gregtech

Snook have been one of my favourite fish to eat and catch for as long as i can remember.They are second to none as  smoked and as far as freezing them they need to be cleaned and skinned but before you crumb or batter them when defrosted squeeze a little lemon juice on them and season with salt and pepper.I will challenge anyone to pick the difference.Treat any fish you catch with respect ,ice slurry and clean and fillet as soon as possible and even salmon trout are a delicacy.I know so many people who say they wont eat this or that but after i have cooked them a feed they soon change their minds.

This is a sign the world has gone mad if anything is.
Don't get me wrong, I quite enjoy the old snook, both catching and, when fresh, on the chew (just accept you're losing the entire rib section then skin for A grade fillets, mmmmm), but $20kg for whole fish would be near on $40kg for fillets which is crazy talk.
Tommies, mullet, bloody STs(!) etc are a similar sort of price & don't even start me on the real crazy stuff like cockles and pillies. This is bait people! Not $20 per kg food!
No-one on here actually buys seafood of course so I guess what I'm getting at is, now more than ever, YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO NOT GO FISHING! So let your bosses/missuses/etc know how things are and get out there when you can and start saving a fortune!

For me I find gar are a bit slower in winter as they don't seem as densly schooled up, also I fish the same general locations but find heading deeper can be better. 
I tend to be more land (jetty) based in winter, I like the old combo burley float & pencil float rig and a long 2m+ trace. It's otherwise normal gar fishing for baits, burley wind and tides. Great way to pass a winter's day and score a delicious feed, the real trick will be getting through the Tommies who love the colder months but that's a pretty good "problem" to have I reckon.

Gar are definitely bigger in Winter and although I have no idea on many of the questions you ask Des, I still always use a float.
On my local jetty at Pt Noarlunga, Gar are mostly caught towards the end of the jetty during warmer months (all on floats).  Although the Gar can be caught in the shallower water as well, but are smaller.
It is also better to have some ripple on the water and depths of hook will vary depending where the Gar may be holding on the day.
Over the weedy spots you'll generally have more success too.
Burley is always well worth using to 'bring in' the Gar.  You can make up all sorts of concoctions but I just use cheap chicken pellets mixed with some tuna oil. The pellets slowly break down. Or they can be soaked night before to soften quicker.  I also use old bread (processed up) mixed with tuna oil bit of curry.  (some people use canola oil cat tuna tins mixed into burley).
Have a good burley stream going but don't overfeed them - once they come in, lighten off the burley to a tickle.
I only use 1 hook as 2 hooks can cause too many tangles with Gar.  Most ppl use a hook size 10/12 long shank. Long shank is good for hook retrieval although I use 'Diiachi' size 12/14 small medium shank.
During Winter, the deeper depths of the jetty don't produce as many Gar (on a float), but successful catches are caught towards the shallows on a float.  There is no need to use a sinker/cork as the float/leader is enough due to shallower water depth.  If fishing toward the end of the jetty, then as Rybak mentions, a sinker/cork combo would be useful.
Gents are a great bait with 'long life' available mostly everywhere and about 350 gents in a container.  Keep in the fridge (I put container in a zip lock also - just in case of a couple escapees), where they become docile.  I take out once a week a give a little water spray and let them move around for a bit then back in the fridge - seems to keep them even longer.
Sometimes Gar will not touch a gent, so other baits such as a slither of chicken, slither of red meat or slither of Gar flesh can work also.  A couple of very successful fishos on the jetty use dough - their little secret ingredients work very well.
And, always best to have wind at your back for better casting and current in same direction - to keep the float 'out there'.
When Gar are finicky to take a bait, it is worth trying different methods to excite them into 'attacking'.
That can be slight jerks of your rod to give that slight movement of the bait - or a very slow retrieve, stop, slow retrieve - or jerk, slow retrieve, stop, slow retrieve - anything else you can try to excite them etc.   
If wind/current is in your favor, you can also try just the hook without a float/sinker/cork etc.
Many a time you will see them in schools and all around your bait, but no matter what you do, they will not commit.  When you throw in a little burley, they will take that, but not your bait.    If nothing works to hook them, just enjoy the day on the water
Also, if you intend to return any Gar (undersize, too thin etc), always handle them with care due to their very delicate scale.
Using a wet hand (or wet cloth) whilst holding them will help reduce loss of scales.
For the keepers, hold Gar around head/gills and with other hand, grip and run hand down the flesh - this will take off much of the scales and easier to clean at home.   Also, run your thumb down the stomach towards the bum which will push out most innards - point towards water and not yourself   Acts as a bit of burley too.
Gar is one of the tastiest you will enjoy - I rate them better than KGW.  And once you start bringing some home, you'll soon get the hang of butterflying them (although single fillets are ok, they can be a bit small at times).
Hope that helps and look forward to your catches  
 

For winter Gar, you fish the the bottom as you would for Whiting. The rig is a sinker clipped to a swivel at the top of the trace, & a cork at the bottom of the rig where the sinker would be for a paternoster rig. Then 1 or 2 hooks in between & still use gents. When the sinker hits the bottom, the cork will float the bait off the bottom & you get your Gar. 
Gar are normally a bottom weed eating fish hence the green goop that comes out of the backside. They stick around the ocean floor in winter. 

