yellow door 1

Some mighty fine looking dishes there Mah - my back yard doesnt get the right amount of sun for good growing conditions.

But before I worked from home, the office had a long strip of land in the carpark, that I claimed for my self as a veggie patch. 

It would produce literally 1000's of cherry tomatoes over summer- also had an assortment of herbs in there so it was a handy resource. We had a few green thumbs at work so I was never short of advice or food to feed them

You definitely savor the flavour of the stuff you grow yourself👍

 
 

I have two raised beds and 5 ground level beds.
The raised beds are great for things like lettuce, spring onions etc.
The ground level beds a good for tomatoes, cucumbers, beans etc.

Having multiple beds means I can rotate different crops in different beds, particularly important with tomatoes. Everything is irrigated and I run it off a B-hyve irrigation controller; which is wifi enabled, so if I'm away fishing for several days and the weather changes, I can login via my phone and increase or decrease the watering as needed.

For most of my adult life I lived in the CBD in townhouses so I didn't have a garden. Six years ago I moved to just south of the city, renovated the existing house with a bulldozer and started afresh. One of the key aspects was a big veggie garden and 2x 20 thousand liter rainwater tanks (there is no storm water runoff from the site into the local waterways).
I'm not worried about the price of lettuces!

And when I'm not growing vegies, we go foraging for food.

I was mainly a crumbed and fried man for many years and still go that way often (Probably due to my tartare and seafood sauce addiction), whiting, snapper, gar squid & sometimes tommies with crabs for mum was the go, occasionally baked snapper, but over the years I've branched out into all sorts. 
Crabs, crays, squid various fish and even some purely to me bait stuff like cockles, baitfish (I catch the odd pilchard, surprisingly delicious) scallops, and mussels because my missus likes them.... pretty much everything is on the menu these days.
Curries of various types, pizza, pastas, sashimi (often), grilled, baked, fried various ways, it turns out seafood is delicious almost everyway if you look after it with a few exceptions. 
So yeah my favourite for years was crumbed as a vehicle for sauce but now I would say my favourite way to do seafood is probably to experiment and try new things, so variety is what I like.

Been cooking up a few whiting fillets recently and its got me thinking.

Im all about shallow or deep frying - either dusted with flour, herbs and spices or batter made from the same ingredients.

I have been accused of overpowering the taste of the fish in the past - but thats how I like it - and I can still taste the fish underneath it all

The main flavours I use are, italian herb mix and garlic powder mixed in with the flour. 

If Im feeling saucey I'll drizzle over some sweet chilli sauce over the fillets right at the end, so the sauce caramelizes but doesnt burn. Finish with a squeeze of lemon - a bit of salt and add a dollop of tomatoe sauce and Im in heaven.

The photos arent the best but the taste makes up for it😉

 

Depends.
Tommies and garfish I sprinkle salt and pepper, then dust in flour, before frying quickly in a lightly oiled fry pan.
YFW I like to crumb in panko crumbs before shallow frying.
Crab, I like to make serve with spaghetti.
I also like to make tommies into fish cakes.
In summer, when I catch most of my fish, I have loads of home grown tomatoes, cucumber, basil, chillies etc. for the salads. I get a lot of satisfaction from serving a meal that is mainly made from what I've grown and caught.

Been cooking up a few whiting fillets recently and its got me thinking.

Im all about shallow or deep frying - either dusted with flour, herbs and spices or batter made from the same ingredients.

I have been accused of overpowering the taste of the fish in the past - but thats how I like it - and I can still taste the fish underneath it all

The main flavours I use are, italian herb mix and garlic powder mixed in with the flour. 

If Im feeling saucey I'll drizzle over some sweet chilli sauce over the fillets right at the end, so the sauce caramelizes but doesnt burn. Finish with a squeeze of lemon - a bit of salt and add a dollop of tomatoe sauce and Im in heaven.

The photos arent the best but the taste makes up for it😉

 

If weather permits this weekend. I’ll give the old Jarvis walker fibreglass nibble tip -a head to head challenge with the daiwa scratchy graphite stick
 
 

Yeah we used to catch 40 pinkies for every snook on lures. The standard snook take was a noticeable single take - no warnings with missed hits - then a bit more weight than normal - then they would come to boat quite easily in a slow arc. Then when you pulled there heads up to the surface, they would shake their heads and slice through 8lb leader and steal your lure.

But occasionally you would get one that put on the after burners and went nuts - usually the bigger than average units.

