Plectropomus

I use 80 pound leader to 30 or 50 pound braid, and have had a devil of a time with knots. Knots failing (even when glued) and knots catching in guides. With my terminal gear, the "Slim Beauty" turns out as a "Nylon Nightmare". Sure, it is easy to tie at sea, and holds well, but boy, oy boy does it ever jam up in the tip and other guides. There is no doubt of the multiple benefits of the FG knot for such heavy terminal tackle, but blowed if I could remember it, and I seemed to need another hand (at least). There must be jigs out there on Google? Sure is, and the easiest to use and cheapest to buy is actually an Aussie backyarder by the name of "FG Wizz". Watching his "how to use" pitch, I was struck that, hey!!, the bobbins he uses look like the washers on my "Laserlite" fasteners from the deck renos, and also that the flexible rods look like pieces of tent pole or old fishing rod. Hmmmmm, I reckoned I had "the makings" in my shed. Scrounged or saved because "they will come in useful one day". Tonight, in isolation like everyone else, with the ABC broadcasting nothing but Coronavirus dilemmas followed by Amazonian destruction on 4 corners. What to do? Well, I made myself a copy of the "FG Wizz". Once the glue sets, I will be tying FG's like a pro I reckon......... I figure that such a copy might be somehow illegal, but some of you might choose to buy one instead -- so this is free advertising I reckon. The bits and pieces I used are shown here, but comprise only the cup washers from Laserlite screws, stainless flatheads with washer and nut, a piece of broken tent-pole, wall plugs, and a hardwood offcut. This was all I could drum up, but it looks the goods. The important bit is the "How To" video of the FG Wizz. See

The bloke I went with was a Parks'n'Wildlife ranger at Chillagoe for 15 years and used to chase them in the Walsh River. He told of very large waterholes there. I've never been out that way.

I built on your by-catch de-hooking device and saved room by welding it to my gaff. Gaff and dehooker all made from scrounged 316 SS rod. Pokes the hook out while they are still in the water boatside. Field-tested today on a big barracuda, but failed on a long-tom which had the whole hook inside its mouth. Worked today (in practice!) on a circle hook by pushing whole hook (and trace) back through the jaw, then I opened the swivel to free the trace. "J"hooks will go straight back out the way they came in (in theory, anyway). Better than trying to gaff the gang hooks away from angry sharks, I hope. I did learn that lots of tension has to be placed on the line in one hand, gaff in the other, with rod in holder...and that the dehooker will probably only work if the hook point is accessible.

In the wild streams a 400mm fish is a good one, but they get very large and fat in the lowland dams, with fish over 50cm present. The Trophy sooty in the 2014 Tinaroo Barra Bash was 3.965 kg (not measured) when it was still a "kill and weigh" comp, and most of the fish in the 2018 comp were over 400mm and up to 490mm (not weighed, as it is now catch-photograph-and-release). There are far northern streams where you can catch sooties, barra, jungle perch and mangrove jacks in close proximity in the upper reaches, but nowadays crocs are an ever-present risk in those same places.

summer from hell!!! Everyone pays one way or another. Our house insurance premium went up 20% in late 2019 after the Townsville floods, even though we are 5 hours drive away, because we share the first 2 digits of their postcode

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.

Hi there, Palm Cove jetty produces some great fish -- especially on live herring/sardines castnetted underneath it off the ramp. Huge GT's and spanish mackerel have been caught there. The trouble is the (cursed) sou-easter mid-year that re-suspends the muddy sediments and keeps the pelagics offshore. So your fishing will be governed by the wind and water clarity. The sou-easter blows for weeks on end (and makes the climate bearable) between about late March and late October. The various mackerel species come right inshore when it clears up in winter. Here is article for starters: http://www.fishandboat.com.au/articles/item/193-palm-cove-jetty-dan-kaggelis?fbclid=IwAR1gCmDzBEMNR34a88KBKL4BaEGD7bbYRhELv7iPQ4AV8Eqj4o7bBAhU59w Here are some pics from the young jetty rat who features in the article. Barra school up underneath the jetty but are no easy capture. Suspending unweighted live baits under the lights at night is a proven method used by the locals. Barra don't mind your Murray-River type murkiness at all.

I will give it a go and post a pic here when I do it. I bent up some heavy 316 stainless rod to make my own gaff, using heat and a piece of water pipe as a sleeve-lever. I have some SS chain and thinner rod I can cut to make the "crook" to weld under the gaff hook. Thanks for sharing the idea! All the net closures and license buybacks from NSW up to the Cape have certainly been a boon to rec .fishers in many ways -- but they have released the inshore bull shark/pig-eye shark pups from a major source of mortality. They were a significant gillnet bycatch and sold as "flake" (fillets) in the local market. Now folk are being sharked like crazy by "bull sharks" offshore. Tagged bulls (acoustic tags) have gone from Botany Bay to Townsville, and from Cairns/Townsville back down to NSW. I even saw a shark get "sharked". Anglers in sthn WA eat little "bronzies", but Qlders scorn shark. If we ate some little bulls caught in the creeks we might dent the population a bit. Here are some bits I "got back"

Chasebait "Flick Prawns" have hooked me lately. I use them in shallow drains and shallow drop-offs on flats. They drift horizontally, life-like, and I've caught flatties, estuary cod and pikey bream on them with more or less a "do-nothing" retrieve. However, they are snag-prone, even if rigged weedless, and are not cheap. Good old gold bombers continue to catch barra for me night (Tinaroo) and day (shallow drains in the Hinchinbrook mangroves), but YellowDoor's Sebile Magic Swimmers need some more time on the field up here. They look sooooh good in the water.

Sharks are a menace up here when floating out pillies for mackerel. If they eat the pillie you think you've hooked the mother-of-all-macks, but mostly they eat the mackerel after you hook up. I gaff the hooks on those littlies I do get boatside and let the shark bend them open to release. Not easy, and not good for the shark. Yours is a good idea, but more clutter for the tinny on top of the net and gaff (both of which seem to leap up and play trip-n-tangle when stumbling around fighting a decent fish). I reckon weld up a "crook" onto the bottom of gaff hook. Bottom of the hook gape so it does not foul the line when missing the gaff shot, and facing in an opposing direction to help "push" the hook(s) out.

15 rods! incredible

I'd love to see how many lures they actually use on the day! You'd be changing lures more than casting?? I guess there are whole videos of them in action to see how they select hardware for each spot/depth/habitat/light-level

Hi All, I picked up a 4120 and a 5120 from "GumTree" after posting my query here and getting some answers. Yes, the old glass ones are worth money....there is a FaceBook group called "Snyder Glass Fishermen Australia" (or somesuch) where folk trade these rods and rebuild them (or just appreciate and use them). There is another one called "Alvey Anglers Australia" where the old blanks are also traded. The trouble is the cost of freight interstate. where most buyers (like me) reside. Thanks

Thanks. It turns out the rod is "South Seas Tackle" (not "Southern Seas") but I am not going to pursue it. There is a "South Seas Tackle" wholesaler listed in Kilkenny.

Hi, I have googled "Southern seas" blanks and found nothing. I have been looking at an old "Southern seas BW141" rod for sale online and wondering about its origins, composition and taper. Has anyone any knowledge of these? Thanks