Sykes

Hey mate.
Try using some TT Snakelock weedless jigheads size 1/12 and size 4 hooks.
These should work well with your plastic grubs and stuff.
For some reason weedless hooks rarely get swallowed like standard jigheads.
Every salmon caught lately has been in the lips as well as bream.

Sent from my SM-J120ZN using Tapatalk

If anything, sink the lure on a semi slack line rather than an overly slack line. It sounds like they are using the excess slack to choke the lure. 
 
It can be somewhat unavoidable at times, if you're chasing the trouties, maybe it is worth changing to a shorter jig head or wider gape hook also. If it really bothers you, maybe just fish tighter to the rocks. 
 
It's tricky and can be hard to get around at times, but if it seems to be an unusual trend, the above may make a difference. 

The answer is some fish will die if they are under sized and being thrown back or for those who play the game of catch and release only which has never made any sense why people need to do that.
Some lures are expensive and digging them out wouldn't do much in keeping the fish alive same with baited hooks or break offs with hooks stuck in the mouth now the fish can no longer feed.
So what's new or different..nothing much this has been going on like this in my 50 years fishing
 
 

Hi guys, I need some help.
The last few times I've been out have been soft plastic sessions along North Haven, outer harbour.
Im breaking my drought and managing to entice a few ST's which I am stoked about, however, every one basically dies in the process.
They are swallowing the hooks, and are suffering serious damage in Gill areas. They come to the surface already bleeding heavily, and most hook themselves on the drop, so I don't think it is an issue of striking too hard, and it's not a handling issue.
I'm using 2"/2.5" curl tails and flick baits with jig heads of 1/12 or 1/16.
Am I doing something wrong here? Im normally C&R, and it's making me not want to go out again if I'm just killing undersize fish.
Any tips or advice would be great. Thanks guys!

I'm in a dilemma and looking for some guidance.
My main reason to try and get this right is so the surface lure is performing correctly and not maybe spinning around or upside down etc.
I've looked through youtube videos etc to what really is the better way to attach a surface lure to the leader - knot or swivel.
I've just started targeting YFW (2 sessions without luck) and read/seen some use a loop knot as it allows to lure to move more natural.   Then other people might use a Uni knot and say it works well also .... and the list goes on.
Others might say to use a swivel as it makes no difference in lure action and also easy to swap lures.
The way I'm thinking for rigging is (depending on any pros/cons) ....
1) Lure > Swivel > mono Leader > Uni Knot > Braid = easy to change Lure, but swivel may effect Lure performance
2) Lure > 'x' Knot > Mono Leader > Uni Knot > Braid = awkward to change Lure as another knot needs to be tied, but if it provides correct performance I'll suck it up
3) Lure > 'x' Knot > Mono Leader > Swivel > Braid = would need additional Lures pre-made with Leader for ease of changing Lures. But again, could the swivel effect performance.
I'm probably over thinking this, but wondered if anyone has had experience with surface lures and can tell if there is any difference using a certain knot against using a swivel.
 

