Sykes

Congratulations Skyes 

Cheers guys! Thought i was starting to lose it for a second there 😅

Due to a glitch in the menu system one of the pages wasn't showing up. So the winner is the person who found 9 of the fishing icons first. The 10th you wouldn't have been able to find unfortunately 😣
The first person to find 9 fishing icons and the winner of the quick and easy 😂 comp is.....  Sykes
Congratulations mate! Send me a PM with your contact details and I'll get your prize pack sent off to you.
Thank you and well done everyone who took part in the comp. A bit of fun looking around the site, perhaps you came across some interesting old threads or areas of the site that you don't normally look at.
 
For those who just need to know where the last icon was, it was the jig head on the "Strike & Hook Videos" page. Damn menu system, my apologies.

Been a very tough season chasing the trout in the rivers down here, needing 13 trout to reach the 500th trout I headed of to see if I could get it on this trip..
Did I or Didn't I catch it.. watch the video to find out, the clue is in the video...
cheers
Adrian..
 

If you’re looking for something mid tier just to get the job done and be reliable, I would highly recommend the Shimano raider rods, either in the rack or bream model in line class 1-3kg and a sienna 1000/2000/2500 reel. This combo will be more than adequate for many years of fishing and well within your budget.
 
https://www.bcf.com.au/p/shimano-raider-bream-spinning-rod/M390802.html?cgid=BCF030505#prefn1=brand&prefv1=Shimano
 
https://www.bcf.com.au/p/shimano-sienna-fe-spinning-reel/M399884.html?cgid=BCF031005
 
 
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 

Hi all,
 
Over the weekend I purchased a small sounder unit for my kayak and installed it with the help of fellow member Jimbojames. I have had my kayak for two years but decided to add a bit of gear so I bought a Lowrance Elite 4X sounder. The plan was to install it and then try to produce an informative report of how to install your own sounder to your yak if anyone is interested.
 
So my kayak is a Scorpio Terrapin with specs 270cm length, 79cm width and weight of 20kg. It is very stable and helps me to get out on the waters of the Onk and Coorong, etc.
Firstly, always plan before you start to drill holes in the kayak. For example, I sat in my kayak first and Jimbo and I mucked around with the exact placement of the sounder unit as you should be able to comfortably reach the sounder from your seat and it should be clear of things such as a rod holder, etc. My sounder is mounted on the right hand side, just before the storage hatch.
 

 
Once the location has been pinpointed, mark the holes to be drilled with pen/pencil for where the screws will be inserted to hold the unit in place. With the help of an aluminium plate glued to the inside of the kayak, the sounder can be mounted flat and stable. 
 

 
The screws were Selley-ed around holes to completely fill the drilled holes. Then once the Selleys had set, we mounted the sounder and transducer bracket like so.
 

 

 
So with the sounder in place and the transducer unit set up, the wiring was left to do. The sounder required a 12V battery and that was placed inside a plastic tupperware container and sits inside the front storage hatch. The terminals are wired up to a series of cables running to the sounder unit via the use of two rubber grommets; one on the plastic battery casing and one in the top of the kayak to connect with the unit. This is to make it watertight.
 

 

 
The wiring stays inside the kayak and all that was left was to secure the mountain of transducer cable, easily done using a few cable ties. The sounder is fitted out of the way, easily accessible and when finished fishing and being transported, the unit and transducer can be removed so it doesn't rattle around and possibly damage things. I am yet to test it out on the water but planning on hitting West Lakes Sunday to give it a run. Also would like to thank Jimbojames for all his help and experience, a tidy job and I'm really happy with it. Now to go catch some fish!