This will be a series of posts about Southern Garfish (Hyporhamphus Melanochir), starting with basic information on fishing limits. Other posts will cover feeding habits and different approaches to catching these mini marlins.
This information is accurate as of 13/04/2022, please check the PIRSA website for updates.
Minimum legal length: 23 cm measured from tip of the upper jaw to the tip of the tail. Personal daily bag limit: 30 Daily boat limit when 3 or more people are fishing on board: 90

JOIN A FOOD CHAIN
No, No! … Don’t get a job at “Maccas” … but find the Yellow Fin Whiting’s favourite “Maccas” ! Their food chain.
 
Recently I have been getting consistent results when targeting Large Yellow Fin Whiting.
It was after I studied the YFW diet, by regularly inspecting the gut contents of fish caught in different locations. Developing an understanding of their food preferences, movements, behaviour and the habitat in each location. Subsequently I have been fishing these habitats with the food preferences for that location. Fish in their “Macca’s” !
 
Large YFW’s Morphology and Diet
Larger YFW are built differently, behave differently and feed differently, to their smaller mates.
The morphology of the bigger YFW enable them to predate on a number of alternative food sources.
Bigger means stronger, faster, and most importantly they have a bigger mouth to swallow their prey.
Prey that is much, much larger than the worms they were weaned on. Not that they will pass up an available worm!
The bigger YFW are aggressive predators. No longer the docile benthic grazer of worms, nippers and cockles, that it was when it was smaller. They can now chase down prey. They can grasp it, rip it, immobilise it, and swallow it whole.
 
The different sizes/ages of YFW practice what biologist refer to as Resource (food) partitioning.
Which means the big ones don’t steal the young one’s food. They don’t all compete for the same food resources.
Larger YFW move on to aggressively feed on a lot of Crabs, Prawns, and Minnows.
Regularly inspecting and recording their gut contents and the areas they were caught in, provides a great insight into their diets.
And a good indication of the likely habitats in which to find the larger YFW. And more importantly what lures to use where.
There is also a degree of “Habitat partioning” with the YFW.
In summer I find, a lot more of the larger YFW remain in the upper gulfs. It holds their preferred food.
Whilst most of the smaller ones move on to southern gulf areas that hold more worms and small cockles.
 
The Habitats & Food Chain
Through out the upper regions of the two gulfs, the samphire beds are the start of a series of very productive areas to find large YFW
Haswell’s Mud Crab (Helograpsus haswellianus) are abundant here. They feed on the film of diatoms and algal slime which coats the surface of the mud flats. Through the warmer months the crabs spawn. Their abundant zoea are then fed on by the juvenile Prawns.
In that warmer half of the year, Juvenile prawns thrive in the, food rich, high salinity and higher water temperatures of the upper gulfs . Post-larval and juvenile prawns settle into the shallow environments of the upper gulfs for the warmer months. Before eventually moving on to deeper waters as they mature. The juvenile Prawn and Haswell’s Crab populations are the primary reason why the upper gulfs hold more large YFW.
 
So often I find the large YFW with their stomachs bursting full of small mud crabs, along with juvenile prawns.
And these YFW are often taken in low water in the outgoing tide. On the higher tides, the Prawns will move in to feed on the crab spawn and larvae. The big YFW are not far behind, hunting down prawns. But they also hang back in the very shallow water of the littoral zone, as the tide drops. Waiting for the small mud crabs to emerge from their mud holes, that are under and around the samphire beds. Then the YFW feast. The big YFW are unbelievably aggressive in the shallow out flowing water, during these frenzied feeding periods. Water flowing out, off the Samphire beds, often through mangrove creeks, will hold large YFW that have spent the high tide feasting on prawns and crabs.

   - Haswells Crabs in the YFW guts
 

   - Prawns upto 100mm found in YFW guts.
 
I have managed a couple of YFW with the Cranka Crab. But no luck using the soft plastic crabs. But the stand out success in this area, has to be the stickbait surface lures that mimics the movement of fleeing prawns in this habitat. Sugapen 95 is the most successful for me.

