archerfish

40 kgs of hurt!

Best snaps!

G'day
I enjoy hearing about people involved in illegal fishing activities who get caught and pay a hefty penalty for it.  Go for it I say, take their boat and their car if it is being used to fish illegally for profit.
However, as a recreational fisher I don't like the fact that these low lifes who rape and pillage our seas, get called 'recreational fishers'
To my mind, once they cross the line from accidentally having an extra fish, to seriously abusing the limits, they become criminals and should be named as such, not called recreational fishers.
eg If someone is jogging along taking handbags would you call them a jogger or a bag snatcher?
If someone is driving a car that they have stolen, would you call them a 'motorist' or a car thief?
If someone goes in to a store and removes goods without paying for them, would you call them a 'shopper' or a shop lifter?
etc
So why punch us law abiding recreational fishers in the nose by calling these marine poacher scumbags 'recreational fishers'
I find it very offensive, please use an appropriate term
Cheers
Rod

G"day Brenton, is it....well not excactly the famous Yo Zuri  Poddy,the no1 school mulloway lure of myth and legend, the lure that even second hand versions have fetched upward of 60 $ on ebay.
The lure that Yo Zuri discontinued and has had anyone with one look after like it was some kind of rare piece of jewellery.
But I am certain that the factory that had the moulds and produced them is still producing  and  although the finish isn"t as detailed as Yo Zuris,after recently finding these by a^$e whilst looking for something else,and testing them , they swim, cast  ect like a poddy every day of the week,and hopefully will catch  just the same.
Here is my originals....

 

 

 
Cant beat the detail in the original 

 
And here is the new ones which should do the biz, the finish isnt as good but  good enough, and they are  the same in every other aspect.

 
Actually still quite nice

 
[url=http://s25.photobucket.com/user/scummm/media/100_3769%20Custom_zpsduvvbaph.jpg.html][/
 
[
 
Cheers

The moment you realise you use your boat to much.

Interesting topic that you've started, Cal...
 
I'm keen to hear what other alternatives/combinations our online Hookers have tried and the varying degrees of success they have experienced. I'm about to experiment with doubles on poppers at the moment. However, there are singles, doubles, trebles, assists, stingers, etc. and any number of combinations of the above - any favourites out there?
 
Cheers
af

For what it's worth, Cal, here is is Rapala's "off the shelf" take on singles...
 
http://www.rapala.com.au/rapalahome/show_one_product.aspx?productgroup=Lures&iid=531
 
Cheers
af

Snap!

Heres a start for a friend of mine
I did the rod rack and drawers along the base...

He then put his lockable roller shutters around the whole set up
Lure rack is an aluminium extrusion screwed to a back panel
 
Cheers

Hello,
 
As the comments here sum up very well, this appears to be a narrowly focused initiative, with scant regard for the likely ecological and fishery productivity impacts.
 
I spoke with Cr Bill Jamieson yesterday to try to better understand where the proponents are coming from and to make sure that the media had not muddied the waters. Unfortunately it does seem rather accurate that they want to do this just for recreation and it seems they have entirely dismissed any hope of restoring any freshwater flows to the Onkaparinga estuary.
 
I informed the Councillor that despite the low freshwater flows, the river ecology is very important/significant and has been appearing to improve in recent years. Also that the best ecologists in Australia advocate for restoring tidal flows (not limiting them) as a means to improve river health and that in fact, there is a direct link between estuary productivity and tidal flow/exchange. I also let him know that fishers have secured a grant of $20,000 to improve river habitat and that he should think it reasonable that the sizable angling community will be against this proposal as it appears.
 
The Councillor has sent RecFish SA his report and we will be responding appropriately.
 
Great to see so many on here and elsewhere on social media who have a really great understanding of the importance of natural river processes and who are ready to stand up to protect this wonderful and unique South Australian Estuary.
 
Kind Regards,
David Ciaravolo
 
Executive Director
RecFish SA

This is a link to a copy of an article which is in the latest "Southern Times Messenger" (Wednesday, November 11):
 
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/local-want-useless-onkaparinga-river-returned-to-its-former-glory/story-fnii5yv6-1227603547614
 
Comments, please!!!
 
