MikeyR

Totally awesome! Best show and tell ever I reckon!!!

Steve, You're setting some bloody high standards for the rest of us to keep up to! Mike

Sounds like a perfect day! Nothing like the old "Species" bingo to keep a day interesting!!

Well done guys ...... seeing all this action is making me cranky! Still in the bloody office!!!!

Great catch boys!! Fished there for many many years and beats my Bobbinhead PB, if you feel like a short walk, Stingray Bay around from Apple tree on the track is good for Squid! Should make a great meal and good on ya for thinking of catch n release. I think keeping your first is pretty fair! Cheers

Lordy that made me hungry .... time to bust out the chitlins, hog maws n gravy.....and where's my shotgun.... Awesome post!

Great catch, good work for hard effort!!

This is a link to the frogs.org site Frogs Reckon you have an " eastern common", we see them all the time in our yard under damp stuff. Even mulch occasionally. Has a good Cane toad pic, definitely not!!, as said, much uglier!!! M

Awesome fish! Well done!!

Nice work Steven!! Brownie points and fishing!! Got mine out on Sunday as well when the weather turned nice! Huge currents!! Couple of blokes in a smallish tinnie drifting off Flint n Steel went past us at a hell of a rate! Could have wake boarded off the back i reckon! All we managed was a big blind shark! missus thought she had weed, weed doesn't swim off!! Stupid squeaking **&&%%$$! Anyway catch you this week!! Cheers Mike

Excellent pan sized flounder there!!

Mmmm.....pan fried......perfect haul!

Thanks for that! First good laugh of the morning!! We need to get you a spot on Getaway!!

Agree with above, you can also try walking from Apple Tree bay along the track, where there are more rock platforms. Often you can find squid in the bays further around from Apple Tree. All around that area you will probably pick up a few yakka's and mullet if you put out the right rig. It's worth putting out a couple of livies, both top and bottom can be interesting. You do get the "rare" Salmon and Big Tailor cruising through. Livies mostly get left alone by the small tailor, although if bleeding can get demolished. Growing up in Turramurra and still having family there, I've spent nearly 30 years plugging away on and off down there. Lots of small stuff but the occasional excitement. I've even seen one old guy catch and "release" a metre and a half of rather angry shark very early one morning! If you have the patience and gear, blackies are one reliable fish. (and hats off to Luderick fisher-folk!) Great spot if you have kids to teach em the basics! Mike

Great catch, good stuff on the CNR. Mike

Pure poetry! Great post and great catch well done!!

Well done. And even more on so on the release!!! Mike

Patonga - Started out with a Saturday morning with weather that was blowing the place inside out, so my mate Chris and I decided to install a live bait tank on the Quinnie and see if things get better, round 11am it seemed to have blown itself out, so we headed out, after all the wind the water was flat!!. A tour of Cowan Creek for bait, headed out to Juno and a few assoretd locations. Plentiful small tailor and occassional keeper, but we sent most home and kept Yellowtails and a couple of Tailor for strip bait. Got a couple of bites, an Occy that was way too big to be bothered wrestling although gave us a lot of laughs as we tried to chuck it back and it walked down the side of the boat. Bigger tailor (I suspect) doing fast damage to our yellowtails. So Saturday .... nada Sunday rolls around and it's still, not a breath of wind, but overcast, so we think excellent , until that is we chuck the boat in! Theres swell in the bay on the ramp, not a good sign at all!!! and by the time we get to Lion's Is. we are thinking this is going to be a very "green day". We loiter out in the mess, on the BJ side and watch all the other boats depart! Clearly not good! We get a few bites but nothing worthwhile. We move and do a few drifts off the Island on the Umina side. Nada until we hit this one spot, within 5 minutes we have 2 keeper bream, some chuck back cods, a Bonito which I drop as a swell hits us and then as we are repositioning Chris chucks a lure out and picks up a nice tailor. But then ....nothing! Chris picked up this Red Scorpioncod, which we decided was too ugly to be real. My fish book later helped us identify it and find out it's good eating!! I think you would need help to do that So we head across to Flint and Steel and while we are sorting our gear, i chuck out a handline and pick up a few tailor small fry which go back and amongst them some handy yellowtail. One goes over the side as a live bait and we start chucking lures, sp's and damn near dynamite to get a result. Chris is annoying small Tailor with his new popper, funny to watch them jump all over the show. Nothing takes the SP but bingo one takes a prawn bait ...nice 45 cm flattie Then an eel ... oh well Then my livie has a run, goes quiet and then goes off! Not getting too overexcited as my previous weekends results got me the "sharkman" title! Nice bit of weight and head shakes......could be a flattie but too heavy ?? Then this pops up ..... from et hfront of the boat Chris goes "is it a Wobbie?" My casual reply well i remember it that way..."Nah mate, just a flattie" At a genuine 80cm she went back ..... my best ever flattie and was good to let her go. We then headed back to Patonga and got the tinnie out for a creek cruise Chris picked up a flounder and flattie all on SP. So our species count for the 2 days was 2 types of cod, flounder, flatties, tailor, wrasse, eel, a monster occy, yellowtail. And we dropped a bonnie coming over the side! We keep 6 fish flatties and bream, enough for a couple of meals after boating more than 10 flatties on Sunday alone! Awesome weekend with interesting weather! Mike

