sbarnden

I measure it as a single with a gape the same size as across the two points on the treble.

But always need to check the action after to make sure it hasn't been compromised.

From jetties or in general? Can't remember exactly from a jetty, recently got some yellow eye mullet around 35cm. That's about the size I handline and don't trust the rod to lift. Got a truly massive squid which would have been a couple kilos, had that one netted. Don't get to fish jetties much now I've moved to tas, they don't seem to build them here like back in Adelaide. In terms of biggest fish landed, a ~5kg eagle ray from the port near the gates to west lake. Lucky it wasn't out to sea or it could have spooled me, kept it swimming in circles and onto the shore by my feet when the hook finally came loose and let it swim off. Other than that a 60cm+ sea trout from vanhankaupunkikoski near Helsinki when I was in Finland.

Then don't lift the fish up with the rod then. I often fish my light stick off jetties (7ft 3-14g cast weight) and unless it's a small and light fish, like gar or Tommy size I don't lift it with the rod, I either grab the line and hand line it up or use a drop net.

Just need to make a judgement on the size of the fish and how much of a bend it will put in the tip lifting it.

Ran across this interesting concept from a news article.

A company/organization has figured out you can address every single point on earth in 3x3m square resolution using a combination of 3 English words.

Which is a damn sight easier to remember than a long string of GPS coordinates.

Apparently Tongo is adopting it for their brand new national post service. Instead of street addresses every 3sqm of their islands (and all water in between) effectively has a postal address they can plug into a drone and drop your mail off to.

There is a phone app that you can download that uses the system instead of GPS coordinates.

Now I don't know about you but I'm happy with a system that puts me withing 3m of my fishing marks and makes it dead easy to share those marks with mates.

http://what3words.com/

Plus you can get some hilarious combinations. 

Just watched this from Totally Awesome Outdoors show (the new spin off from their Totally Awesome Fishing Show).

Making your own oil from fish guts. They are using it here for lamp oil but I'd guess its a ingredient in his personal secret oil blend previously featured on his shark fishing video's.

Anyone tried making their own oil from fish guts for burley instead of just buying tuna oil in bulk?

Trebles might help with the hookup to landing ratio but probably going to get me snagged more often. My only gripe with the prey blades has been how easily fish seem to be able to throw them. Considering swapping the rear hook to a single with more angles of freedom to reduce them chucking it.

Looks like BCF is going through a product line refresh for savage gear and the blades are no longer being supplied to stores. Had to order a stack online and waiting delivery.

But on the plus side I ordered them at clearance prices on sale for cyber Monday at $4 a blade :-)

They were my favorite brand of blades, anyone got any alternative suggestions?

Big redfin were absolutely slaying the fire tiger pattern at Craigbourne Dam here near Hobart. Only thing in my box that was getting a touch. Hard bodies and soft plastics were being ignored by everything but the blades were getting constant action. Even got a decent salmon or rainbow trout (both are stocked there) but jumped off almost straight away.

Wondering when the 2017 lineup of products will be in store and if they will bring the blades back one-day.

You can use a fly rod for yellow fin whiting. Especially if you don't mind polluting it with bait and making purist fly fishers gasp in shock and have a heart attack. Can be a great way to present a weightless or lightly weighted bait to the shallows where the whiting lurk.

But I would recommend a medium/light action general purpose travel rod outfit around 7ft with a 2500 size reel and 8lb line. Perfect for going for a walk flicking lures for salmon-trout or bream, or presenting light weight paternoster burley sinker rigs off jetties for tommies, silver whiting, gar and similar or stick float rigs for the same. Or chucking light sliding sinker rigs right in the shallows with live worms for yellow fin. Also good for throwing small squid jags either from the rocks or from the southern jetties off the end near the sea grass.

It's the snapper closed season but the charters will still be running for king George whiting, squid, gar and other basic bread and butter targets and would be a great way to get you onto them. If you want to more reliably catch something and learn the best techniques for them at the same time you are best getting a charter. I see charters as more of a fishing education thing than just transporting me to where the fish are and well worth the money when I could afford them.

Running a shimano exage 1000RC with power pro bite motion 5lb and I've landed what I estimate was up near 5kg eagle ray along with sea trout to 3.5kg. Along with Australian Salmon to 40cm. I love the bite motion braid and rarely have issues with it.

For light braid to leader connections when wading, look at the sokkou knot tool from Daiwa. Dead simple and fast. You can do the same knot with your fingers or some forceps (it's effectively a surgeons knot).

Not the location you are after but my best success has been shore jigging for them while wading off Marino rocks.

Caught a lot on slim metal jigs such as leadfish and also silver halco twisters.

Definitely a viable target wading if you can cover rocky and weedy ground.

Had some nice follows and sightings wading on the northern flats out over the deeper weedbeds but not in the channels.