At 747 metres elevation, Koombooloomba Dam is Australia's highest tropical storage. It is perched in the dense forest on the Great Dividing Range on the headwaters of the mighty Tully-Millstream River and feeds some hydro projects below. The water is very clear, and cold in winter.  Unlike other stocked dams, it lacks bony bream, freshwater mussels, water lilies, and other submerged vegetation.  I guess the lake fauna and flora comprised whatever was in the fast-water streams blocked by the dam wall at the time. It has been stocked with sooty grunter and barra, but the barra do very poorly in the cold, with dead and dopey fish reported each winter.  Lean pickings for fish, and popular wisdom has it that wind-blown insects drive  the food chain. Perhaps sooties were already up there, or the stocked fish have found spawning habitat in the rapids, but whatever the reason there are abundant sooties in there with "cricket score" catches reported and hoards of juveniles visible along the edges.  Few have caught barra in there, and those that do report that lures resembling sooty grunter are the go. 
Sooties need rapids in the hot, wet season to spawn successfully, and recent storms from a much-delayed monsoon had some of us hatching a plan to get upstream to the inflow to  flyfish the spawning aggregations. The day did not start well, with lightning knocking out the power pre-dawn and torrential rain, with the flash and rumble of the dreaded cloud to ground lightning. during the 2 hour drive. Amazingly, the rain ceased  just below Koomby and we were off in the tinny threading and feeling our way up along the old river channel through a dense forest of dead trees and prop-busting stumps.  The plan was to get up to the Tully inflow and walk the bank with flyrods to sight-fish sooties.
At 28% capacity we had just caught the first inflows of clear, tannin-stained water, and there were some cascades and rapids to fish off the rocks. Dan fished the opoosite bank with a blooper-type fly and I used a tiny shrimp-cicada thing tied by an SA mate (Dave) 20 yrs ago. At the first rapids the tiddlers just belted the little cicada if I let it sink deep and I soon had a half-a dozen captures before they wised up. Dan did not get a hit, so switched to a white clouser and moved up into the limpid pool above the cascades. Immediately he raised bigger fish and caught 2 in quick succession.  He was trialling a line-tub worn around his waist to stop the flyline tangling and missed some takes.
On the opposite bank I found what SA Dave calls a "Monty" of a spot. A fish surety. A tiny crystal-clear rivulet running over a sandbank to a deep dead tree. I got belted 3 times on that snag, with the first 2 humping boils at the surface by obviously big, angry, sooties. The third take was on the wrong side of the snags and within milliseconds I had been dusted. Broke the 10 pound flourocarbon leader just below the flyine -- and I had no spares in that department, so a long walk back to the tinny for more. Sooties are smash,grab, and run back to cover specialists.
We decided the big fish were either absent from the rapids, or not biting, so we tried Plan B. Motor down in the boat and find islands or points with horizontal "lay-downs" of dead trees. Not that common, but marvellous habitat for a sooty ambush predator. Again, small fish were eager biters but no sign of the dark-black brutes that inhabit the dam. Back-casts often ended up in the dead forest, too.
So the last plan of the day, before escaping the approaching lightning storms, was to try walking a steep bank with deep water, rock ledges and lay-downs. I thought I would "ground-truth" the presence of bigger fish with a spin rod and little Mohawk deep-diver. Dan went off along the bank and I fished off the boat, testing a deep rock ledge. Some tiddlers on the fly were followed by a decent fish on the lure, which pulled the hooks at the net. So there were big fish there!
Then we started to see sooties patrolling the edges as the shadows fell on the water. I was mucking around with various little Clousers on the tiddlers, by applying "S-factor" scent and testing if Dave's 20 yr old, high-sparkle flies attracted more attention when a grey/brown fish in the 30's came out for a look. I changed to a bigger, ratty, marabou fly and landed a better fish but could not tempt the lurker. Meanwhile Dan raised 2 huge fish on his Clouser from the base of a high dirt cliff with overhanging snag -- another "Monty". We spent the last half-hour of the day together trying to fool those fish, which were joined by a third that emerged swimming along the drop-off from left-field. I don't think they could see us, but we could see them and they would not be fooled by flies, soft-plastics, minnows, or even a very lifelike savage flick prawn, scented or not. Easily 40cm -plus fish, with charcoal backs and big spade-like tails. They showed mild interest, but were rejecting the offerings from afar. I guess they don't get that big by being gullible.
At the ramp we met a 'yakker who fished there regularly, and he told of once stumbling across a hatch of the spent, winged termites that blanketed the water in wind-rows. He told of sight-fishing sooties breaking the surface. Now that would be an experience to go keep going back for.
 
 

This video is from a four hour plus spin session in one of the toughest fast water stretches of the Meander River, it gave up quite a few trout of all sizes from small 260 gram trout up to a 720 gram brown,
Several times I was going to call it a day and head to some slower flowing water but then I'd catch another trout or two so I kept pushing on.. Before I left home I had put eight heat patches on my lower back & left hip, three on the right should & one on the left shoulder.  They certainly helped to get me through the time spent in the fast waters of the Meander River.. In the end I had 35 hook ups of which 26 were caught & released.. I had to shorten the video because it went well over the 15 minutes allowed.. Anyway you'll get some idea of the time I spent in the river.. I've had young men fish here with me and they've only lasted an hour in this stretch river because the going was too tough for them, plus they fell in a couple of times which was enough for them to toss in the towel..
cheers
Adrian
 

Just did a quick search on here and came across these threads - might help you.
 

Here's a few photos from the WFFC, a few fishing in some very poor conditions on Penstock Lagoon & Little Pine Lake in the Central Highlands yesterday in snow & 35-45 kph winds that were also gusting up to 60 kph.. Today is much worse with snow down to 500 meters and gale force winds of 90-100+ kph.. not sure if today's event was on or not, checked the web cams of both waters and didn't see any boats on them..
Not sure if the river fishing was on either.. I was going for a drive to the Upper Mersey River today to take a few photos but decided to stay home in the warm..
The air temp here in Sheffield at the moment is 2.3 degrees..
cheers
Adrian..




 

Tried a tiny stream around the Lobey area this morning. The wheather was pretty average. only 11 degrees in the hills, wasn't expecting much activity.
A bow n arrow cast into a murky twig infected hole and this juvenile could not resist. 
simple grub i tied years ago.
Spotted this guy high on a bank, snuck behind him and made a short cast
Trecked a few km's, with hardly any sightings.. Overall a quiet morning. When i arrived back in the Barossa it was 18 degrees and the sun was shining..
 