Cheers
af

Just having a quick look online and found these:
 
http://dbforms.ga.gov.au/pls/www/npm.ozcoast2.showmm?pBlobno=9430
 
http://www.ozcoasts.gov.au/search_data/detail_result.jsp
 
Cheers
af

"A clue, Watson?"
- Pres of FOGSV and three Onka City Council members in the photo - One of whom is also a Southport SLSC member - And another SLSC rep in the article bemoaning being unable to use the river for comps   THE Onkaparinga River must be returned to its former glory as a destination for watersports, a group of concerned locals says.   Onkaparinga councillor Bill Jamieson would ask his council for a study on the best way to improve the river’s health. “It has got to happen,” said Cr Jamieson, also a Southport Surf Life Saving Club member. “At the moment the river is silting up and is just useless.”   Pretty obvious what is going on - although why the "enviro warriors" FOGSV are also jumping on this bandwagon has me mystified.   Friends of Gulf St Vincent president Rob Bosley said the Onkaparinga River defined the area. “Outside the Murray River it is the other main iconic river we have got in South Australia,” Mr Bosley said. “To me it appears we have forgotten it; it’s has had its heyday and I would like to see it become healthier.”   Here`s hoping DEWNR (wash my mouth out with soap!) may very well have something to say about this? And af - that Estuary Assessment link you gave should be quite a stumbling block for a start. One would hope...  

I do struggle to understand what any proposal might constitute. Are we talking about a 'low' weir to catch the high tidal flows and retain the water volume,creating an artificial lake ? Hence preventing lower tidal movements from influencing the estuary? Really dont have enough information to provide an sort of objective opinion.
 
I would very much lean towards the 'precautionary principle' and suggest that such 'engineering' solution (weir) to the perceived 'problem' (lack of large recreational water body) could create more problems than good. Look how   the Murray Mouth is due to siltation.....low flows....over allocation of water resources  and a s**t load of weirs!!!!
 
An hypothetical Onk weir will exacerbate any effect of low outflows and silting buy providing a low-flow zone for silt to deposit and further preventing the winter storm surges from combining with seasonal winter flows, which naturally open up the system and remove sediment. Sure it will provide a nice lake in the short term but it will quickly fill up with silt and be useless. The problem lies upstream (Mt Bold & private dams) and the ongoing effects of our recent drought.
 
Further, from the perspective of an enviromentalist/recreational fisho (?!) any weir will very much interfere with any natural movement of fish and clearly be detrimental.
 
These folks are disillusionaly single minded. The bigger worry is what political influence do they have?
 
Hang on....the "Southern Times Messenger"..."News Corp". I've just over analysed this. Think we need to take their version of 'journalism' with a liberal dashing of salt.

They must be kidding. And if the government allows that to happen I will give up completely in the government. If people are that determined to "improve" the system for there own agenda while completely retarding the environment it astounds me.
 
We as fishers generally benefit when an environment is at its peak, functioning, generally, as nature intended; and as such we don't ask for procedures which would jeopardise the environment.
 
Surely the most sensible solution would be to give SA Water a kick in the ass and get them to release some heavy environmental flows from Clarendon.
 
To sand bag Adelaide's largest open mouthed estuary system would be utterly deplorable, especially since it is in direct contact with a sanctuary zone.
 
Grrrrrrrrr

[i love eating squid but it's a can be a tedious pain to prepare.]
 
Have you tried a SquidEzy tool?
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMwDwON0pTA
 
Cheers
af

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I8rb7qvwvWc
 
I knew they did it, but never would have thought somebody would catch it on camera! Can just imagine how hard the heart would be pumping!

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:

Well after trying to source a local Rod building wrapper, I sourced one from America on a site called www.mudhole.com 
 
So after being told it will take 3-4 weeks to arrive to my door step I was quiet shocked to see a parcel from America on my bedroom.... Im spewing because I only just put my order through Motackle for my rod that I will be building up.....
 
I have decided to start off with something simple as it will be my 1st rod i would of built. It is a 2-4kg wilson livefibre blades and tails blank. I love these blanks they are one of my favourites... It will be built with Fuji guides and Camo EVA grips.....
 
Can't wait....
 

 

 

Spent 3 weeks on the Island as a medical student. Only fished landbased and only with fairly primitive gear. I had a cheap telescopic spin rod and 6lb mono and a 30lb overhead outfit. I managed plenty of sharks each evening in the lagoon as well as plenty of big mulet and gar. I would hike 1 hour each way and fished the rocks at old gulch for bluefish, drummer and also managed a rat king and a bigger shark. Got spooled  a few times on the drummer and caught a few to over 50cm. On 6lb mono I was hooking about 15 fish a trip and only landing 3 to 5. I only bought over a handful of sinkers due to weight restrictions on the plane and soon lost them and had to resort to looking for rocks and tying them on for casting weight.
 