I watched them getting air bourne while smashing gars, so they do have the ability to generate power - most of them save a bit for when they are in the boat and your fingers are near their mouths😉

Yeah I reckon you're right. Taste is personal and Im a marginally better chef these days - so I reckon I'll revisit some of these species I'd written off in the past

Ive written off a few fish because they didnt compare well, when eaten side by side with others cooked in the exact same way. My expectations of how fish should taste and their texture is based of the ones Ive eaten most often in the past.

Goat fish are another one that some people rave about, that I release.

Snook and Goat dont make up a huge percentage of our overall catch, so its easy enough to just chuck em back and go for the ones I know how to cook.

We used to do alot of catch and release, and fish much more often than now - getting a feed of pinkies was a matter of heading out to the shallow reefs for an hour or 2 and it was exceedingly rare not to get a few.

Any day of the year, the pinkies just used to be stacked up and waiting for your lures. I had to instate a rule that I couldnt take fresh fish, if I still had some in the freezer. So there were alot of weekends where catch and release was the only option. And it was under those circumstances that I made some of my choices of what was worth keeping.

My mind set was  - if im going to kill a fish - I better really enjoy eating it - and ones that werent as good as Pinkies and flathead got a free pass. There were enough of the ones I liked, to not take ones I didnt like quite as much.

But those days are long gone  - so the next goat or snook I get has a right to be very nervous 😉

This should shave a few seconds off the braid reversing process😉
 
 

I couldnt find my old braid reversing spools the other day so I tried doing it freestyle - what a nightmare that was.

So it was straight down to the Hardware the next day to make a new set
 

 

Tackleworld Adelaide have another 20% off atm, obviously to match SFS. I'd happily buy from SFS but *every* rod I was interested in was out of stock even before the sale.
Anyway, enough head scratching, time to buy, and the winner was;
21 TIERRA 702LXS Light 2-10g 7'0"/213cm 1.5-3kg 2 section ,Extra Fast taper, ~90g
Wasn't actually on my list, but the same grip as the Infeet won me over everything else I handled. I also liked the extra fast taper, more backbone than the Infeet but pretty much the same tip from the last 2 guides. Somehow 20% off $179 came to $119, could not say no.
BTW, had another look at the Crucis Tempest VXS (not solid tip), and I was very tempted.
Heaps of great light action rods these days, damned hard to choose even when price is not an important consideration. What I have come to be more aware of is grip shape means a hell of a lot to how much I enjoy a rod. It's the difference between feeling like you're holding the rod vs. it being an extension of your hand/arm.

Makes sense to me. If you have only one or two reels it may not be worth it, but I have 6 reels and use 3 different diameter/strength lines. If I save $10 per reel it's worth the effort.

Yeah my braid shopping is all online these days - and I tend to buy bulk spools and break them up into 100m top shots to stretch the dollars a bit further.

So all my spooling is done at home - the lengths Ill go to, to save a few bucks, sometimes doesnt even make sense to me😉.  

 

Yeah my braid shopping is all online these days - and I tend to buy bulk spools and break them up into 100m top shots to stretch the dollars a bit further.

So all my spooling is done at home - the lengths Ill go to, to save a few bucks, sometimes doesnt even make sense to me😉.  

 

Alot of tackle shops do the unspooling & spooling for free...Once you've bought the line from them...Well they have for me.

That's pretty much how I do it, though I use a M8x50 machine screw with 2 mudguard washers.
I'm curious what "freestyle" was. 🤔
What I do need to make is a spool holder that keeps light tension.

I couldnt find my old braid reversing spools the other day so I tried doing it freestyle - what a nightmare that was.

So it was straight down to the Hardware the next day to make a new set
 

 

100% agree mate. Fresh, bled and skinned snook with the bloodline removed are spot on for eating. On the bbq for a couple of minutes and wacked on fresh buttered bread with salt & pepper or a dash of sweet chilli sauce. Bliss😊

Snook are ok eaten fresh, but need to skin them. They dont freeze well at all - become mushy. Need to heavily salt if you wish to use them as bait. Excellent for smoking.

I stay away from graphite type rods of any sort. They are too prone to breaking. I use fibreglass custom made sabre rods with silicone runners which I have had forever. Initial cost was expensive but have lasted with all the nicks & knocks over time.

Not as fast as him though .... yet  

Zero use on big fish  - but good for the ones I plan to target with these holders