Well I finally caught my 10.000th Tasmanian wild trout since we moved here back in March 2000..  it's a milestone I never gave a thought to until the start of this trout season when I was going through my end of season reports when I noticed I only needed 129 trout to reach 10,000 trout here in Tassie.. So yesterday and only needing another seven trout I reached it, actually caught & released fourteen all up..
cheers
Adrian
 

As a keen COARSE/FRESHWATER angler I find I can't get some of my prefered tackle in Australia so I have to buy it online from the UK or make it myself, so as promised I will share some of my favourites over time in this set of posts...
FLOATS... I am addicted to making floats, I love giving them away to people who fish like I do and HATE losing them. 
Most of my floats are wagglers, straight or bodied, as you can see from the photo they are all slightly different depending on what they are for, or where I am fishing, some can be used in saltwater for Gar and Tommies etc as well as in freshwater. The bodies are made from balsa wood which I turn on a small lathe, but you can also easily whittle then to shape with a sharp knife or stick them in a drill chuck, I always finish with fine sandpaper and fine wire wool. Carefully one end needs to be drilled to accept the stem, which I make from peacock quill or even better native reed stem (I always use the type of reeds that have the fluffy top and the stems are like mini bamboo, there's masses on most river banks (must be dry and brown not green) Always cut at a node so the tube is buoyant.   I superglue this into the balsa body. At the other end I glue in a short piece of bamboo skewer ready to have a safety pin eye whipped on and the whipping superglued.
To strengthen the main shaft, as you can see from the photo I do some decorative whipping nearly to the top, this does strengthen it considerably, we are now ready to  apply a base white top (cheapest way is to get some flat white acrylic paint, a sample pot from Bunnings is ideal) The florescent top is just a can of that Hi Vis stuff they spray on the road to mark where they are going to dig holes etc. I shake it well and spray some on a bit of paper or the like a use a small brush and paint over the flat white base down to almost the end of the white.. it dries very quickly!
Now all you need to do is varnish the whole thing, any varnish will do as they are not exposed to the weather much, I use a stain varnish (walnut) as this gives me an attractive brown effect.
As you can see all the floats are different, it's good to experiment and see what suits the type of fishing you want to do, they are so cheap to make and work much better than bought ones.
Hope you like that.... have a go, it's great to catch a fish on home crafted gear as I did today a 17+lb carp... any questions please don't hesitate to ask, and if you ever meet me on the bank please ask for a FREE float I will be only too willing to let you have one.

I often watch fishing show on tv and youtube and one that i really like (although in it's last season)is big angry fish, one of the guys has been developing these scoots (as he calls them) basically they are saltwater flys tied onto a sp jighead, these are nothing new they've been around as long as i can remember in on form or another, i bought some tinsel, thread and glue some time ago but kept forgetting to make them until i was watching an episode the other day were they went scoot fishing (no bait).
I pulled out the gear i had bought and some craft supplies i had got from my daughter and proceeded to make a few test ones.
These are what I've made and thought i would share, and ask if anyone has done anything similar for saltwater use?

I mostly buy the zman grubs myself in motor oil as that's the one plastic I have the most luck on. I always try new colours and brands, including the plastics soaking in scent but never seem to use them and they dry up.
Hard bodies I have no idea, so I generally find myself seeking the advice of an expert to show me the light.
I am also guaranteed to snag them all so price is usually a factor. 

Hi all wondering what the biggest Redfin Perch is that has been caught in SA waters.
I managed a Pb pushing 40cms on the weekend, not huge but a cracker fish for a freshwater novice like me.
Whats your biggest?
Cheers LL
 
 

Aparently there is vogon.
Well done mate! You guessed the right amount of sinkers 👍🏻
 
That was a bloody fantastic comp, a massive thank you to David from Savage Tackle!
Everyone get the Savage Tackle name burned in your mind, when you are after sinkers, downrigger bombs and berley pots Savage Tackle is your go to brand. Find them at all of your local tackle stores, if you can't find them ask the owners to get them in 😉
Savage Tackle can be found on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Savage-Tackle-1255136391255153/ or yell out for David in the forum as he's around here a fair bit.
Again congratulation goes to vogon for guessing the winning amount of sinkers!!!!!
@vogon can you please send me a pm with your details so I can post out the $50.00 voucher.

Thank you everyone who took part in the comp 

is there such a thing as fourth time lucky? - 122

3rd guess - 124.
 

2nd guess - 137.

188.

Well done Sykes...👏

Congrats mate!

I thought I was going crazy as I searched every single topic in the forum back to 2016 😂
At least I now know that is not the case, congrats Sykes