Hi all,
This is my first post about fly fishing as I have only recently been introduced to it and taken a liking, so by all means please comment with your thoughts.
I am interested in both fresh and salt water fly fishing but am limitted by my gear at the moment. I have a 7wt rod topped off with 8lbs fluoro that I intened to use for a salt water set up.
So after a few days of practicing my cast spread across the last fortnight I decided the trip I already had planned to the yorks would be the perfect chance to wet a fly for the first time. The beach we were staying at has a low water level for about 150 meters so I put on a pair of waders and started covering some ground. I worked my fly in all sorts of spots of differing depths and structures but the fish were very thin. I recall only seeing one sizable fish but quite a bit of small bait jumping around at times. The afternoon tide was a bit dodge at this beach and as the sun started to go down so did my hopes. I was about to call it quits as I lost visibility but then one of my mates kindly offered to run and grab me a head torch so I decided to give it another few minutes... and luckly I did. After turning my light on and walking back out it was about 5 minutes before I got my first bite and I was hook up. After a short struggle and alot of splashing around I landed a small tommy roughly 15-20cm long. Not a monster but you always remember your first 😉.
I was a little surprised that I didnt see or catch more fish as I know its a quiet area that doesnt see to much pressure. I was hoping that some of you could offer me some advice or tips (e.g do people use burley?) for future trips, or even if someone would be keen to head out some time with the fly rods.
Keen to hear some feedback, Cheers,
H.

Certainly some colours in the sky during last nights sunset here in Sheffield..
cheers
Adrian

Rainbow as a shower of rain passed by at sunset'

Unusual glow in the clouds..

Red & orange colours as the sun set below a smoke filled horizon..

Have to love suppliers that reward you. "pick something from this list" they said. - SCORE!
 

Here's pic I took the other day while fishing a small river.. it's a real mirror image.. just a shame it was a dull overcast day..
 
cheers
Adrian
 

A picture of some of the yabbies released
 
A picture of the dam from early march.
 
Hopefully soon I will do another update with the release of the rainbows, can't wait for that!!! yah yah

Good numbers

Hi,
 
So the dam is chockers, and last week released bout 350 yabbies into the dam and has good aquatic insects as well.
 
I have also ordered 100x 150mm rainbows to be picked up at the end of April.
 
Trav love the offer pm sent.
 
Cheers
 
WILDA

Took this photo this morning, didn't come out all that good as I only used my small Canon camera that I use for trout fishing..
 
Didn't have time to grab my good camera  and set it up as the moon was setting too fast at the time.. May get up early tomorrow and see what it's like.
 
Cheers
Adrian

For whatever reason, he'd been carrying on with  "I wanna go fishing with daddy" whereas i've normally been shafted for "mummy"  so i just had to foster this new attitude!
 
Had been hoping for a Saturday wading session with a mate but the weather had turned to s**t mid-week. Thursday i hand finally succumbed to the cooties the missus had sharing around for the preceding 3 weeks .
 
Come Saturday morning i decided," f*** it, i may as well feel like s**t soaking a bait rather than sulking around at home". So our annulled wading plans turned into a Onk bait session on aforementioned mate's mates property. 
 
Young fella and i collected some tigers out of the compost bin. We arrived mid-arvo and spied a few fat carp hanging around. I had a few nibbles on worms and decided to target carp with bread. I didnt get a thing but mate landed 2 little reddies on worms, before we ran out of bait.
 
Young fella had a ball, spent more time arsing around than anything else.
 
Grabbed him a his first pair of polarised sunnies today, so he can "see the redfins" 
 

 
 

Ive always wanted to get a couple of 'bigger' bream in the onk on soft plastics/hardbodies. Having mainly fished hardbodies and weedless plastics around snags in the old noarlunga parts in the warmer months ive never come across anything bigger then late 20's.
 
I decided to hit the onk in the kayak to sound around and find some deeper parts as i have heard that as the day goes on the bream go deep. The past few weeks i did 5 sessions, morning, afternoon and midle of the day.
 
So first session i kayaked around with the fishfinder found some deep parts around river road. And some bits that drop off going south towards seaford. So it was a start for that area. Paddled to south road bridge afterwards remembering some likely spots aswell.
 
Had a land based flick one morning the other weekend and pulled one 33cm at sheep pilons and a little tacker. Got my first mulloway on sp's aswell 😃
 
As winter came to an end i actually concentrated in bits that were about 700mm to a 1.5m deep and found more bream waiting in these areas. I would drift over these areas looking at my sounder finding schools bunched up paddle to the bank and cast over them. If i was fishing plastics a would cast against the tide and bring my plastic back with it for a more realistic presentation. Hardbodies i would cast whatever way. I found the hidden weight jigheads by TT worked a more finesse presentaion and got more fish. Got 5-7 fish a session. Biggest went 39cm! Almost got my goal of 40cm. It will come soon. Heres a veiw pics. Happy fishing

Howdy all,  over a quite time at University I started writing a few reports about some of the fishing trips I have recently done  so here is a link to my reports, as it is easier than copying and pasting them all in. http://lachycross.wixsite.com/crossyscatches
cheers  members.
 
