good for the initial strike, but it was too fast, too stiff for tommies as it lacked the suppleness to have enough bend to keep the pressure on and soak up the head shakes. Luckily I had the ideal rod in the rack and started to use an Atomic Arrowz Bream Surface. This rod had an immediate impact on my success rate landing fish. I pair this with a 1000 Stradic Ci4+.
Probably the biggest impact has been trying different ways to rig soft plastics. I started out using the standard jig heads most people use. There are plenty of people who use these jig heads with success, but I'm not one of them. So I started to use the American style offset worm hooks, setup like a cheb rig.


 
This was an improvement, but I still was dropping more fish than I was happy with. Like a jig head, the cheb rig has the weight right at the front of the soft plastic and my gut feel was the tommies used the weight and violent head shakes to throw the hook. Next change was to use a running rig setup, or what the Americans refer to as a Carolina rig.

Since changing to this rig, I rarely drop a fish.
Apart from sussing out the right rod and rig, I've settled on S-Factor for scent. I tried Pro-Cure, but it's always out-fished by the S-Factor.
For soft plastics, I most commonly use paddle tail style, but also have success with curly tail grubs. I've tried name brand lures like Zman Slim Swimz and no name cheapies off Aliexpress.

Zman are certainly durable and if using the cheapies on a jighead they get destroyed quickly, however I've found the cheapies are pretty good on an offset worm hook, A jig head holds the lure very firmly and the lack of give means the cheapies have the tail easily ripped off, as opposed to the super stretchy Zman. But on the worm hook, the cheapies are not held on as firmly a get pull down the hook rather than tearing up and last much longer. I vary the size of the cheapies, sometimes using a 5mm and sometimes a 7.5mm, and change depending on what is firing up the fish. As a general rule I find the bigger tommies hit the bigger lures more readily.
It took me a while to get the hang of soft plastics, but now this old dog readily get a feed.



I look at the weather, and if fine, just grab a rod, reel and a few soft plastics; very minimalistic, but a great way to fish and I don't know why I didn't try earlier.

SUNSHINE … ON MY SHOULDERS MAKES ME HAPPY
.
I had checked the weather ahead for this week.
And I could see there was a spell of Sunshine ahead.
So I managed to rearrange my week and set off fishing on this Sunny day.
It was such an enjoyable day, fishing in the brilliant sunny conditions today. And there were some good results.
.
 
Here are a few reasons why sunny days are great for lure fishing Yellow Fin Whiting on the Sandflats.
.
Simply put, on sunny days you will catch more Yellow Fin Whiting !
There is the extra warmth in the water that a sunny day adds. Increasing the fish metabolism and their eagerness to feed.
There is usually much better water clarity on sunny days.
Your lures are so much more visible to the fish.
Bright sunshine will also reflect a lot more off your lures, gaining the fish’s attention from a long way off.
Fish will notice your lure from a much greater distance, and often come hurtling in, at right angles from afar. Most often this happens very late in your retrieve.
Importantly, strong sunshine produces an extra “attractant”. Another stimulus. Something extra for YFW to chase.
The strong overhead sunlight casts a strong shadow from your lure onto the sand below. The stronger the sunshine, the stronger the shadow, and the stronger the stimulus.
Yes, in bright sunshine, you will often see whiting chase the lure shadow cast onto the sand. They will chase and frustratingly grab at the shadow along the sand, before looking up and striking the lure above.
.
The sunny days also provides the fisher with better visibility.
One can clearly see all the terrain on the sandflats. It is much easier to identify and target your casts to known fish holding spots.
Structures like sand steps, shallow ledges, gutters and channels can all be easily seen and cast towards.
You can spot fish a lot easier and further away, in bright sunshine without disturbing them.
Sight casting your lures to and hooking up visible fish while wading the shallows is such a thrill.
The greater visibility of the lure, the chase, the strike, the runs and the fight of the hooked fish, all enhances the experience for the fisher.
It is so much more fun in Sunshine.
.
But really, on these days, it does not matter if you don’t catch fish ! Sunshine on your shoulder just makes you happy.
.
This day started with light winds creating a strong ripple on the surface, under the bright sunshine of a clear blue sky of a hot day.
Clear or lighter coloured lures work better in strong sunshine for me.
These were my successful lures today.

 
Zipbaits Skinny Pop and Fakie Dog DS in their clear colours took fish.
 

Smaller lures are easily seen in bright sunshine, and are a bit more subtle in the high visibility and light wind conditions. .
A new lure I tried for the first time today; Zipbaits ZBL Zoea Lipple 45F Floating Lure Col:248. A small juvenile shrimp imitation worked very well. I think they may have been designed for Bream but I knew they would catch YFW on days like today.

