Rat

Got this horse of a snook last week on the boat in shallow water. Took a pillie on light gear and gave the stradic a fair work out!Cheers Rat

Got this horse of a snook last week on the boat in shallow water. Took a pillie on light gear and gave the stradic a fair work out!Cheers Rat

Got this horse of a snook last week on the boat in shallow water. Took a pillie on light gear and gave the stradic a fair work out!Cheers Rat

Got this horse of a snook last week on the boat in shallow water. Took a pillie on light gear and gave the stradic a fair work out!Cheers Rat

Yeah mate It gave the pillie a fair old whack thats for sure! Took off like a shower of sh!t once it realised it was hooked. I was getting pretty nervy when it was close to the boat but my old my man was pretty quick and we had it in the boat safely!

Got this horse of a snook last week on the boat in shallow water. Took a pillie on light gear and gave the stradic a fair work out!Cheers Rat

Got this horse of a snook last week on the boat in shallow water. Took a pillie on light gear and gave the stradic a fair work out!Cheers Rat

Got this horse of a snook last week on the boat in shallow water. Took a pillie on light gear and gave the stradic a fair work out!Cheers Rat

Got this horse of a snook last week on the boat in shallow water. Took a pillie on light gear and gave the stradic a fair work out!Cheers Rat

doesn't get any beeter than that mate, the smiles say it all!

Howdy all, Went out friday for a fish with my old boy and a couple mates. Although it was blowing its ring out we pulled some nice KG whiting, salmon, squid, a snook and some big gar! The salmon were on the chew big time. Caught a few on a jig head with a bit of plastic cut off from a hook packet after we ran out of soft plastics. Turned out to be a good days fishing. Cheers Rat

Howdy all, Went out friday for a fish with my old boy and a couple mates. Although it was blowing its ring out we pulled some nice KG whiting, salmon, squid, a snook and some big gar! The salmon were on the chew big time. Caught a few on a jig head with a bit of plastic cut off from a hook packet after we ran out of soft plastics. Turned out to be a good days fishing. Cheers Rat

I did want to fish on Sunday. I had a plan! But the forecast was for a big blow coming through on Sunday. Forecasted to bring with it some hail & thunder in case just strong winds don't put you off your fishing. Hey and lighting too, which makes me scurry. Me the highest object protruding skywards on the sandflats, complete with a graphite super conductor in my hands and feet immersed in water. And golfers thought it was dangerous! So the obvious change of plan saw me go fishing today (Saturday). My plan was to fish the bottom of the tide. Yes! Chasing goldbars at the bottom of the tide. Sundays low tide was a fairly high for a low tide!!! at 1.09mt. You see you can do rather well on the Yellow Fin whiting around the dodge tide. It is then that water sits on some prime feeding ground for extended periods. And no big run in tide to disperse the fish far and wide. Fish are all compliant and concentrated on the feeding ground waiting for you to hook them! (My theories!)I have previously fished this spot, with soft sand full of nipper holes, on a few occasions. I always picked up some good fish there at the bottom of the tide. So the idea was to find an extended period for the "bottom of the tide" Which would be around a dodge. Well Saturday proved to be the next best thing with a 0.85mt low tide.Yes the plan worked! Caught my bag of 20. Sizes are 30 - 40cm. I only released one fish under 30cmThey took some angling. At the bottom of the tide these fish are not voraciously feeding. They are grazing. A nibble here, a peck there, a sniff here and a poke there. They are trying to sniff & poke out a nipper or two on this patch. When the tide is running they tend to grab most worm baits going past. So today they had to be enticed into a bite. I started with a very light single hook rig with a small ball (00) slipped down the trace to the long shank hook. It was not long before I was missing a lot of bites. The fish were biting tentatively and the size 4 Gamakatsu was not connecting up as usual. I went down to a #6 with better results. The tide is not moving your bait or bringing the fish to you. You need to cast and retrieve with a slow steady constant retrieve. You need to attract the fish's attention by moving your bait and you need to cover a lot of ground to find the fish. Retrieve & recast in another direction/area. Pretty soon you will feel the tap, tap, tap, of a tentative YFW bite. Or rather an inquiry. No not their normal THWACK! when the tide is running. To convert a tap into a tug or bite bait placement on the hook is important. Always have a tail of worm of your hook. YFW do not 'Bite" they suck. And they can suck aggressively. Now some role playing. How can you suck in a strand of spaghetti if all you can mouth is the bottom of the spoon. Have a bit dangling of the end so that you can latch onto it and you will suck the lot off the spoon. Like wise allow the YFW to have a suck of the tail to draw the hook into it's mouth. I use a whole worm on a hook and feed it down to create more tail as it is bitten off.The bigger fish are attracted to these feeding spots in these conditions. I lost a few good fish today. Mainly pulled hooks as they are biting tentatively and are mainly lip hooked. An occasional bust off. Big YFW are incredibly powerful fish for their size. In very shallow water they can easily bust a weak trace that does not have any give in it. I did manage a couple at the 40cm "Goldbar Standard"I will be back for those biguns! possibly with some trout hooks and an altered rig. Just to make sure they get swallowed and properly hooked!Cheers, Des

Hey mate it definatly pays of to go get some livies before ya head down there. Either some salmon trout, tommies or mullet like you said. We catch ours of Semaphore jetty using pillies. As for the mulloway, I got my first one out the lake last night (still cheering ) on a small tommie ruff with a single hook through his back and a pretty light running sinker. Hope that helps Rat

congrats on ya mully at least i know others r catching them so i think ill just have to try harder thanks for ur input

congrats on your first mully Rat.....iv yet to get mine !

