Chris__64

GDay Archerfsh,
 
basically fill a bucket of water until it snaps then weigh the bucket. If it breaks at the knot at 6kg then the line strength is at least 6kg.
Good for comparing knot strength. In practice I actually filled the bucket to 2kg then marked it, then 3kg etc  Cheers

Coincidentally I just found a 1000m spool of 12lb maxima "ultragreen"  in the back of a cupboard that would be nearly 20 yrs old and it seems like new. It's in a little white cardboard box, haven't seen them in a while. I quickly tested it and it broke at 5.5- 6kg [at the knot].  Took a pic but gave up trying to attach it. I also have a big spool of maxima 50lb which would be about the same age and that seems fine too. Used to put it on the old Penn 6/0 HSS but ahven't used that since I sold my boat 15yr ago. Now I've been using  it on hand lines with squid jags. Have no easy way to test that. Cheers

I have a Lateo 11' M. Has a 40g lure weight and feels like anymore would snap it. Casts further than 10'6" power tip but not a lot in it.
Probably with 20g lure would outdo it a bit more.  First fish I caught on it was a good 3kg salmon from the bluff wharf. I'm pretty sure if I tried to lift it with the rod it would've snapped even if I kept it horizontal. It's ok at Waits etc but not the most versatile rod.  A 4000 Aird seems a little small for it, the 5500 Windcast casts much better but feels a bit too big/ unbalanced. A stradic would be nice but I canna afford it at the moment. Something in between the two diawas.
Hugos 11'XH sounds better of the two models,  cheers

Here's a few of the sharks I caught this season. Enjoy

Got this horse of a snook last week on the boat in shallow water. Took a pillie on light gear and gave the stradic a fair work out!Cheers Rat

theres a series of ten or so of these knot wars;
 

 
I've had the trilene knot slip with big yfw and their head shaking even after landing several before, and being careful to pull the knot up tight and leave 2-3mm tag. I use mono or flouro, can't comment on braid it [the tri knot] might be better. I'm not a fan of the snell either, the knot bramkin just posted is the only way I know to snell a knot and have had the same probs of it unravelling with head shaking, even with tommies. Like I said before, never had the palomar fail., and it's easier and quicker than the others to tie.

I use a plano shoulder bag type of tacklebox, and tie a scaler bag to it with about 2 metres of rope for the fish when I go wading.
they drown after a while but stay fresh.
should be interesting to see what everyone else does

try the palomar knot, piece o p*ss.
With small eyes don't double the line and put it thru,
put tag end thru then go back, you'll see what I mean if you try it.
 
Have'nt seen this thread before, thought it was going to have some detailed gar rigs.
I use [off the jetty] the trace with a bottom sinker and 3-4ft of line up to the little berley cage with a cork above it.
I put a hook on about 3-4inches of line above the cork and one below. I use a piece of stainless mig wire thru the cork
and attach the cage to the bottom but it's a bit of stuffing around, and attaching a new hook to the top is a PITA, putting a snap there causes tangles. Anyone got an easier way to do it? This kind of trace is pretty hard to find on the web, let alone any details about the bit I'm crapping on about
Cheers

I made them and they turned out pretty good but there was a lot of liquid on the oven tray, maybe the snags[slape&sons hot italian from foodland]
had too much moisture content. made them exactly to the recipe except I only had 3 cloves of garlic. is that meant to be a tblspn of garlic hoopsy?
sounds a lot. thanks for posting, were pretty good for a newB who never made any bfore, cheers

saw a couple of nice jewies caught in west lakes last night, not by me though.
would've gone about 1m/ 15kg ish I reckon. dunno what bait, didn't want to go over and ask,
would've felt like a poacher

Base of the mangroves under shade is good.
 
You want to be above the high water mark in an area that the weed had deposited and decomposed for a very long time. The worms will be on the sand right where the weed is starting to breakdown and can be 50cm or more deep down. If you are still digging through rotting weed you may not be deep enough, keep going down till you have nice cool sand layer and the worms should be right above. If no luck move down the beach 10m and dig again. Once you find one you can usually get heaps.

Shoot Kelvin a pm if he doesn't see/reply to this

saw a couple of nice jewies caught in west lakes last night, not by me though.
would've gone about 1m/ 15kg ish I reckon. dunno what bait, didn't want to go over and ask,
would've felt like a poacher

20kg Butterfish off Noarlunga Beach at the south end of the reef. Was over 10 yrs ago but still my biggest one yet.
Caught around this time of year, just after low tide around midnight on a mangey old salted pilchard.
Just looked at the google sattelite image of the spot.
It looks to me like you can a school of salmon swimming around the end of the reef
in the image but not enough res to be sure. [  here;   -35.157687, 138.466847  ]
Where that dark patch is would be exactly
where my grapnel sinker was give or take a few yards.
Might have another crack tomorrow night if I can catch some fresh squid first,
the tides look about the same.     Cheers

20kg Butterfish off Noarlunga Beach at the south end of the reef. Was over 10 yrs ago but still my biggest one yet.
Caught around this time of year, just after low tide around midnight on a mangey old salted pilchard.
Just looked at the google sattelite image of the spot.
It looks to me like you can a school of salmon swimming around the end of the reef
in the image but not enough res to be sure. [  here;   -35.157687, 138.466847  ]
Where that dark patch is would be exactly
where my grapnel sinker was give or take a few yards.
Might have another crack tomorrow night if I can catch some fresh squid first,
the tides look about the same.     Cheers

I feel a hundred yrs old after reading Polonius' comments . I used to catch squid off Grange jetty with a piece of spud when I was a kid in the 70's. The older guys [ I was only 8 or so ] would float out the heads and catch Barracouta, in winter IIRC.  A bit off topic but there used to be allsorts of stuff caught at Grange back then. Elephant fish were so abundant I saw 2 caught in crab nets on seperate occasions. Saw a few wobbegongs caught there too, and gummys, and schnapper. One night a guy pulled up a Melbourne Skate the
lads estimated was 300lb+, I was only about 10 so I'm not sure what it weighed but it took 3 guys with 2 flying gaffs to pull it up onto the ramp. The weirdest thing I saw was a cluster of "goose barnacles" my brother found on the beach.  My mum bred tropical fish so she managed to keep them alive for about a week in an aquaruim. They were some weird-ass critters to see live in a tank !  

Hi toney,
 
I recently bought a  Regal 7177 / 2  and am very impressed with it. Still made in Aust according to BCF website..
Never had one of the old rods to compare it to but this thing seems nicely made and effortlessly casts
an absolute mile.  [diawa windcast with 30lb sufix mono]
If it's one of these 7177's you're looking at I don't think you would be disappointed.
The only downside was the price. I was ruminating over it for months hoping for a sale
but eventually paid the $279 retail. A lot of money for a peasant like I'm.
BCF at Mt Barker have/ had   a 7177 / 2  piece with a broken top eye marked down to about 240. [just the eye, glass was ok]
If thats the model you want and do a bit of binding etc maybe you can beat them down some more.
If you want to see how you like casting one contact me and I can meet you somewhere so you can try it b4
you fork out all those fins.
 
Cheers