 
Jackson Ebi Panic in the clear colour comes to the fore in these conditions.
The ever reliable Sugapen in MB16 was still producing the goods. Although it was the smaller 70mm that was successful rather than my fave size, the 95mm.

.
As every thing is seen so much clearer on these days, I don’t like to give shy fish a second look at the lure immediately. If they have chased the lure and have not committed, my next cast will be 90 degrees away to let them settle before I cast back at them. On windy and cloudier days fish are more aggressive and you can send repetitive casts their way with out scaring them off.
.
The breeze died down later in the afternoon. And the water had glassed off.  Fish were getting timid, not hooking up well with many dropped fish.
I finished with 16 fish. Ranging in size, from 30 to 40CM. With 5 fish around the 40cm mark.
.
Sunshine on my shoulder made me very happy on this day.
Cheers, Des
 

This was one of my better trips to a small stream when the trout were on fire..
cheers
Adrian
 

Hi Darryl,
Here's an old YouTube video of a similar set of tongs that I used back in the day when I lived in Sth Aust and fished for KGW in the Outer Harbour area on the opposite side of the revetment wall, mine only has two tongs on each  side and they worked very well, I used to get plenty of razor fish there.. Plus I don't thing Panga (Linsay) comes on the site anymore, haven't heard from him for ages..
cheers Adrian..
 

If a large morning tide occurs mainly before daylight, there is a higher incidence of Prawns in their guts. Prawns are primarily nocturnal. Although the YFW can access them buried in the sand where they hide during daylight hours and are occasionally disturbed out of hiding. Often by Stingrays. So it is not uncommon to see YFW close to feeding Stingrays. 
I have only caught one YFW on a Cranka Crab lure. I think I have to use them in the Crab habitat and not on the flats.
The Sugapen 95 in Col-MB16 I feel mimics the prawns best. The Ecogear ZX43 blade mimics a disturbed fleeing prawn in the sand. 

ALWAYS !!! 😅   I gut my fish before leaving the water.
This lot ... Haswell Crabs in the larger ones and Lug Worms in the smaller ones. The big morning tide ( in daylight ) would have given them plenty of access to the Samphire beds holding the Haswell crabs. Lug worms are abundant on the sandflats. 
 

A sustained warm spell has held the Gulf water temperatures at around 22 to 23C for a few weeks now.
Since Christmas day the water temperatures in the upper gulfs have remained in the high range.
Nice Christmas present !!! This is about a month later than normal.
It is the sustained higher temperatures over a prolonged period that changes the dynamics of these gulf ecosystems, along  with the behaviour and physiological responses of its participants.
Currently the Yellow Fin Whiting have become voracious hunters and predators.
When water temperatures are at this level, It is a rare session when you will not catch a good feed of solid sized YFW.
With high metabolisms and big appetites any water movement in or out of their feeding areas triggers an aggressive response from these fish. So target YFW during these periods of water movement. Even on dodge tides where the fish are concentrated in a smaller water mass. Just a little movement produces a big response from the YFW.
I followed the late run off and early run in tide on this session for some quality fish on this session.
I kept 12 fish over 35cm. Three fish were around 40cm.
They are great fighters in shallow water on surface lures.
I was fishing a new spot so I did not experiment with many lures.
Intending to limit the variables for a good assessment of the new spot.
All fish were taken on the surface with the Sugapen 95 - Colour: MB16.
Happy Hot Sessions to all.
Cheers, Des

So true, but sadly the food shortages that are occurring in many instances are the result of government ideologically driven agricultural policies in various countries along with ineffectual sanctions designed to hurt Russia that are actually hurting the countries applying the sanctions more.
The problem with $cience today is that it doesn't take place in a political, or economic vacuum. There are too many "unscientific variables" that find their way into the process and I believe influence many findings and outcomes(i.e. funding sources....whoever pays the piper influences what music is played). But I agree it would be nice to "trust the science". Don't disregard your own observations Wert you seem like a fair minded person that has had legitimate experiences with snapper.
Also something I've always wondered, why have they banned land based snapper fishing? Surely LB fishos on the rare occasion they even manage to catch a fish that such fishing activity wouldn't impact on the health of the species.

I like fishing the Dodge tides for Yellow Fin Whiting.
 
