keenfisho

Hi mate. Hopefully getting a session in this Sunday. Happy to flick a southie lure about, if you still need YFW lure testers, if not all good.🎣

Happy to help you out mate, you know where and how I fish for them. I don’t get out as much as I used to but have helpers these day with my older boys always out there with me

Well I finally caught my 10.000th Tasmanian wild trout since we moved here back in March 2000..  it's a milestone I never gave a thought to until the start of this trout season when I was going through my end of season reports when I noticed I only needed 129 trout to reach 10,000 trout here in Tassie.. So yesterday and only needing another seven trout I reached it, actually caught & released fourteen all up..
cheers
Adrian
 

As a keen COARSE/FRESHWATER angler I find I can't get some of my prefered tackle in Australia so I have to buy it online from the UK or make it myself, so as promised I will share some of my favourites over time in this set of posts...
FLOATS... I am addicted to making floats, I love giving them away to people who fish like I do and HATE losing them. 
Most of my floats are wagglers, straight or bodied, as you can see from the photo they are all slightly different depending on what they are for, or where I am fishing, some can be used in saltwater for Gar and Tommies etc as well as in freshwater. The bodies are made from balsa wood which I turn on a small lathe, but you can also easily whittle then to shape with a sharp knife or stick them in a drill chuck, I always finish with fine sandpaper and fine wire wool. Carefully one end needs to be drilled to accept the stem, which I make from peacock quill or even better native reed stem (I always use the type of reeds that have the fluffy top and the stems are like mini bamboo, there's masses on most river banks (must be dry and brown not green) Always cut at a node so the tube is buoyant.   I superglue this into the balsa body. At the other end I glue in a short piece of bamboo skewer ready to have a safety pin eye whipped on and the whipping superglued.
To strengthen the main shaft, as you can see from the photo I do some decorative whipping nearly to the top, this does strengthen it considerably, we are now ready to  apply a base white top (cheapest way is to get some flat white acrylic paint, a sample pot from Bunnings is ideal) The florescent top is just a can of that Hi Vis stuff they spray on the road to mark where they are going to dig holes etc. I shake it well and spray some on a bit of paper or the like a use a small brush and paint over the flat white base down to almost the end of the white.. it dries very quickly!
Now all you need to do is varnish the whole thing, any varnish will do as they are not exposed to the weather much, I use a stain varnish (walnut) as this gives me an attractive brown effect.
As you can see all the floats are different, it's good to experiment and see what suits the type of fishing you want to do, they are so cheap to make and work much better than bought ones.
Hope you like that.... have a go, it's great to catch a fish on home crafted gear as I did today a 17+lb carp... any questions please don't hesitate to ask, and if you ever meet me on the bank please ask for a FREE float I will be only too willing to let you have one.

Yeah I've bought maggots before but now I've started on this journey - I'm going to see it through till I perfect the art.

I caught my first decent bream on maggots in a spot where they were supposed to be hard to catch.

I had tried with other baits and they were very hard to catch -

but once the maggots got involved, they turned me into a bream catching machine - this started and evolution in my fishing which led to spending millions on lures and catching bugger all compared to my early catches on maggots.

So my obsession with these creepy units runs deeper than I am probably aware of - the fact, that I kept a recent batch and didnt use a single one for bait, should let you know my obsession with maggots isnt entirely healthy😉

I was dry wreching just watching the video
think I will stick the buying them 😂😝🤮

I was dry wreching just watching the video
think I will stick the buying them 😂😝🤮

Yeah before the sorting process I was congratulating my self on how well prepared I was

I had my rubber gloves on - I'd already dug a 2ft pit for the scraps - I had the hose ready to rinse the maggots in a sieve - I had the bran all ready in there storage container

My plans of a smooth operation flew out the window when the stench set it - from then on it was a mixture of panic and rash decisions😉

Trying to pry open the head, to get all the maggots out, unleashed a smell worse than Satan's bung hole and thats when I started to panic - after that I was cutting my losses and trying to get the stench underground - collecting the maggots became a secondary concern😉
 

Best bet is to go pop in and say g'day to the team at Compleat Angler at Wallaroo or Moonta. They are a great bunch of people and will sort you out with where to go and what you'll need!'
 

