Fishie

put a - (minus) sign before the latitude co-ord to signify the plot as being south of the Equator 0 degor prefix the lat co-ord with an S and the longitude co-ord with an E

That first pic of BigAsh's looks like he was born with his gonads in the wrong spot and is yet to be circumcised!! ... sorry fellas' I shouldn't have downed those coupla' tinnies with my lunch :woohoo:

VB... that is the weirdest snapper I've ever seenHere's one my mate caught recently off the Stanvac Barge

VB... that is the weirdest snapper I've ever seenHere's one my mate caught recently off the Stanvac Barge

You'll find the bow roller will be more expensive than the anchor... the sarca roller is designed to self right the anchor into the rollerMy SARCA and bucketloads of chain never fails now.... also with the SARCA if you find you are not hooking up simply chuck the motor in reverse and allow the anchor to bite in and hold

I use a SARCA anchor now and 30 feet of heavy chain.... I went from not hooking up all the time in heavy weather to the opposite.... now my anchor hooks up in any weather first time

There's some areas out in the Gulf that are silty mud bottoms and no matter what setup you've got you just won't hold in the rougher weather.... it drives me nuts when you position yourself and let out lots of rope and next thing your 200 metres behind the spot and still driftingSounds like you've got enough chain to hold the rode low on the anchor

It's no secret that it's the time of year to fish the Stanvac Barges judging by the vast amount of boats that have been anchoring up there in the past week but I just wanted to post a pic of the fish my mate pulled in the other evening... it just shows that the spot still fires for those old XOS sized fish.This fish went 12.5 kilo but would have to have the biggest honker I've ever seen in my entire life

With the latest chartplotters and quality info given on the electronic charts it's not too hard to do a bit homework and study the charts for productive snapper grounds.... the first thing to look for would be an immediate drop or rise in the sea level contours as this would indicate a harder bottom than the surrounding area. Secondly, look for areas marked "Co" for coral and other areas marked as shell or gravel etc

"It's places like these though which I hear all the whinging about, how you shouldn't mention them or you'll ruin them! "Tony, the topic is about secret spots and not the well known spots..... that's why they're secret 'cos you and others don't know about them There's lot's of "structure" still out in the Gulf that only a small minority know about.... I could list a lot of them but then they wouldn't be a secret but they range from sunken sharkboats and old prawn trawlers, old barges, a plane and a jetfighter, lot's of shipping containers to natural reef structure of coral, sponge and sca

I took a mate and his son to a snapper spot in the middle of the Gulf earlier this year and we bagged out on big snapper in minutes.. he proceeded to tell his son that this is a secret spot etc etc. The following saturday I bagged out at this spot at daylight and was heading for home when my "mate" passed me on the way out to this spot and onboard were 4 of his mates... he proceeded to tell me some bullshit excuse why he'd ventured out there........ He is now off my xmas snapper list and will never be trusted again

Whilst on the subject of spots I've heard that a lot of boats are now fishing the Hobart off Wirrina due to the fact that no-one ever dives it because of the strong tidal movementIt seems a waste to still declare it a no go zone if it isn't being used for what it was sunk for. Fisho's would no doubt bring more dollars into the local community than what the diving fraternity are... or am I completely wrong

"Having said that some of my best spots have been passed down to me from a discrete, small group of close mates. Its important to me to honour our friendship and trust. "... I've gotta agree with you here Nick. Losing your trust and integrity means a lot to me but can also wreck what were once good grounds as you say.I find it a lot harder trying to keep offshore spots a secret than the close in ones... if you see a boat 30 to 40km offshore he isn't exactly sitting there after tommies and must be sitting over something worthwhile hence the reason why most boats make a direct beeline for you.

You have to work hard not to get pinged on a spot these days. Most spots I won't even anchor 'cos I lose time getting my anchor up. I nearly got pinged earlier this year on a spot that my family has managed to keep to ourselves for around 70 years but a bloody bird was still sitting on the spot as I took off :S There's always some new spot that has just been "pinged" that everyone just has to fish and is the mega zanadu of spots. Once the charter ops get hold of a spot it is usually all over and the spot gets trashed

Anchor up back off them or you'll foul your anchor and have to cut it off

Try and record as much info as possible e.g. .....time of day, tidal movement and the days tide heights(e.g. running in / halfway thru' tide/ or towards top or bottom of tide etc... high tide 6 am 2.1 metres and low 12 noon 1.4 metres.... this will indicate if it was a strong tide or weak on the given day... the above figures indicate a tidal movement .7 metre over a 6 hr period), wind direction, bait, moon phase ( 3 days before a full moon etc)... basically, anything you can think of that will help build a picture overtime

Notebooks are the easiest and most convenient and last a very long time ( I have old fishing journals passed on from Grandfathers and father's era which still have valuable info after all these years).From there you can then add the information to software on your PC. It only takes a few minutes to write down the relevant information but that info will be a gold mine when you start building up a picture of fish movements etc

Here's a pic of what you'll be fishingSnapper and KGW all year round.... the fish in the pic are KGW

http://www.mikesreelrepair.com/schematics/

RJ.. Good point it will always be a Tommy Ruff and a Goolwa Cockle..just as much as I'll always be using WGS84. Afterall, my C-Map Chart is WGS84 and I can't change that let alone enter my plots into C-Map PC-Planner software in any other wanky format like GeowhateverDA94 :woohoo:Here ya go GNSS.. knock yerself out with this one.........http://www.gpsunderground.com/forums/index.php

Excellent stuff there Brenton... I did a search of Brighton Jetty and found some more pics of my families boats tied up to the Jetty from circa 100 years ago thru to the 1940's (confirmed by my old man). Also did a search of the Patawalonga and found a couple of pics of my old man in his old boat going thru the Lock back in 1961 Have a million karma points from me

"Reason being that every tom dick and harry they suspect would mean they would have to obtain a warrant."Yep! it all sounds waaaaaay too hard... better off finding an easier target to pick on

"So should the under size be returned ?"I think some of those get shipped across the border where they'll be of legal size

Howdy Brenton, I think if you have a fibreglass boat the return signal to the unit would be negligible unless you have a fair amount of metal like rocket launchers etc to deflect a stronger return but then you'd probably need structure that is flat sided to bounce the radar signal straight back.. if you look at the way the F117a stealth fighter the fuselage is made up, panels that are angled off in all directions to deflect the radar signal and not return it back at the angle it came fromIt's getting harder to not get pinged out in the Gulf... your best bet is to drift across the structure wit

This old chestnut has been flogged to death on the forums over the years but you make a lot of sense and bring our argument into perspective against the pro's and con's of what we're up against... Yep! well said and have a Karma from me also