   - A few YFW taken on Sugapen 95 Col# MB16
 
The next promising area, are the sandflats. Which lie adjacent to the mangroves and samphire beds. The organic rich tidal flows, coming off the samphire beds provides the food source for many detritivores living in the sand flats. Large YFW particularly love lingering over the sand flats that hold Clickers. The smaller tides when water covers the area for a longer period, is a particularly good time to find them feeding here. Big YFW love big Clickers. The Ecogear ZX 43, a sub surface lure, on retrieval, has an action that mimics the movement of a fleeing Clicker or prawn, across the sandy bottom. It is irresistible to a large YFW when presented in these sand flat areas. Again SP imitations of clickers have had disappointing results for me.

   - A few YFW taken on the Ecogear ZX43 Col#402 (UV)
 
The sand flats finally meet the weed line. The ribbon weed beds hold and offer protection for a number of the YFW prey. Prawns will retreat with the tide and shelter in the weed beds. Likewise, it provides a safe haven for Minnows that shelter from predators here. Along with Flathead laying in ambush, big YFW are always patrolling the weed line looking for prey, should they stray out of their shelter. The Stick-bait surface lures, worked along the surface areas of the weed line, provides the top water action here.
And Soft plastic Minnows worked along the bottom of the sand flats - weed line edges, will also find you catching the larger YFW along with a few big Flathead.

   - A Few YFW along with some Flathead taken on Gulp Soft Plastic Minnows and Shads
 
To find big YFW, find the habitat that holds their preferred food.
To catch Big YFW on lures, use the lures that imitate their preferred food.
“Match the Hatch” and Increase your catch!
 

   - When you crack the Food Chain, catches of 10 or more 40cm plus YFW are a regular possibility in your bag.
 

   -  A Few sessions with 7 to 10 40cm Plus YFW in the bag
 
Tight Lines!
Cheers, Des
 

Follow up on Gliss. I've still got it on 1 reel. Abrasion resistance got really bad over time to the point of constant breakages.
 
It looks like most people have found the same and it is going really cheap.
WFT Gliss Hybrid Line 150m Yellow Bulk - DINGA Online — DINGA Fishing
At $3 a spool I am still giving it a miss.
 

I have been using Sunline Siglon PEx8 for a number of years now.
 

The thinness and cast-ability has been great. However a criticism of it would be that it frayed a little easily and subsequently prone to breaking easily if under pressure.
I would adjust the drag accordingly. Sometimes too much for a good set of the lure hooks on a strike. You learnt to adjust the drag after the strike.

 
Today I tried the PEx8 - ADV version for the first time ,,,. Brilliant !!!
Smooth, abrasion resistant. I totally agree with their claim;
 "deep resin technology. Increasing abrasion resistance 4 times, slickness and knot strength. It also repels water to improve casting distance cast after cast."
 And available for a very similar price.  Highly recommend it.
Cheers, Des.

Monday night I decided to head out for a fish, so I packed my squid outfit and a soft plastics outfit for some tommies. I packed it into my bicycle bags and headed off to Glenelg jetty. Got to Glenelg about 7pm and fished for squid till last light, then switched over to soft plastics for tommies. No joy with the squid but plenty of tommies about for a feed and to stock up on bait for crab nets.
The jetty was pretty empty with only two other people, which was surprising because the conditions were excellent. Then about 10.30pm the wind started to pick up with increasingly strong gusts. Just after 11pm a really big gust came through and I turned to see my bicycle being blown over. All my gear was secure in the bike bags, except my box of squid jigs, which went over the edge of the jetty. There was no moon, so quite dark but with a torch I could see the box of jigs partially floating and heading out to see. Well, 10 quality jigs and the lure box sinking to the bottom was not something I was happy about, and I quickly said to myself "F*** it!", stripped off to my boxer shorts, climbed the railing and took the plunge into the inky brine. One of the other fishos shone a torch on the lure box and I swam out to get it, then back along the jetty and underneath to the opposite side to climb the ladder.
By this stage my heart my heart was pounding pretty hard, not from jumping in (I was a regular jetty jumper as a kid), not from the swim, but from the thoughts racing through my head. With no moon, it was bloody dark down in the water and the fear of the unknown lurking below certainly put me on edge as I swam back to the ladder.
Would I do it again? F*** yeah! I'm not letting $150+ of jigs and lure box get away that easy.