 
 
 
http://lachycross.wixsite.com/
 Here are a few pictures from some of my reports

So with the awesome time of year coming up (Spring and Summer months) What are people looking at targeting? What are you hoping to achieve?
 
Here is my list. Not in any particular order....
 
Yellowfin Whiting on fly
Yellowfin whiting on Popper over 35cm
Yellowfin whiting on plastic
Flathead on fly
Flathead over 60cm
Yellowtail Kingy Landbased over 90cm
Legal Mully.
 
With more time on my hands now and my passion back for fishing i should hopefully be able to achieve this and put alot of hours in....
 
So lets hear your plans!

Yesterday (Monday), the weather forecast was for moderate North Easterly winds along the coast, and a reasonably chance of rain.   So I decided to head for Waitpinga and Parsons to lure for Salmon, a bit of warm clothing and wet gear.  Even though the area hadn’t produced for me in a while, neither had metro southern beaches, apart for a few ST’s – so I had nothing to lose.
 
So the car was already parked - from the day befores outing for a couple of flicks around Maslins (for a donut) – and I headed off at 8.45am with intentions to have the line wet before 10am.  A cloudy day both here and all the way to Waits.
 
A high tide of 1.08mts at 12noon would have me there in time for the incoming tide and allowing some good distance of walking the beach until its peak.
 
A quick stop for a photo of Victor area.  It does look so much better when the sun is out.
 

 
 
Almost there.
 

 
 
A view over a water catchment towards Waits.  According to a local, this catchment lost a lot bream recently from heavy rains and apparently the outlet along the beach had dozens of dead bream.
 

 
 
The Waits viewing platform has not changed since the storms (no steps) and the way down is still to walk left onto the dunes.  Whilst I was there some workman just about to put some posts along the dune and had dismantled the remaining 3 steps from the damage.
 

 

 

 
 
Conditions looked great, no wind (so much for the weather forecast), but it started to rain quite steady.
 

 
 
I decided to park at the bottom car park for an easier approach to the beach.
 

 

 
 
Once on the beach I headed to the right where some nice looking gutters were and headed right to the end without any Salmon touching my lure.  I used a 40g Halco chrome lure at first then changed to a $4 cheapie from K-Mart for the walk back.
 
Once back at the platform area, and with the high tide about half an hour away, I could see the waves hitting hard against the sand dunes.  There was no way I could get past without being swamped and I wanted to get up by the reef that has produced well in the past.
 
So decided to get up on to the sand dunes and climb over the top of them until I got past these breaking waves.  Mind you I had second thoughts of doing this as a couple of the dunes did look kind of steep – but nothing ventured, nothing gained, so off I headed.
 
Just repeating this photo as it shows the area of concern just left of the 2 fisherman.  You might think that first sand dune doesn’t look too bad, and it wasn’t, but the next one behind the first was worse, but I soldiered on.
 

 
 
Well effort to get on to the beach from the ‘hazard’ proved to be a waste of time as again there were not hits on my lure.  It’s about 1pm now and from the reef I couldn’t tell if the waves were still smashing the sand dune, so decided to walk right to the end, knowing there was not too many opportunities to flick due to rocks etc.  But thought this will waste a little more time allowing the water to drop a little.  That paid off as the waves had subsided slightly and saving me another dune climb.
 
Now off to Parsons Beach and I wasn’t holding much hope of catching anything.
 

 
 
On my arrival, I took a quick photo of the beach and noticed one fisherman near the exposed rocks.  Mind you, those rocks (once I was done there) were absolutely fantastic in their worn formation.  Parsons doesn’t have too many gutters, but what is there are reasonably good, and I have have generally caught more fish here than Waits.
 

 

 
As I got back to the car to collect mygear, a couple of guys came up from the walkway with a nice 2kg and a couple of 1kg Salmon.  They had been at Waits during the morning with no result, but the mentioned they got these just on the otherside of the rocks.
 
Second before the rocks and watched an ST following the lure in shallows and grabbed it – yah, not a donut day.  He was over legal but released him as wanted bigger (not greedy or anything).  Another couple of casts and another ST and released. 
 
