Rod

Ahhh, thanks baitcaster, I always wondered why they had the reverse/anti reverse switch. I always found it annoying if it got accidentally switched to the reverse mode. Only used the function to back track when someone accidentally wound slack line around the reel. Cheers Rod

Not sure if there's fish in there Nice little lap pool I spent some time though, if you're into that

G'day Sounds like a great trip I haven't fished up there but I can give you one bit of good advice, make sure you plan to eat at least once at the Blue Moon Grill Excellent food, service and the biggest selection of beers you'll ever see. We dined there twice and it was a great experience both times That was 4.5 years ago so hopefully still good. If you're staying in the Blue Lagoon resort it's a short walk only Good luck with the big GT, wouldn't that be nice Cheers Rod

G'day My return of the braids was approved, I posted them back and got my refund today. Was happy to wear the postage cost but just got notified that I have also received a credit for that Gotta be happy with that Cheers Rod

Hanson Bay is awesome and so was your report Adam Cheers Rod

G'day I've decided not to bother with the Sea Lion braid and have done a return request. When it's advertised as 0.33mm and comes in at 0.49+ I don't think that's good enough. It looks ok and I expect is strong but just doesn't suit my fishing. By comparison another cheap braid I've had for a while DFS brand 50lb was labelled 0.37mm and came in at 0.36 The DFS feels better also Cheers Rod

G'day A preliminary comparison of the Sea Lion braid to 2 high quality and price line ie $60 for 300m The dearer lines are much smoother The dearer lines are much thinner, 0.29 and 0.31mm compared to 0.49 for the Seal Lion, which is 60% ish thicker than the average of the other 2 Tthe extra thickness is a real draw back in the passage, I might try it on one rod but don't think it's for me Cheers Rod PS For measuring thickness I used an inexpensive pair of digital calipers. Dragged the line through until there was enough pressure to hold the line if I let go

Will do 2 main tests it needs to pass for me 1. feeds out smoothly from an egg beater while the rod is in a holder (to 120ft+) 2. Can withstand the forces involved when it gets fouled on the bottom, I stick the rod over the side straight down wind as tight as possible then hold the spool and pull rediculously hard at times. Extremely rare I get busted off, when I do its the trace and not at a knot This is why I use 50lb, sinkers get expensive when 10oz is minimum Cheers Rod

After reading Banga's post I ordered a 2 spools of Sea Lion 50lb, 1 orange and 1 multi coloured Looks pretty good, tightly wrapped, I haven't got access to my more expensive stuff to compare, but it feels pretty smooth Looking forward to giving it a try, if I don't like it can be used on the 'guest' rods Cheers Rod

FWIW it seems that any of these pull through designs "scrape" the knife sharp. Some do, I have a pull through on the boat with 3 stages, tungsten (the scraping one) ceramic (I spose this scrapes to?) and diamond It's not bad but nothing like the furi which never scrapes Think of it more as 2 diamond stones that have the correct angle Mind you, as Jaffa advised previously, you end up just using the stainless fingers for the majority of the time, which works like a steel but in a precise way not the random angles of hand held use, this process re-aligns the microsopic filiments of

G'day Hey Knackers, my post above is contradictory The set of 3 furi fingers does include the coarse one to achieve the correct angle if your knives are not 20 deg It's just that I found it a bit slow as my knives were a steeper angle No complaints though Sorry for any confusion Cheers Rod

I have the lansky 5 stone thingo which is good for getting an edge back after hard use and misuse. I like that you can get the sharper angle onto filleting knives. That ebay thingy looks like it doesn't matter what angle of the edge is, it will maintain it. Am I correct before I pull the trigger and buy a set. G'day No, as I and Jaffa stated above, you need the correct angle to start with, which from memory is 20 deg. They provide a course set of fingers in the set of 3 but our knives were a fair way off and I could see the angle starting to approach the edge but only after many stro

G'day I have used all sorts of methods to sharpen knives and woodworking machines and tools A couple of years ago retired pro fisho and forum member Jaffa posted about the furi system, how quick, easy and effective it is The only issue I had was getting all my knives to the initial angle, this was taking to long even with the course stage so I cut a small wedge and used a stone to do this step, Once done the speed, ease and result is very hard to beat It takes about 5 secs to revive the edge in normal use http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Furi-Tech-Edge-2-complete-set-of-3-Diamond-Fingers-Knife

I like to have a good feel as I like the smooth braids as I fish fairly deep and like to be able to stick the rod in a holder and have the line feed out smoothly from my eggbeaters. The cheap stuff feels like micro rope and doesn't come off smoothly Suffix is one brand I've used, can't remember others but like to get different colours Cheers Rod

G'day The gap was so wide I didn't think it was worth it and ordered 2 hookem's one 1500 x 4" and one 1500 x 3" $205 delivered Cheers Rod

Top shot gaffs are widely regarded as the best even in the USA. I certainly don't disagree and Steve is a very knowledgeable guy My choice though was a compromise that hopefully I will be happy with ie 2 x hookem gaffs I like the saying, buy the best and cry once, but hopefully second best (by a wide margin admittedly) will do Cheers Rod

G'day Looking at buying a least one maybe two gaffs. Decided to go for a large hookem, checked the website for SA dealers with a view to going there and buying. Rang to check stock and prices, the one for me quoted at $179 The dilemma - I can get one delivered to my door from queensland for $115 I made my decision, but not happy choices. I know from personal experience that business is not all beer and skittles, but ............... I don't mind paying a bit of a premium to cover local service but......... Cheers Rod

G'day Samastini No worries My concoction had soy (light soy actually) but if you don't like it you could try other flavours, oyster sauce for instance My main point was that I don't think it's necessary to make big quantities of brine with all the associated mess and time to get a quality result I made a cup full of mix for 4 trays of fish last time and that was too much. Most of my smoked fish has the skin on apart from tuna and I just brush it on the flesh The few brine recipes I've seen all had soy from memory I've getting some ideas of stuff to put on the fish. Here's a recipe p

Snapper is also nice smoked. Trevally and tuna belly are my favourites so far Cheers Rod

Here's a list of woods, I'd like to try some fruit wood but haven't got a round tuit Also haven't smoked anything but fish but would like to do something else Cheers Rod https://homecookedheston.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/screen-shot-2014-06-08-at-6-24-48-pm1.png

G'day You should avoid sawdust from chainsaws as it contains oil I bought a couple of large bags of sawdust from master butchers (redgum and beechwood) I used a mix of both. Samastini. I used brine mixes for a while and even though I love salt, we found it much too salty to the taste. So I cut it down to half, too salty, then 1/4 and then did a complete rethink. I considered the litres of brine, the mess and the cost. I decided to try just applying a small amount of flavour direct to the fish, heavy use of salt to preserve is not necessary, I vacuum pack in serves and freeze. So, my

It was a pun, it's a fishing forum and he was trolling Cheers Rod

G'day Hey Col are these NZ seals considered feral here? Cheers Rod

What was the thesis?

G'day I've seen 'first posts' a few times on fishing forums that contain agenda based questions by radical greenies. You know, the kind that scream "murderers" to a man and his son fishing off a warf. I suspect others have seen this type of thing. With no context or introduction in your original post you got what should be expected in the responses. ie a mixture due to confusion about the context of the question and people wondering what is your agenda. Otherwise you would have got more "sincere responses" I suspect Cheers Rod