Oh Boy!! I feel I have way too many lures & a large variety of brands as well.. I'll let the photos tell the story...😉
And these are just the ones I've taken photos of... only use them on the trout..
cheers
Adrian
 

Lol auto correct that was meant to say zmans not demand

Don’t buy much these days
i have a collection of hardbodies from my bream days 
a collection of poppers and stick baits I still use heavily for YFW and tend to only buy when I lose one or on a work trip to Lincoln where I always buy one when getting advise on what’s biting where
have loads of plastics but tend to only buy and use demand and gulp turtlebacks these days
would buy turtlebacks every time I go to Kmart (when they have them) or a tackleshop 

I’m generally a shimano man with a bit of Diawa and Abu 
mostly spend $150 to $250 but look for specials
my favourite reels are the shimano Stradic but have a couple of Diawas I love
when it comes to rods diawa outshine shimano in the pricing I buy
to contradict everything about my absolute favourite rod is my little 6 foot bream rod which is a 1-3kg Azusa
it is so light but strong 

You can get them in lighter versions mate I’ve got some somewhere from when I used to yak fish, 1/32 by memory

You can get them in lighter versions mate I’ve got some somewhere from when I used to yak fish, 1/32 by memory

Here's a recipe for pickled squid that i use for pickling all the left over bits such as the flaps and tentacles.Its easy as but the squid takes a little bit of preparation before you start.First up i like to freeze the squid so you can pickle it when you want and also it breaks up the structure of the squid to make it more tender.Then i like to peel the skin off the flaps and chop up the tentacles(even the bit behind the head is tasty).Now to make up the brew here's what you need
white vinegar 1 litre
lemon juice a decent splash
crushed garlic 1 teaspoon
chilli 1 teaspoon
1 bottle of praise italian dressing
black pepper
mixed italian herbs 1 teaspoon

now put all of it in a saucepan and bring to the boil and chuck in your first batch of squid bits and bring back to the boil for 1 minute and then remove the squid,if you have anymore chuck that in and do the same etc etc this adds flavour to the brew as well as blanching the squid.

now chop up the squid into bits

This is "important" you must let the pickling mixture cool right down or it will overcook your squid
when cool chuck the squid in jars and pour the mixture over the top put in the fridge and resist the temptation to sample your squid for 4 days then get stuck in,you can add more chilli or pepper etc but don't use salt or it will toughen your squid.......Enjoy

I use the Knot Assist 2.0.. Works really well... Cost $45 from japan.... I know you can do it by hand.. But the knot assist makes life easier.. It holds my 6lb brad well..

Got out this morning to test it. Working perfectly had a gut feeling it wouldn't read right but thankfully I was wrong.
 
As for the unit it does all I need except it doesn't measure distance travelled... Unless I'm not looking at the right thing.
 

 
 
Just gotta get my head around what it's showing on the screen VS my location on the water.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Pretty happy how it turned out... Not bad for a kitchen bench job...



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I use the set up that Lure has posted above except I use the 9AH battery, it's a cheap consumable part for me, I'm lucky if they last 12 months before the salt water environment corrodes the terminals away but they're fairly cheap and readily available.

Leave it to cure mate and cross your fingers you got it
you won’t know till your on the water anyway
its not as hard as we make it sound
mmmmm I want a yak again 😂

Yeah that valley looks fine mate
also agree with the foam 
I stick my foam down first, then filled with silicone then pushed my transducer into the silicone and put a weight in it till it cured
just got to make sure no air bubbles then it will be all good
im fairly sure I have some pics of my AI install somewhere, I will try to find them and put them up

Leave it to cure mate and cross your fingers you got it
you won’t know till your on the water anyway
its not as hard as we make it sound
mmmmm I want a yak again 😂

Yeah that valley looks fine mate
also agree with the foam 
I stick my foam down first, then filled with silicone then pushed my transducer into the silicone and put a weight in it till it cured
just got to make sure no air bubbles then it will be all good
im fairly sure I have some pics of my AI install somewhere, I will try to find them and put them up

Agree through hull is definitely easier with a yak
ive had two through hull set ups and one off a ram arm off the back off my old PA as it was side scan
needs to be tight enough not to kick up with swell and waves but loose enough to kick up if you hit something or beach landing
have you bought a sounder yet?
im thinking about upgrading my Garmin ecomap5 if your interested