I posted a detailed explanation of the factors in this post:
https://www.strikehook.com/index.php?/forums/topic/38765-dodgy-days/
.
So to start the New Year with a couple of days of dodge tides was something to look forward to.
It was a sunny day. The water temperatures were up there, at around 23C. The small tide was perfect to hold and concentrate the fish for me.
I went to work with my trusty Sugapen 95 in the MB16 colour. And there was plenty of interest straight away.
Pretty soon the polite enquiries towards my lure became full blown, “I’ll take that. Thanks.”
There was a purple patch in which I took 10 fish in the first hour of fishing. The temperature, the tide, the sun, and a perfect stiff breeze, all had the YFW at their aggressive best.
It got competitive with the YFW. What a delightful sight it is to see a gang of YFW all trying to shoulder each other out of the way, competing to be the first to jump onto your lure skipping on the surface.
Sometimes in a tight contest, there is close second. And so it was when two YFW hit my lure together.

For many I unusually use two sets of Assist hooks on my larger lures. I have Atomic Trick Bitz #8 hooks on the rear and Ecogear ZX hooks in the middle. In about 40% of cases the YFW will hit the middle assist hook. And when there is competition and a close race you wind up with a Double Header on a lure ! 

A special experience that I have been lucky to have had a couple of times previously. In the past, they have been mostly the smaller supper eager inexperienced fish.
Today they were quality fish. It was a struggle bringing them in … oooh! maybe a new PB. It turned out to be two quality fish at 35cm and 38cm. Both well hooked on the same lure.

I enjoyed that purple patch, for not long, as soon the wind came in stronger and stronger and the fishing got harder and harder. When it got to 20-25 knots wading got impossible and the fish no where to be seen.
I was able to bag 17 fish before the wind shooed them all away.

This is the prime time of the year for big YFW whiting. As the high water temperatures hold a lot of new season’s juvenile prawns in the shallows. And they are the right sized meal for the big ravenous YFW. Most fish caught were over 35cm and 3 fish were around 40cm.

Can’t wait for the next dodge tide. Hopefully the weather and wind will also be favourable.
.
Happy New Year and Tight Lines to all.
.
Cheers, Des

With a very mild Spring and early Summer, Yellow Fin Whiting lure fishing has had a few challenges this season.
The weather patterns have not sustained a constant water temperature. It barely heats up when a cold change with a series of cold days would chill off the water. It looks like we may have turned the corner.
We have not yet seen a sustained warm spell to put the warmth into the water and hold it there for a prolonged spell. It is the sustained higher water temperatures that has the greatest impact on the ecosystem and the behaviour of the YFW. Yes we have been finding a few YFW on lures, but nothing like those hot bag out sessions of last year.
So today after a few, rare consecutive days of 30+C I was off to seize the opportunity and “Strike while the water was hot”

Comparative water temperature maps. What a difference a few warm days make
 
I was trying to avoid the cooler water in the morning, by starting around 11.30am. Sleeping in ! The water was still surprisingly cold at the start. Thermal lag, meant the water was still holding onto a cool temperature after a spell of cold days earlier in the week. Hence the importance of a sustained period of warmth. It was hard to find fish showing interest in any of the surface lures in the incoming tide.  Fish would not rise for the lure. The few fish spotted, were hanging back from the lure and staying deep. They were keeping as cool and calm as the water temperature.  I went subsurface with the Ecogear ZX43 blade to catch a couple of good fish.

 

The Salmon Trout have moved out & the Trumpeters have moved in. A sure sign of warm water.
Still it was not until the tide started to run off late afternoon, and the water had warmed up from the heat of the day, did the fishing come alive. Increasingly overcast conditions did put a dampener on the fishing. You always catch more in sunshine. I had to resort to some UV enhancement tricks to engage the fish. UV sprays and UV flash tinsels can transform the standard sunny day lures into successful overcast day lures. A quick spray on your lure. It dries fast. Although it leaves a strong lacquer smell. So rub it over with some S factor or Pro-Cure scent to negate the smell. Today my ever reliable Sugapen 95 could only catch fish with the UV enhancements. 


 
I worked through a variety of surface lures today. The other successful ones being Zipbaits Fakie Dog DS, Ebi Panic, MMD Splash prawn-AW Yabby, 

 
And one I have not used for a couple of years, the Atomic K9 Bulldog which took the biggest fish.

The smaller size lures where better in lighter winds and the bigger and noisier lures in the stronger wind spells.
 
The day finished strongly with the fish more aggressive in the warm water late in the day. I released a few fish in the high 20s to 30cm and kept 17 fish in the 31- 40cm range. Most were in the 35 to 40cm range. A clear sign of the warm water attracting a new batch of juvenile prawns onto the sand flats along with the larger predatory Yellow Fin Whiting.

 
Happy Hot days and some Hot fishing sessions ahead !
 
Cheers, Des