Dylbaa

Could make a great surf reel too by the looks!

Correct me if i'm wrong but my take is that they are very similar blanks
 
FT- Fast taper
 
FSU- Fast surf
 
That's what ive been told by the local tackle shop, not sure on how correct it is but makes sense to me
 
as for the 5120 part, 5= amount of wraps on the blank, 120=amount of inches long, roughly 10foot

What about the ugly stick 'platinum' or 'gold' series rods?
 
Or the Silstar crystal tip series... From my experience in boat fishing they are both very reliable rods at a decent price
 
I have a crystal pro powertip surf rod that I still use, it's great
 
Unsure of the price of them these days, would have thought around $130 at a guess

G'day mate, these days I use snyder glas rods, but even you your cheap 12 foot surf rods will do the trick, I still caught plenty of mullies on my old 12 foot water rat rod, matched with a penn spinfisher!
 
People will probably knock me for saying that but that just my experience, cheers

Good on you mate! Seems like your trying a new form of fishing every time you go out, great stuff!

Well, take a look at what the R&A fb page just posted here already. No cork though.

G"day Dylbaa, have a look here browse through the site ,cheershttp://www.therodworks.com.au/

Catching a bag or 2 … or 6! of Yellow Fin Whiting has not been a problem recently. There are always plenty around in the right places.However I have struggled to land many of the better size fish. I have had my share of bites, even plenty hook ups, although I was not happy with the hook up rate. And lastly and most frustratingly staying hooked up. I have had some big blistering runs, from big bruising YFW on light tackle in the shallows. Only to find my hooks pulled. Yes they are definitely YFW and not Flathead. You can tell by the distinct differences in their head shakes. The Flathead thrash and swing their heads from side to side whereas YFW tug their heads downwards trying to get back down to the sand. And on occasions I have seen their tell tale silver flash. They are nearly always hooked on the longest cast when you do not get much of a chance to see colour. I have never landed the best of the Yellow Fin Whiting that I have hooked.Well I can find them. I can get them to bite, although with a poor hook up rate and when hooked up my hooks would pull once we were into a fight. I had to have a rethink about what I was doing.
 
I paid a visit to a congenial veteran of the tackle industry, Trevor Rea at Gotcha Tackle on Magill Rd Stepney. Trevor has extensive experience as a land based fisho with many an unbelievable tale. There has been plenty of tales of monster size YFW, but Trevor is the only person I know that can look me in the eye and tell me he has caught a 55cm YFW. Albeit a while back. And a mate of his has had 60+ cm fish, whilst fishing along side him. When he digs up photos, which I am urging him to do I will scan & post them up. Well you cant buy that experience and it soon became apparent.
 
Trevor listened intently to my problem, then quietly walked down along a display shelf, returning with a packet in hand saying “This is what you need. Give up the long shank hooks” In his hand was a packet of Gamakatsu #4 octopus hooks. He looked at me and said “stop thinking Yellow Fin Whiting and start thinking Bream” Big Yellow Fin Whiting behave more like Bream than whiting. The penny dropped. I have always inspected the stomach contents of the fish I catch. I find the bigger YFW always have, apart from worms, crabs, nippers, prawns, whitebait, and even a baby octopus. Below a pic of stomach contents from a previous catch.
 

 
Exactly the type of food you expect a Bream to eat. So they could be expected to attack your bait in a similar manner to bream. I once had a huge YFW attack and hang onto for a while a whole pilchard on 3/0 hooks intended for Flathead. I described my current trusted and very reliable rig (below) to Trevor.
 

 
He said “you are assuming it attacks the worm from the bottom” Well yes! He was challenging my hard and fast assumptions. Great! I was getting a fresh look at what I was doing. This is the rig he suggested and assured me from his own experience, of changing his own technique, that my hook up rate would double. This is his suggested rig;
 

 
I have tried this rig out in my last 2 sessions. On the first session it was very windy and the big YFW that normally hang around the shallow nipper beds are not around in these conditions. I did finish with a bag of YF between 30-34cm It was interesting to note all the bigger YF took the top hook and I doubled my hook up rate. It was only small YF and Puffers that took the bottom hook. Yesterday the weather was looking good and I headed out with great anticipation. It was on the first 2 casts that I found a couple of 31cm YF. From then on I tried to avoid them. There was an easy bag of fish for the taking, in the 29-33cm range but my focus were the bigger specimens. So I focussed on areas that hold less but larger fish. The rig works well! I did not lose a single good fish today and probably only missed one great bite. I kept 15 fish 31-40cm.
 