What a day of perfect weather Wednesday was.What better to do than spend the day wading on the sandflats in glorious sunshine. You could not get nicer conditions. Crystal clear water, barely a breath of wind, the water like glass and the warm winter sunshine on your back. So nice it would not matter if I did not catch a thing.Just as well! I could not find any Yellow Fin Whiting. I was surprised as I had seen plenty of feeding marks in the shallows near the mangroves where they were feeding at the top of the tide. No fish yet, but I was having a marvellous day in magnificent conditions. I moved over to another large sandy area and what do I run into but some Yellow Fin Whiting. In these conditions they are seen clearly. You stand perfectly still. Minimise as much movement as possible. You know if you can see fish right on the extremities of your vision, then rest assured, they have seen you long before you saw them! Quality polaroids are a must.First cast a nice 35cm fish came in with the usual tenacious tussle these little fish are capable of. The second fish was caught as I cast back over the school that chased the first one in. They are competitive, chasing the one with the bait and hook in its mouth! In beautiful conditions, Sight fishing Yellow Fin Whiting is such a delight. It goes something like this;You cast out beyond the school and retrieve your bait past them. Tempting them to take it. "Ooops!" I startled them the cast landed right in the middle of them. They scattered! No bite!"Aaaahhh!" perfect cast. You just allowed enough for that light breeze that can drift your light tackle across.It's a slow steady retrieve past the fish ... "Take it, take it, taaaaaake iiitt! " you scream and plead at the fish as you drag the bait past its nose!"Yes! Yes! Yes! Go ooonnnh! Take it a bit harder. Hit it harder now." you coax the fish.You strike. "Yes! gotch ya! Gotch Ya, Ya buggah! Trying to pinch my bait! and get away?"You reel it in. It pulls hard. Some drag comes off. It is feisty. You can see it has got some size to it. It is in close within reach then it darts through your legs. You raise your rod, directing it away from your boots and lift it up, some solid weight to it, as you try to grab it against the belly of your waders and then the lip hook pulls! Damn! I should have used the landing net. The cycle starts all over again, but you are still smiling. You are hooked on this, not the fish.It sounds like and is simple fun in glorious conditions. When the water is crystal clear, sun shining through the water, with perfect visibility, your gear needs adjusting to suit these conditions. I get rid of my heavier running sinker that is usually up the line above the swivel and replace it with a small 0 or 00 ball sinker that slides down against the long shank hook. I always only ever fish for YFW with the 1 hook. A size 4 Gamakatsu long shank at the end of a metre length of Flurocarbon. This now resembles a jig head for soft plastics. Except the weight is removable and adjustable. Very light but all the weight is concentrated near the hook which allows for a good cast with a flicky soft plastic rod. It creates very little splash, so it wont spook the fish. The clearer the water the easier they spook.Well it was a bit of a procession so I tried to mix things up a bit. I got the poppers out! Yup the previous week I went out did the round of stores and bought a collection of poppers. After seeing this video clip;http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NWJCxIl1wSkI thought these must be the ants pants. They can out fish bait! The conditions were perfect, weed free. I tried these 4 poppers and managed a fish on each. Yes my first, second, third & fourth Yellow Fin Whiting ever on poppers.Frankly I was not impressed. It took on average, about 12 to 15+ casts per strike. Maybe my technique is no good? I checked to make sure, in case the fish had moved on. After every popper fish I changed back to my bait rig. In every case I had a fish within 3 casts of the bait, at the most! So a nice bit of video editing makes it look like non stop action instead of a tedious 4 hour session. Poppers have certainly caught a lot of fisherman me included.I don't see why you would use your thumbnail to put a screw in the wall, when you can use a screwdriver or a power drill! Just my take on it.However the Gulp soft plastic sandworms in the "bloody" red colour worked well, as always. It took the bigger fish. A 40cm, a 39 and a few 37-38cm were the better fish.The fish I kept are from 33cm to 40cm. I would have released another 20 odd fish in the 29-32 range. there were plenty of YFW about on a heavenly day!Cheers, Des

Great work dylba, nice size mully whatd you catch it on? giving me a bit of hope to land my first one. as for tangles its 2 all mate. this trip will seperate the men from the women. bring it on. im just hoping hagenr001 catches something. he bought his new rod before easter and still hasnt landed a thing. any tips from you experienced coorong fisherman fire at him ahaha

Anything that makes the reel go "zzzzzzzzzzz" and the rod double up. But you cant go past a good salmon on light gear! Also love the power of a kingy! The Arnie Swarz's of the sea haha

Anything with fins....except for that scuba diver i hooked at hughes jetty.He was pretty unreasonable and wanted to punch my head in. cheers brentonP.S if your reading this mate you scream like a girl