Would love to get back over there with some nice gear and do some livebaiting and spinning for Kings as well as tackle some more drummer but with graphite and braid.

I think you will find Robson Green also featured Ascension Island in an episode filmed there for his "Extreme Fishing" series (as previously alluded to, the rock formations were a bit of a giveaway).
Nice to see you having a bit of a Google of the subject as well Kelvin, along with myself! There's some interesting stuff there, including a couple of charter operations which would be tempting if the $$$ permitted.
Blo*dy long way to travel for a fish, though - even if the island is described as "the Jurassic Park of fishing in the Atlantic"...
 
Cheers
af
 
http://www.ascensionislandfishingcharters.co.uk

Dennis Verrett is a bit cagey about the spot and rightly so but plenty of hints in his videos.
 
Only a few spots in the world to get Land based tuna that regularly and it does not look like Lord Howe Island or Norfolk Island. Ascension island would have to be one of the best yellowfin tuna spots in the world. You can see the small hill in the background on one of his videos. Also he weighs his fish on the jetty at Georgetown.
Alistair McGlashan's new show featured an episode on Ascension Island and you can see the same geography and jetty and even a  few guys fishing off the rocks.
 
 
http://almcglashan.com/coming-soon-tv/
 
http://www.the-islander.org.ac/newsimages/3754_tuna.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-7DMDWA3JZE0/ULie5brVueI/AAAAAAAACbA/eVpK__1ArR8/s1024/2012%25252010%25253A11.jpg
http://www.planetseafishing.com/features/read/ascension-island-shore-fishing
 
 
 
 
 
 
Finally a quick google of some of the tuna and game forums confirms my suspicion
 
http://www.worldseafishing.com/forums/threads/ascension-yft-from-the-beach.2755274/
 
http://alantani.com/index.php?topic=11939.0

DAY 1

In the first week of school holidays, a Kangaroo Island trip was a great way to settle us in thanks to one of my best mates (John) and his family, who are one of the biggest deaf families in Australia! We arrived on a beautiful day with nothing but blue skies and crystal clear water. As soon as we got off the ferry, we were straight into the fishing! I spotted a few good schools of tommies so I chucked on a small hard body to see if I could tempt a few.. After landing a couple, a tiny squid appeared to be attacking the lure! Hooked up to it but dropped it. The next cast the same thing happened but this time I landed it. It was only small but there were quite a few hanging around it so I quickly chucked on a jig. First cast with jig, it was smacked by a nice squid on the drop. Same with the second, third and forth cast!   I realised how many there were but we were only keeping a few for bait and the rest were released. For the next 1 and a half hours we caught close to 30 squid, sharing around a single rod!    John, his two brothers and mum all landed their first squids which they were stoked about!   




 
It was time to head over to our shack, which was in Hanson Bay. We unpacked and set off for a stroll to the second beach, carrying a couple of rods. We found a very nice gutter and whist John chucked a bait out, I was flicking metals and soon hooked up within the first few casts! After a couple of solid runs, it spat the hook but another one took it closer in! Once again it spat the hook but again, a school chased it into the wave breaks and I saw the hookup through the wave! This one was one of the larger models which took me for a huge run and spat the  hooks again!!!! It was one of the biggest salmon I've hooked and I was spewing!! I even saw it in the wave with another 4 fish following it and clearly, this one was the biggest.   

For the next couple of casts, I had no interest in the lure but once the sun started to go down, plenty of big tommies and small salmon trout were hitting the lure. I landed quite a few big tommies while John only had bites on the baits. It got dark and cold so we decided to call it quits. Fortunately, the alarm was set for an early start the next morning!   
 
DAY 2
 
6am, we got up and had a quick breakfast. Walked to the river in Hanson Bay which I believe is the South-west River? The scenery was beautiful with the early morning fog creating a blanket over the top of the river. At the first accessible spot, I had a practice cast which resulted in a hookup on the Ecogear SX40! It was only a small bream but a good sign!

 
We made our way up the river flicking at every spot we could access. Before it warmed up, I landed another 3 fish with my mate getting donuts, it was his first time using lures which was understandable but I showed him quite a few tricks! 


 We made our way up to the very top of the river where I had plenty of casts in a small pool, on the 10-15th cast, I had a solid hookup! This one felt bigger and almost got me into a snag. After a good fight, I lifted it up to the ledge and boy was this bream healthy!   It measured 30cm and after a few pics it was quickly released. 