 
The best sizes were; 2 @40cm, 2@38cm and 2@36cm
 

 
Taking up the whole shelf of the fridge while chilling down before filleting.
 

 
I thought I was doing pretty well, but there is always room for improvement. Listen, review and have a rethink. Well it is satisfying to have changed my rigs with great results.Now a 50+ cm Yellow Fin Whiting can realistically go onto my bucket list! Cheers, Des

I'm another fan of the sufix 832! I use it in 30lb offshore for the snapper, very impressed, can't fault it!

Had a quick flick for squid at moonta jetty for 45 minutes, managed to get 6, pretty chuffed with that for only trying out a new jig, very impressed, great weather too

Thanks Tacklebags, just making sure I can drive that far up the beach if need be this weekend

My understanding is that backing is used 1) to fill the rest of the spool when there isn't enough braid to fill it and 2) to stop slippage of braid on the spool under heavy load, but if its only for bream/salmon trout/ whiting etc. then it probably wont slip regardless, if I want to completely fill a spool for say snapper/kings/ tuna, ill use a strip of tape around it so the braid has something to grip under a heavy load. Otherwise backing is used when a spool cant be fully filled with braid.Now days reels are coming out with a rubber type strip around the base of the spool so there is no need for backing, check out the new Penn spinfishers closely, they have it on their spools, so do the Pfleuger Crank models I think :)It doesn't so much protect it, just helps the braid hold tight under heavier drag settings, hope this helps?

Had a quick flick for squid at moonta jetty for 45 minutes, managed to get 6, pretty chuffed with that for only trying out a new jig, very impressed, great weather too

Had a quick flick for squid at moonta jetty for 45 minutes, managed to get 6, pretty chuffed with that for only trying out a new jig, very impressed, great weather too

Had a quick flick for squid at moonta jetty for 45 minutes, managed to get 6, pretty chuffed with that for only trying out a new jig, very impressed, great weather too

Had a quick flick for squid at moonta jetty for 45 minutes, managed to get 6, pretty chuffed with that for only trying out a new jig, very impressed, great weather too

g'day Knackers!I have a Shimano Terez, rated at 15-30lb, very impressed, tough as nails... ive used it for big snapper up to 27lb, cant fault it and have never questioned its power, very very strong and reliable rodA mate of mine has one also and uses it for casting metals from the boat at pelagics out near the Montegue islands (not sure on spelling) in WA and he reckons it casts a mile too!I picked it up for $220.00 a year ago, not sure on prices these days, cheers.

Fished the jetty at Moonta (a first for me) on Monday night after picking up some car parts in the area.Plenty of tommies around and put together a nice bag of squid over the course of the night. Also hooked a couple of massive doggies which I wasn't able to hoist up onto the jetty (gotta take a crab net to land and unhook them next time)

@ KnackersWhy do you not trust Retailers ??As a retailer our best form of advertising word of mouth. We would hope to keep every customer happy. (some you just can't)We need you to go away with good advise, good customer service and good products.Get to know your tackle store staff and you should be able to trust them.RegardsSharon

Just on the topic, does anybody think an SA based fishing show could be a prospect? (like fishing WA) or would it run out of places to go/fish too quick?Maybe a fishing/camping one might be the go? I just thought it'd be cool to see a show, knowing what they are catching is in our own state.

The mullies are around already! Just not in big numbers I've heard it's been good at 42 lately, so I went last night after work and got this one, went 23lb, 100cm long, I was chuffed!!

The mullies are around already! Just not in big numbers I've heard it's been good at 42 lately, so I went last night after work and got this one, went 23lb, 100cm long, I was chuffed!!

The mullies are around already! Just not in big numbers I've heard it's been good at 42 lately, so I went last night after work and got this one, went 23lb, 100cm long, I was chuffed!!

The mullies are around already! Just not in big numbers I've heard it's been good at 42 lately, so I went last night after work and got this one, went 23lb, 100cm long, I was chuffed!!

The mullies are around already! Just not in big numbers I've heard it's been good at 42 lately, so I went last night after work and got this one, went 23lb, 100cm long, I was chuffed!!