hooklinestinker

Hologram, wagasaki, ayu are all winners for me. 

As a part b'day present from my fiancé and a present to myself I went out and got a new toy on the weekend, it's a thing of beauty so I had to share 

13 Fishing Envy Black 7'1" with 2500 Stradic Ci4+ running 8lb Daiwa TD Sensor braid. It's a pity I'm working this Sunday or I'd be trying it out down at Onkastompa! 

I was at Thompson's Beach during the week and walked right out to the channels that lead out through the weed beds, got out there maybe an hour before low tide (on quite a low tide). Walking through a couple of deeper bommies on the way out I was in the water up to just below the nether regions, and could see some healthy schools of juvenile YFWs swimming around. I decided to make it a bait-free day, and my clear Daiwa double clutch 65 and Bassday Sugadeep were doing the damage in less than knee-deep water, and I reeled in a very fat mullet, a couple of salmon trout, one 40ish cm YFW, and I put back lots of juvenile YFW as well. The darker opaque lures were receiving sideways glances and being ignored ignored in the crystal clear water, so I'd recommend going for clear lures if you want to try hardbody lures. I also threw out a couple of surface lures, a Lucky Craft NW Pencil and another generic clear and pink popper, and didnt get a sniff.

I have to say, I usually blow half my bloodworm bait on puffer fish out there, and it seemed like the hardbody lures were hooking up a better quality fish than I usually do on bait, so I'll definitely be heading out there for another crack very soon.

If you've got half an hour spare, this video was what I watched when I first started squidding - Yamashita Squid Fishing Techniques with Taiki Natsume Yamashita Squid Jigging Tutorial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swl5JfD4yvg

Taiki describes all the variables to consider for squid fishing, water conditions, tides, time of day, light conditions etc. You'll learn almost everything you need to know with this one video. Changing up your action to suit the activity level makes a big difference for me (landbased), with a more rapid action when the squid are firing, and a lazy flick with the rod tip every 10-15 seconds when they're quiet.

Winds and currents not lining up can be a problem, and it's definitely easiest to feel the slack on the line when the current and the wind is running away from you, putting tension on the line. I've had days at Brighton jetty and Rapid Bay with wind and current running in opposite directions, and the best solution for me was to throw on a deep diving jig, like this 30g deep diving jig:

These suckers sinks like a stone so they're great for fast-moving currents, when 3.5 weight jigs or less will take foreeeeeeever to get to the bottom. They're especially good for fast action jigging.

Anyways, I could keep writing different pointers about weeds, jig colour etc all night, or you could just watch the video, and Taiki knows a lot more than me! 

PS. Buy some Breaden squid snaps off ebay, about $10 a pack. By a mile the best snap for squid jigs, and saves you heaps of time changing jigs over.

The Fonz also loves trout fishing!   

Way to go guys, that's awesome 

I just came across this beautiful specimen while browsing through Reddit, and thought it was pretty enough to share. According to the comments, it's either a California Golden Trout, or a palomino trout; either way, you'd have to get a kick out of reeling something like this in 

Imgur link: http://i.imgur.com/o2nn9eS.jpg

Hey bjorn,

The weather seems like it's coming good briefly on Tuesday so I'm gonna try and do some winter flathead hunting on the flats with my day off. I'm keen to try some SPs and hardbody lures, but I'm gonna be in some fairly shallow water, and I'm not sure what to go for in hardbody lures... I don't have anything in my collection yet, so I'm off to a tackle shop tomorrow to grab a couple of things. If anybody's got any suggestions on what works for them, I'd love to hear 'em!

Cheers, and best of luck to all the other winter fisho's out there 

HLS

Thanks doobie! Quitting has been the best thing I've done in ages, my fitness has improved dramatically, I don't smell like an ashtray, and the aforementioned $$ benefits. I tried Champix (the medication) and patches and all the other things that didn't work, and it was e-cigarettes that finally did the job. Your wife would need to outlay about $150 to get all the bits and pieces to quit (I'm happy to tell you the kind of stuff you need if you like), and it lets you get off cigarettes while still having that familiar habitual element of having something to drag on, and blow out vapour instead of smoke.

Back to your fishing rods, for what it's worth, with that $25 Shakespeare rod I bought, I got a $8 spool of 8lb mono and re-spooled it from the even worse-quality line that it came with, and just cleaned and oiled it. I had 3 trips down to Rapid Bay and Second Valley 2 Summers ago with it and caught heaps of squid, tommies, gar and bastard toadies with it, and I had a great time, so don't stress about the kit just yet!

The sky really is the limit when it comes to purchasing fishing gear doobie, as I and my bank account have already come to learn  (I only just discovered last week you can buy fly fishing rods that cost over a grand... crazy!!). In the space of about 2 years I have moved from a $25 Shakespeare rod bought at a Normanville service station, to around a $70 Shimano combo from BCF (plus extra for braid), and then onto my current rods, which all cost between $300 and $450 all told once you've spooled them up with good quality braid (Thanks @ Fishing Wholesalers!). In the right hands, the $25 Shakespeare could probably catch just as many fish as my current favourite, I just love the sensitivity and the quality feel I get out of the pricier components, the lighter weight, and I know that if I look after them they will last me a long time.

I guess my point is that once you understand what kind of rod you're looking for, be it a light setup for chasing gar, tommies mullet etc or a 14-foot Mullie-chaser with a 10000 reel, you buy the best you can get within your budget, and go from there. For me, I suddenly found a whole lot more disposable income about 5 months ago when I finally quit smoking... hopefully it will have paid for my kayak by Christmas too! 