 
 
We went back to the second bay after lunch where we landed plenty more tommies, salmon trout and loads of pesky wrass! 

 
We got bored and went back to the shack to get the kayaks ready for a relaxing paddle in the river. But knowing me, I had to bring a rod along.    I followed behind John with the SX40 being trolled behind me. It wasn't long before I got hits, and lots of them! At the first bend in the river, I managed to land around 3 small bream. We made our way all the way up the river where I had no hits at all so we decided to go back down. As soon as we hit the same bend, I had a heap of hits. I hooked up to a few fish which spat the hook. This time I only landed one before sundown which was just legal. A quick photo and release.

 
DAY 3
 
The next day, we went to Kingscote jetty. It was pretty windy and cold. We had plenty of tiny bites on the baits but no hookups, it was really slow. After an hour, John hooked up to something huge on my rod! It took a rather large squid tentacle and screamed off straight under the jetty. After a quick 20 seconds, it busted him off on the pylon..    We reckon it was a big salmon, small kingy or possibly a snapper. I tied on another rig which had no interest other than the odd small nibbles. In the last few minutes, I decided to try for squid. It was hard casting with the wind but I managed to land 2 small squid before we left. 

 
Just after dark, we made our way to Vivonne Bay jetty. it looked very promising with tommies swarming the lights. First couple of casts, we landed a couple of tommies on plastics! They were solid tommies going 28-30cm. After landing around 20, I hooked onto something that peeled line!  After a decent fight, I lifted it up and to my surprise, it was a nice Silver Trevally! A couple more tommies were caught and then I hooked up to another slightly bigger Silver Trevally! We were getting loads of tommies and before we were about to leave, I hooked another Silver Trevally which looked a lot bigger! It fought extremely hard and spat the hook before it broke the surface. Oh well, we landed a nice feed all up! 


 
DAY 4
 
After a long night, we woke up tired but we didn't want to leave the place without landing a big salmon, so we walked all the way to the third beach, both casting metals into the surf along the way. We both managed to land a few salmon trout each, nothing big and were released. We made it to the third beach which didn't look as good as I thought, the gutters were really shallow and we didn't get a single hit. On the way back, we flicked metals at the end of the second bay, next to the rocks. First cast we both had hits. We hooked up to some good fighting salmon trout but we both persisted through the smaller ones. After I had a talk with John about why persistence is crucial in fishing, we both hooked up to a big salmon each, at the same time!!!   Mine was doing plenty of heart stopping jumps but they both stayed on! We were so excited and shared an amazing experience together. Both salmon were our personal bests with mine going 55cm and John's going 51cm. 


 
We threw them onto the sand and our lures went straight back in, hoping for another 'real' salmon. This school moved way to quickly and we didn't hookup to anymore solid fish.. After another couple of hours flicking lures and catching salmon trout after salmon trout, we called it a day and what a day it was!!! 

 
After hard work scaling and filleting the fish, they made a lovely meal! This was when I realised how good they tasted fresh from the surf! 

 
DAY 5
 
It was an early start for me as I had to leave. Lots of hand shakes and hugs went around as I left. I arrived at Penneshaw jetty a few hours early which gave me time to fish! It was windier than the first day but it didn't stop the squid from biting! First cast I hooked up to a nice squid, followed by more.

 
I ended up catching and releasing around 20 and decided to try catch something else. I chucked on a Zman 2.5" grub to see what was hungry. Casting into the reefy shallows, I had a solid hit, quickly retrieving the lure in, it was followed in by a wrass which smashed it! They actually fight hard which was a surprise.  After a pic it was released. 

 
And of course! Here's the video!! My longest video yet, please enjoy  

 
What an amazing experience I had! MASSIVE thanks goes to John and his family for the awesome time. 
I would also like to thank a few Strike and Hook members that helped me get familiar with Hanson Bay! 
 
Cheers guys. 
Alex. 

I have made designed and made a wall mounted rack and a floor rack on wheels.  I had everything I needed lying around
The floor rack was the simplest. 
cheers
Rod

On the topic of eating KG Whiting, I reckon I just discovered the most expensive KG meal ever seen in an eating establishment:
 
http://thefishhouse.com.au/food-and-wine/our-menu/
 
Now they wouldn't want to taste funny at that price, would they?!
 
Cheers
af