Trusted and union don’t go in the same sentence 

Well, where do I start.
I managed to get out on the boat on Australia day and launch at the so called 'new and improved'.
On the fishing front, it was very slow and didn't do well. But more importantly the ramp itself (I was curious to see what the improvements were). 
First of all, I couldn't believe my eyes that $5million was spent to 'upgrade' the ramp. On what??
To dig a few more deeper holes for the new pylons? Come on!
To put on a steel capping to 3/4 of the the existing steel divider wall where sailing club boats launch?  
the pontoons were meant to go out deeper... I don't so and IF it does, we're talking centimeters not meters. This does not help with launching and retrieving on low tides and will still take the standard 10mins minimum to retrieve per boat (by the time you dock, walk to the car and retrieve), which is WAY too long when 30 boats want to come back when the weather turns.
I've been involved in the concrete industry for 17 years and lucky enough to work with one of the original persons who helped construct the first concrete slabs for the ramp. The new precast concrete floor slabs are a joke. Mark my words, in a year or 2 time, when the algae growth starts on them, there will be cars sliding into the water if the cars are borderline to boat weight ration. These slabs should have NEVER been a 'smooth' finish. They need to be abrasive / grippy and whoever managed to convince the designers to 'cut in the grooves' after the panel was constructed, is an imbecile. What an absolute joke.
I've been harping on about it, but how there wasn't a 3rd pontoon added is a lost opportunity to make this ramp the best ramp in metro Adelaide. 
Some of the original pontoons were kept and re-used. Fine. But the least you could do is apply new rubber edging so its all uniform with the new ones.
The pay machines, 1 is out of order and the other you can barley see the screen, yet you want $15 to launch.
Good to see the useless wind turbines disappear in the wash down area, another waste of time and money experiment. 
We want to visually see a change, improvement and get bang for our buck. Apart from the new precast slabs, they have purely just polished a turd!
What an embarrassment!
End of Rant.
 

Beware Croc spotted at waters edge

Handy when on the water
 

Maybe a Rec fishing "permit" could help with that 🤔
 

I keep having to look this up so I thought I'd produce a guide I can refer back to, and maybe it helps others.
Many would know braid labelled strength vs diameter is all over the place in AU, with seemingly no consistency.
The reason for this is the US market decided they would label braid based on the mono equivalent size rather than it's true breaking strength, except they didn't really do that and it's a seemingly meaningless number. In Europe they generally label with the actual breaking strain. Australia seems to have gotten a mishmash.
eg. JBraid x8 0.13mm (from the labels)
EU = 8kg
AU = 3.8kg/8lb
US = 8lb
All of them are made in Japan, same factory, why is the EU one 2x stronger? Because it's not, they are all the same line. Also, 8lb mono would be more like 0.25mm, so it's not even like it's truly a mono equivalent number.
I use Tasline for my Vanford 2000, their 12lb is 0.128mm (yeah right, like they can measure a non round braid to 0.001mm), and they state they expect it to break at 20.6lb or 9.3kg, so at least you get an idea of what it's really intended to hold. I have not had one single wind knot with that 'thin as hell miles casting line', unlike the JBraid that I've had a few with.
Here's the charts I use now, it's Tasline's numbers, they tie up with somewhat similar number to Sufix 832, JBraid and Kairiki - at least a hell of a lot closer than the AU labels.
Test 8 lb 12 lb 15 lb 20 lb 30 lb 40 lb 50 lb 60 lb 80 lb 100 lb Diameter in mm 0.115 0.128 0.163 0.225 0.299 0.317 0.332 0.422 0.48 0.545 PE Rating 0.5 0.6 1 1.7 3 3.5 4 6 8 10 Actual Average Break 14.2 lb 20.6 lb 23.7 lb 34.7 lb 49.0 lb 59.2 lb 78.5 lb 91.6 lb 116.2 lb 138.2 lb  
PE 0.6 ………………………….. 0.128mm PE 0.8 ………………………….. 0.148mm PE 1 …………………………….. 0.165mm PE 1.2 ………………………….. 0.185mm PE 1.5 ………………………….. 0.205mm PE 1.7 ………………………….. 0.218mm PE 2 …………………………….. 0.235mm PE 2.5 ………………………….. 0.260mm PE 3 …………………………….. 0.285mm PE 3.5 ………………………….. 0.310mm PE 4 …………………………….. 0.330mm PE 5 …………………………….. 0.370mm PE 6 …………………………….. 0.405mm PE 7 …………………………….. 0.435mm PE 8 …………………………….. 0.470mm PE 10 …………………………… 0.520mm                                                                                          

Apparently that is Doobie... Tripped over his walking frame again.

Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

Easy as Piss - but that is me on the jetty towards the end ... typical
 

Nice session there Adrian👍

Nice session there Adrian👍

I don't think even Doobs can cast that far😆

Had a friend (Mark an avid fly fisherman) over from South Australia who loves fly fishing for trout so I took him for a session in the Mersey River. The only problem was Mark forgot to throw his fly fishing vest in my car when I picked him up, the vest had all of his trout flies in it. Thankfully for some reason I took and extra Okuma trout spinning set up with me & a spare vest, Mark had no choice but to become a spin fisher for this trip. Thanks for watching..
cheers
Adrian (meppstas)
 
 

Some one took this picture this morning