Check out the kanalgratis YouTube channel in their tie tv section. Had a very good 'fly' they used in perch pro with a cone head, beads, Mylar tube, epoxy and their wiggle tails. Lots of other good patterns too.

All the advice I found when starting fly fishing was buy the best rod you can afford, then the best lines you can afford and finally whatever reel you can get with the money left over.

Unless you are chasing large game fish the reel is just a line storage device. If you are going to chase bigger fish which in SA would be large salmon, mullies, kingfish, snapper and tuna then you will be a better reel but anything large arbor with a smooth drag should do.

The insane prices for fly fishing gear is more of a status symbol than anything. Like it is in any hobby really.

I've caught up to some good sized barra on my entry level Orvis encounter 8wt combo with no issue.

Digging up an old topic,

Anyone given the Molix Supernato a go?

Love the idea of it being weedless for the deepest snaggiest sections and being able to adjust the sink rate by adding/removing water into the body.

Also liking the look of the new Jugulo "FS" with the weight at the back. Looks to be great casting lure for salmon into strong winds, wonder if its going to make it here to BCF and how long it will take.

Noticing a few in their global range that don't appear to have filtered through to our local distributor. The Audace range and Brigante for instance.

If you want to be dirt cheap fishing for a feed then you only need a few things, probably be able to set yourself up for under $20.

1) A hand caster. Usually can buy one rigged with a running sinker rig for a couple of dollars. Rods can help you cast farther and reels make it easier to retrieve and stay neat but just to catch fish a handcaster can do pretty much everything you would want from most shorelines, rocks, breakwaters and jetties.

2) A squid jig. Can buy a cheap jig for a couple of dollars which will work just as well as most of the expensive ones even if its not as pretty.

3) A selection of tackle odds and sorts. A spool of cheap bulk mono line. Hooks, can buy variety packs cheap enough. Sinkers, again a variety pack of ball sinkers cheap enough. Swivels, again, variety pack cheap. Floats, bubble, weighted casting, big squid floats. All pretty cheap again.

First, get yourself down a jetty or breakwater where there is ground that holds squid well within chucking range. Cut off the running sinker rig from the hand caster and tie on the squid jig. Chuck it out as far as possible and work it back with slow pulls pausing to wind the line up each time. If there are squid around you will get into some pretty quickly. You can set it under a float and chuck the whole thing out and wait if you're feeling lazy but you will get more bites if you constantly cast-retrieve.

Now you have plenty of squid tubes for the table and squid head and tentacles for bait.

Now you can cut the jag off and put on a rig of your choosing - running sinker, paternoster or float rig. Bait up with squid and start fishing. Almost everything loves fresh squid. You should be able to get into most fish.

Have to remember that next time, and get some lip balm. Finns 40G is advertised as being so slick you can just pull the knots out, haven't got any to try it but planning on it for one of my setups.

Other than that I've also enjoyed using the cheaper fused braids. That extra stiffness goes a long way to reducing casting knots and haven't had many issues with it.

Reading the news today, Abalone Ranching!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-23/world-first-abalone-sea-ranch-creating-opportunity/7345448

They drop down a concrete artificial reef modules, seed them with abalone and leave them to grow to maturity before harvest. Apparently they have plans to build a ranch off Pt Lincoln in SA.

Now the big question, if they build an artificial reef for their ranch will they let anyone fish it. I have my doubts...

Bulk spooled braid from a 'reputable' local tackle store can be good value especially given they should load it properly and with a suitable mono backing. the added bonus here is they should be able to to 'topshot' 100m or so oton a mono backing, making it even cheaper.

I've bulk spooled from quite a few 'reputable' tackleshops and found it to be pretty crap. Get heaps of casting knots, etc.

Cheap braid doesn't seem to last for me more than a year or two because of breakoffs and casting knots depleting the spool.

Power Pro has been good. Best braid I have and which I'm loving is Power Pro Bite Motion. Slick, thin, cast like a dream and almost never get a casting knot with it. On the exact same outfit with a spare spool I'm running a bulk spooled recommendation from a 'reputable' tackleshop which I get non-stop grief with. When I get the change I'm scrapping it and changing it to something new.

Want to give Finn's 40G a go as that looks nice. Other than that I've heard Ok things about 'Kast King' which you would have to get online but looks fairly affordable. Only downside is that they only do 'heavier' line classes starting at 10lb upward, so not for your finesse bream outfits. Gets very affordable though for their heavy bulk spools if you are doing jigging or game fishing. $80US for a 1000m of 8-carrier 80lb with free shipping. Haven't tried it myself but seen some positive reviews from guys out in the US on youtube, including some charter guides. http://www.kastking.com

I've got vision ikon breathable waders. Got them when I was fly fishing in Helsinki and love them. Feels just like wearing clothes and can layer what I've got under them for the temperature I expect. Don't think I could go to anything but breathable now because of the comfort and flexibility factor. Price is a bit of an issue though, waders and boots set me back about $500 off. Looking at getting some new lightweight shoes now for boating and kayaking which will be easier to swim in if I tip over and won't scratch the deck like my studded rock hopping boots would. The other big advantage with breathable, a lot safer if you wind up swimming in them!