007, also have done that. Part of the initiation. I reckon its worse when a mate is helping you out getting the boat ready, as you get out of your normal routine . A month back a mate, my missus and I all managed to hook up my Qunnie 560 and then forget to put the trailer lock hitch down. No worries dropping the boat in, but got really exciting pulling it out at Patonga on a low tide! Trailer pops off the hitch with boat about 1/4 way in. Chain held it on, but i was in the boat so no bloody help so Jac and Chris both doing Hulk imitations managed to force it back on! Pretty good going considering the Honda Civic on the transom. I did point out much to their displeasure that I was lucky they had on a bit of Christmas weight!! Oh and I had a bugger of a weekend as well. Met another mate in Refuge Bay,yachting rather than fishing type , his 8 year old and my 10 year old decide to "annoy" yellow tail and small tailor. He's got a 34" yacht so he, my wife and his are sitting boozing while I'm in the rafted up Quinnie battling children, hooks and bait going everywhere. Me thinks well there all these yellow tail so why not put out some livies......... except of course it's Refuge Bay the place is full of boats and people swimming, plus it a beautiful still day and mid afternoon. Logic says there is going to be bugger all going on round here. But I'm swimming in yellowtail! So i put out two lines with livies on and head to the Catalina for a bevy 5 minutes later one rod goes off! Off course it would, just getting my first beer in! I battle my way across the boats nearly fall off and get to my rod which I've installed in the bow to ensure the kids don't kick it overboard ........ just a bit too late! Livie 3/4 gone! One bite! While I'm sorting that out the other rod goes off, same deal! 2 LARGE yellowtail nailed. I re-bait dodge the youngsters for 20 minutes.....nothing (andthey are of course popping corks at me from the yacht) so decide reluctantly to head back for my beer...., surely it can't happen all over again but about 45 minutes later......ahhhhhh. Same rod only whole fish gone and missed both hooks! While I'm baiting up rod number one # 2 goes off and I'm finally on...... only this doesn't feel like a bitey ... more like a wet sack! Up comes a Wobby, biggest I've seen except diving, around 4". Kids got a buzz and we sent it on it's way. Reckon the first ones were big tailor or maybe Kings, wouldn't have been chomped by Wobbys or Blinds, you just never know! Anyway back out next weekend and no more Mr Nice Guy! Cheers Mike

Nice job! Looks a lot tougher than some of the shop bought ones!

With all the bloody lights around the harbour, poor things probably afraid of the dark!

thanks Ray, girls and i walk the dog around there, will have to take a stick with me next time....cheers

Nice work, good fat looking numbers!!! Which end is "dark corner"? Pub or creek?

Thats a good sized drummer !!!.....definitely a heavy metal band!!!!

Was up at the shack at Patonga and thought about heading out, went for a stroll down to the wharf and decided the pub looked like a better prospect! Well done for braving the wind!