I'm only a relative novice, but I noticed an increase in sensitivity & hookups and a big decrease in line coil problems etc when I moved from my first cheapie rod with mono to a slightly better setup running braid, with a few extra bucks dropped for some fluorocarbon leader (this is just going for small shore-based species). As for line weight of leader vs main line etc, I agree with pretty much everything Scissors and sbarnden have said. I also find that using a slightly better grade of swivel allows everything to move freely gives me less hassles, too. Cheap crappy brass ones jam up after a use or two, and you get lots of annoying line twist.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-12/dramatic-drop-in-coorong-fur-seal-population-in-sa/6932998?WT.ac=localnews_adelaide

The number of long-nose fur seals in the Coorong has dropped significantly in just a few months, but authorities say proposed population control measures will still be needed.

Just five seals were counted in the area last week, compared with about 100 in August, the Environment Department said.

Department ecologist Mike Gregg said the seals had moved to the offshore islands for breeding, and were likely to return early next year.

"Just because the numbers are low at the moment, doesn't mean that we are stopping our work with the fisherman to look at alternative gear and also some seal deterrents, because it is very, very likely that in the future seal numbers will increase back up again," he said.

The number of long-nose fur seals has been a significant issue for the local commercial fishing industry.

Authorities estimated the seals have been responsible for reducing the fishing catch in the Lower Lakes and Coorong by 70 per cent.

The State Government has rejected calls for a cull, saying it is committed to spend $100,000 on non-lethal ways of controlling the population, such as underwater crackers to scare the seals away.

"They are a very small, underwater explosive and they go off underwater and they make a loud band, a crack sound and that produces a sound wave that's uncomfortable for the seal and put really simply, it startles or scares the seals away from an area," Mr Gregg said.

There is a seller on ebay with a mint condition one like this here, it looks like you've got a 'slightly used' Len Butterworth Pastime PoweRod there. There are a few hits on gumtree as well if you chuck in Len Butterworth, so you can see what you might have, or what it's worth. Cheers.

Here's what a brand spanking new one looked like:

Haha, cheers for letting me know Alex, my ruler must be outdated, it says 27cm, I'll be taking home more fish next time!  I just got my hands on some halide Spotters, and I could see schools of little YFW cruising right in front of me clear as day, but the big fellas were harder to spot, I didn't see any large schools of them unfortunately.

You weren't kidding about the toadies, they were everywhere. My observation was though, the whiting were mostly going for the worms, and the Gulp! bloodworm and camo sandworms (pre-packed in the short segments) were getting destroyed by the toadies. Seriously, you get the toadie off the hook, and there are 2 or 3 little hacked up chunks of SP left... I threw out a couple of my favourite Lucky Craft surface lures and poppers on Friday, and the only fish getting caught on the trebles were about the same size as the lure itself... I haven't had any experiences with poppers and whiting before, so I'm sure my technique could be better, but they were the least successful choice out of bait, soft plastics and lures. That being said, I was catching stuff on them, so it's definitely still worth a go! 

Well, for a few bucks in bits'n'pieces from the Reject Shop, I put together a live well of my own, basically a mirror of Alex's basket, just smaller. I took the basket and some preserved bloodies up to Thompson Beach yesterday, and had an awesome day reeling in well over a dozen YFW from 20cm up to 26cm. With such frequent bites happening, I decided to take the girlfriend there today for a few hours. We managed 7 puffer fish, 2 undersized YFW, and I managed to reel in these two beauties, measuring 35 and 36cm. Words cannot express how happy I was when I reeled these in, they're my first 2 legal YFW. WOOHOO!!

After seeing all these great variations on fishing caddies, I hunted Google Images looking for ideas and found these 2. I basically didn't know these things existed a week ago, and suddenly I'm filled with a desire to MacGyver something up for this summer. Damn fishing, you so addictive!

The pre-fabbed one is called the Kayak Kaddy *drool*

And the other one is ingenious

Looks like I'm going to have some company up there this weekend! I'll be heading up either on Friday or Saturday, heading from the city. En route to the northern flats, can someone tell me the easiest place to drop in and grab some bungums?

Way to go Alex, you got out there early and got a good catch in your awesome DIY live-basket. I can't wait to see more pics and clips this summer, your KI report and video were excellent as well.

All but two of my exams are over on Friday, so I am heading out ASAP, and I'll have a bait and SP rig ready to go, judging by these pics. 

P.S. I think you may have inadvertently started a DIY live-basket trend here on StrikeHook too 

@avidanglr1: Cheers for sharing your rod setups, it sounds like my Penn 4000 with 20lb should be okay on a shorter rod. My bro-in-law works for the Coast Guard and has been a scuba diver for 20 years, so I'm guessing he knows good deep spots and reef spots as well, but his mate with the boat lives north of the city, so I'd hazard a guess and say somewhere near Pt Wakefield...

@Fishingmad: I double checked and my 10lb 2500 reel is on a 2-4kg rod, so I'll take that with me too, cheers

@hoopsy: thank you mate, I'm looking forward to it a lot! I'll remember to watch the drag...

@Cleaver: sent you a PM

Hi guys,

My brother-in-law has invited me out on a mate's boat to go snapper fishing. All my gear is from jetty and rock-fishing for the last couple of years, so I either have much lighter gear (5 and 10lb lines on 1-3 & 3-5kg rods) or a 10' rod with 20lb line, none of which I think will be useful on the boat for larger fish.

My question is: I have a Penn Battle II 4000 reel with 20lb line on my 10' rod. Would that be enough for me to throw on a shorter rod, or should I be taking a heavier line and reel with me? I also have no idea about rods for boats, what length and weight rating should I be looking at?

Thanks for any advice!

HLS

Holy crap, I had no idea orcas came down here!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-04/great-white-killed-by-killer-whales-in-sa/6069168