My sienna 2500 was a great reel for a few years of abuse. However after a few saltwater dunking's it has a sticky drag and even worse, a sticky retrieve where I struggle to turn the handle sometimes. Even after a couple of rebuilds. Still for the price I don't really care, I can always buy another at the price they go for every couple of years and still be less than most other reels of that quality.

The Exage RC with fighting drag comes in a 1000 size which is what I was using for my light work. Bit more expensive but has been a great little reel. Just started to get some lumpyness on the drag and the service noted the felt washers are a bit thin now but has really performed well and came with a spare spool. Caught some great fish on it up to a 5kg eagle ray and bigger that took it screaming into the distance before busting them off. Why I keep getting big rays on tiny bits of squid I don't know. Being able to manipulate the drag with the lever at the back has been useful but not really a must-have feature. Generally I use it to back the drag off enough to pull line through without having to flip the bail or backwind.

Just to give a different opinion, I've not done much crabbing but bought a net and gave it a go with carp because I thought it would be great bait. Had my net out off the end of Largs and kept moving it every so often about the area. Didn't get a single one. Old guy rocks up chucking his nets same places as mine loaded with whiting heads and started cleaning up pulling in legal sizes with regularity. We were fishing side by side for most of it covering the area and swapping spots but not one had a go at the carp while he left with several in his bucket. Only difference I could see was I had carp and he had whiting heads.

Doubt it will eradicate them. Rabbits are still around and even rebuilding their numbers a bit.

Not sure if there will be a native fish boom to fill the ecological niche though. Carp are only one part of the problem with the Murray and not sure what capacity natives would have to breed up with low flows, limited flooding events, limited breeding stock, lack of snags and poor water quality. The only factor there that removing carp would help with is the water quality a little, and even then farm runoff, flow control and destruction of riparian vegetation is a bigger factor than the carp. The main reason carp are so prevalent is they can thrive under those conditions while natives don't so it may just be a case of having just as few natives and a much reduced carp population.

But if we can get a native stock rebuilding policy in place with supplementary stocking and enhanced recruitment through re-snagging, higher water flows and some flooding events getting rid of most the carp will definitely help.

Much harder to release something else that may become invasive since live specimens of species that might are banned from importation. But could you imagine some of the likely suspects, American black bass, giant wels catfish like the Spanish Ebro river, sturgeon, various sunfish species like bluegill, alligator gar and others? Might be great angling but all of those are highly invasive and would thrive in the slow warm conditions in the Murray.

You use a leader when you want your line nearest to the fish to have a different character to your main line.

Specialist leader lines are made and usually much more expensive because they use different and more complicated and costly processes to produce it so it has specialist characteristics such as suppleness, abrasion resistance, refraction index, floating, sinking, knot strength, etc, etc.

Fluorocarbon is often used because its refraction index is closer to water and its usually more abrasion resistant which is ideal in some situations.

But there are lots of situations where that's not the case. And its often a matter of personal taste. I like my leaders fairly supple for instance without much memory but that usually implies a trade off with its abrasion resistance.

Often you would have a heavier leader than your mainline not for strength but for abrasion and shock resistance at the end where the fish is, stopping it from busting you off by chaffing, chomping on the line or rubbing it against stuff on the bottom/structure. And when fishing braid its often critically important to have a leader with some 'stretch' to avoid pulling hooks.

Sometimes you will use lighter than your mainline if you are needing to downsize your leader for spooky/finicky fish.

In fly fishing there is the leader which is the part of the line between your fly line and your fly but you often have a 'tippet' on the end of your leader, and with fly fishing to turn over the fly the leader actually steps down getting thinner towards the fly end so the end of your leader is usually your weakest link. Sometimes when you have a toothy fish you will step down your leader and then step up again with a 'bite tippet' of much thicker material or wire.

So there is no real rule that the leader must be stronger than your mainline but in most fishing situations that's actually why you want a leader in the first place, an extra strong bit of line at the business end where its going to suffer the most chaffing/abrasion.

Great news for me after that snook trashed my normal salmon rod!

I'll try and be down soon to pick it up but have a few 'events' coming up that are going to put off christening it for a while...

Just put a post up about the first one!

Doctors are not for me  Wife is due in a couple weeks and since its a big baby (as usual with my family genes) they are monitoring it and assessing when they are going to deliver it next week.

Fishing time is going to be severely limited for a while again.