Walked further to try past the rocks (having a quick chat the other fisherman – he had a couple of ST’s only) and now hits were the previous guys got theirs.  So now for the usual walk to the end and about 150mts before the end rocks I get a hit in smallish gutter – which I was not expecting.
 
It felt big, the rod well bent and he started to spool me slightly, so a quick extra tightness on the drag, but he was fighting very well.  Next, out the water he flies – I just love that sight.
Once beached, he was fat and approximately 2.5kg and estimated close to 60cm.  Quickly bled and lure thrown back in.
 
On again, and this one seemed to be fighting harder and flew into the air a couple times and even though I just tightened the drag, this one spooled me for good 10mts – he wasn’t giving up – so tightened the drag even more and slowly got him to the shallows and dragged him with the waves.
This was a big Salmon for me and on first appearance was would a PB.   You can tell in the below photo a cut underneath the tail and I am gathering he cut himself on my line whilst fighting.
 
Again, quickly bled and ready for more.  Another 3 were landed around 2.5– 2.8kg and about 56 – 60cm and kept and all the fish looked healthy and were all plumpish. 
For extra fun, another 4 were landed and released and 3 threw the lure.
 

 

 

 
 
The time was about 3.30 now, so left them on the bite and the long and very heavy walk back to the car.  If the walk didn’t kill me the hill nearly did.  I was stuffed and stopped a few times on the hill to stop from having a heart attack !!
 
But what seemed could be a donut day ended up being some thrilling excitement.

The murray will still be murky[locks, irrigation,runoff, lack of bankside vegetation,mismanagement will guarantee this], no restocking program......as per usual.
If they can spend  15 mil on a virus, why dont they spend a little more and stock say 50,000 callop and cod fingerlings between each lock [like they do in Vic] , easy and would probably only  cost a couple of hundred grand to do so if that.

The Strike Hook salmon competition for 2016 is on NOW!!!     Major sponsor SPOTTERS on board for this awesome comp with a cool Spotters prize pack up for grabs.     Major Prize: Spotters prize pack including, very cool cap, sun shade, sunglasses strap and a pair of awesome SPOTTERS FURY (Gloss Black) with Halide lens.   Two runner up prizes including salmon lures and poppers.   Also check out the Spotters website www.spotters.com.au for their full range of sunnies and merchandise.     This year we have a points system for the major prize. Points will be awarded for fish with the total highest amount of points at the end being the winner. If there is a draw then the largest fish or least small fish will decide the final winner.     21cm - 35cm 2 points 36cm - 45cm 4 points 46cm - 55cm 6 points 56cm - 65cm 8 points 66cm - 75cm 10 points 76cm and above 12 points    
Longest overall salmon for one runner up prize.
 
As a backup we are having a few options for the last runner up prize which relies heavily on the members reports. These include the worst trip, best by-catch, most kms traveled and the most trips all chasing salmon.
 
This comp is dependent on good salmon reports from members who would like to take part so please get as much information in your reports, try to take some nice clear photos and get right into the Strike Hook spirit and get as many fishos as we can chasing salmon for the comp.
 
The comp ends on August 31st 2016 and is open to anyone and everyone in South Australia!
 
Good luck everyone 

Here's a few pic's of some decent size redfin perch...
 

 A Bullen Merri monster..
 

 48 cm redfin
 

 Solid redfin..
 
 
cheers
Adrian
 

Most fish prefer structure in rivers & dams, even trout... I pick up plenty of browns close to dead wood in the rivers here in Tassie..
 

The dark shape next to the branch is a large brown trout..

Warren Reservoir has redfin, though you will need a permit from RecfishSA to fish it.
Quite a few small fish to persevere with, but the bigger redfin still turn up.
They love crawlers and glow worms up there, tiger worms also work, but not so well.
Small spinners are dynamite, but small metal blades also work a treat, as do small vibes.
You might need to move around at times to locate the fish, which often school up together, so if you catch one, you will often catch more til they move on.
Very early morning or late arvo are best times, but they can still fire during the day.
Also, if using lures with trebles, trail some red fluffy wool from the hooks, stimulates redfin to bite....they love the colour red.

Just to add to doobie's last post - some snaps taken down there earlier tonight:
 






 
Cheers
af