projoe

If we are lucky enough (IF) we might get a good start to the season but it will go to crap once the flood waters with the snow melt from further up get here

Bad knots? are you applying saliva to the knots before pulling snug? could be a bad batch of trace material & yes it happens

About 3 decades ago when i used bait to catch a few fish for a meal or 2 in my boat i would look out local for snapper, salmon, drummer or some fish with a drag pulling capacity. Once i had caught a couple of these species I would move on to the appetisers like gar, tommies, or even a couple of good sized leatheries.

Now for the garfish as i always had some pilchards left i would carefully fillet a couple of half frozen pillies & cut them in long slivers appox 40mm & about 5mm wide these would be carefully put on a size 8 longshank gamakatsu or diiachi hook with a half hitch holding the top of the bait & with a nice slow action 2kg rod & small spinning reel with 2kg line i would cast this unweighted morsel into the berley stream i had running out of the muncher on the back of the boat made of bread & a few pillies. If the garfish were a bit shy i would  stoop to dipping the end of the bait in a tiny bit of tuna oil & would slowly very slowly retrieve the bait back this generally got them biting & the larger gar were bloody good fun on this gear. Flyfishing for the gar on trout 4 weight gear with a maggot fly of my own design worked a real treat retrieved in the same fashion as above but thats another story for later.

Just to keep the juices going ive put up some more picks of other species that have taken a liking to the vibe/blade

They are one of my favorite & most successful lures for deep water use in my boat when chasing bream & schoolies.  they are very good snag detectors & i've had a few find new homes in the onka when fishing them from the bank & tend to stick to hards & softs in there these days. 

my most successful method of use was a good long cast but you need to just feather the last bit of the cast to make the lure lands with out tangling up i'll let the lure sink to the bottom & even let it sit there for a few second have had bream pick them up on the first cast. after a few seconds i give the the rod a sharp upward lift you will feel the blade vibe then let it drop be ready tho bream will quite often hit on the drop.

ive dropped in a couple of photos of some of the many bream ive caught on vibes over the years. cop the fatty in the 3rd pic gave me a reel tussel to get him out of 10 metres of water.

if you use the the split ring on the tow eye of the lure that could be your problem i have found a lot of these split rings have sharp edges on the end of the wire the line of the knot slips into or is located at that point & will break off i have had it happen to me in the past all my lures now have no split ring on the tow eye & are now tied straight to the lures tow eye with a loop knot

always take em off, tie or clip the go straight to nose or bib loop

if your launching at the new ramp with the pontoons & stay with in the channel markers there should not be any problems remember tho its 7 knots speed limit

it may be the tow eye is slightly cocked to one side if the lure is spinning clockwise try pulling the eye to left ever so gently & with a very minisule adjustment with a small pair of pliers retry lure & the reverse if the lure is spinning anticlockwise. also i would tie a loop knot rather than a blood knot it gives the lure a little more freedom of movement thru the water.

I could not see any difference in the blanks or rods FT/FSU (i was in fishing retail thru 1970s up to 2009)  in these models other than different manufacturers cosmetics placement of winches etc.  there were some fluro models 1980s (fluro yellow, orange, blue, green etc) brought out at one stage did'nt last long tho.

pretty much all the rod building/blank makers have had ago at this. Because it was such a popular rod /blank FT120 4w (4 wraps of fibreglass) & later the FT120 5 (5 wraps of fibreglass) there were also some graphites made (i think were actually composites) i owned one of these for a few years, good  rods for there day. Back thru the 1970's 1980's butterworth i pretty sure were the first to bring out these fast tapers then rumors were it was sold on to snyder glass & from there just spread to china. wilson & juro still make rods from these blanks last time i looked 

just another tip keep your sounder transducer cable away from other wiring if possible ie run it it down the other side of the boat away from battery/power wires it will reduce electrical interferance

self adhesive ziptie cable holder is one name i found on google i'm pretty sure i got some from jaycar it was some years ago now electrical outlets or bunnings mite stock them

JAYCAR sell a stick on ziplock strap holder i have used these in the past & are bloody hard to remove with a properly prepared surface in fact i had to a screwdriver to pry some off when i needed to relocate some wiring

The white paper from the sa fisheries research i read a few years back said a large mulloway congregation off the murray mouth to breed around sept to november (not every year somewhere between every 3-5 years) the ova is then swept up in currents that head out into the southern ocean these then over the following year or 2 grow to a few centimetres long & drift back in on landward based currents the fingerlings take up refuge in estuarys & creeks open to the sea & spend a few years around these areas (coorong is one of the major nurserys & the worms that live in there are one of the major sources of their nourishment) once reaching maturity they leave these nurserys. There is also a minor breeding of mulloway takes place over of the west coast as well from time to time.

please note- i meant garmin striker plus 7sv not garmin elite! oops.

if you have one of the larger yaks i would go for the garmin elite 7" sidescan etc excellent unit have one on the front of the bream boat & the garmin 9" (touchscreen) echomap on the console. bcf have specials every so often on the 7" of which they are nearly as cheap as u can get online might be worth waiting for? I have used sidescan sounders now for 12 years & these garmin have done their homework & are much better than the older units i used in the past & easy to operate. the photos are from the 9" & are of a wreck a steamer sunk in the murray river but gives you an idea of the clarity & definition you get plus heaps of screen options.

its just a thought what colour is the line clear? or fluro coloured? green blue?& i like to use a good quality clip tied with a locked blood knot works out to be 98% breaking strain of the line.

only safe option to leave car & trailer if you want to fish the coorong overnight is to launch from the goolwa marina (overnite lockup) on the freshwater side & go thru the barrage lock if that service is still available i havent used it for a few years but if this is used you are stuck in the coorong all night until the barrage lock operator starts work at about 9am

the coorong is a national park. if you sleep in the boat no permit needed but if you stay on shore you will need a camping permit.

You will need a bloody big trawler with a big fine net & get out a couple of hundred kilometers off shore to catch pilchards (the size you purchase in the tackle stores) in this state they do come up this gulf but are usally on the much smaller size (juvenile fish) & will congregate in the port river for a couple of months later in the year then disappear till the following year.

when I was there in 2005 got thawacked right between the eyes by a bumble bee going flat out    whilst I had a fly line in a full foward cast needless to say the cast didnt end up were it should of & when i got my senses back it was on my left shoulder & not happy. He took to the air after yelled at him for a while & I felt quite relieved he didnt sting me, i dont react well to bee & wasp stings, O yeh there were a few spots where the european wasp has settled in quite nicely as well made a few spots unfishable   

Yep, good one to use on snook from the boat casting into the reef & rocky shores down south they dont get torn to shreds on the first fish also caught a few salmon on em 

You need to wire in a circuit breaker for that amount of amperage & do away with the fuse, properbly would have gone up a size on the cable as well & get a cover for the anderson plug on the rear of the car & the winch they do some cheap at JCAR.

I have used the 5 turn surgeons knot for the last decade been very reliable for me just remember a bit of spit on the knot as your closing it up proberbly better with 1 to 1-1/2 metre leaders but have managed to attach up to 5 metres for my surf casting wind on leaders. just a couple of nasties pulled out of tight spots whilst luring for bream using the knot.