Daniel Frost

When I first saw the article title I thought I must have been sighted bass fishing with my shirt off.

I don't think colour is to much of an issue , just like fishing for flatties , its more important to find the bait , then put your lure in the jewies face.

You are doing really well , I would suggest you have a go at comps. Yes it may seem a bit full on but from my experience it's more then probable that you will learn a lot faster then just from normal fishing and it is very satisfying.

Hi Roberta, It's been a while since I loooked at this website. I really enjoyed reading your report about when we first met. To be quite honest I don't like to share too much info. Sorry but I don't care what people think. Most anglers don't spend most of their free time fishing . So many people want you to give up your secrets with little or no thought to the massive amount of effort and time that it took to get there. Don't get me wrong I love the idea of Fishraider and what it's about. Your a great example of a person who is willing to share info and enjoy fishing. Well what I'd like to talk about is the day I met you. I was a young man {those were the days)and I was drifting for whiting, I saw a lady in the leases fishing the wrong tide and tuffing it out in true Aussie fashion. Call me a shovinest but this for me was a rare sight . Women were not a commmen sight in the fishing arena especially doing it tuff on the racks in a yak!!!!. My father still lived in Forster and told me about whiting that were in the area, I was getting plenty and wanted to help this lady out. When I told this lady how I was doing it she wanted to chat and it was soon realised that my dad Max was a friend of hers. This was how I met Roberta. She is a lovely women and I intend to catch up agsin when I am back in Forster this Christmas.

Probably down at christmas so I will be chasing the big bream then,will let you know closer to christmas, my boats still in Forster and I live in Cairns now so thats why I only did the first two comps this year. Hoping to have my boat up soon want to get the skeeter on Tinaroo ASAP .

DOA prawns, I have a box of them in a variety of colours , they are not something i used a lot in sydney but in Forster they are killer on bream. They are longer 60 or 70mm approx you want to be targeting decent size fish.

They must be fishing off a beach or area with no structure.Thats extremly light gear and I would suggest the second outfit as more approproate for 10kg plus fish. I've caught a few myself on plastics and blades but I have never noticed that they prefer a different colour ? I have used lures from black to white to elton john colours it dose not matter and as Greg said leader size shouldn't be a problem and seeing them on the sounder is key. Get out there and smash those tasty buggers... mmmmmm jew...

Hey Nick , the Salmon move around a lot same as kings , I would be a lot more likely to target jew , plenty of schoolies in the parra and in my opinion they are a much better fish and they are there more often and easier to target.

Looks like your having a ball in Forster Roberta great to see your still catching the bream. Have you put in up at the cattle crossing lately ?

But wait theres more This was the biggest bream I have caught so far , thought I hooked a school jew just from the first run , I fish a light drag and was using a shallow spool reel and had lost some line off the reel earlier in the day , so I was almost spooled by this fish and had Mick chasing it on the electric for me , couldn't beleive it when it came up and I saw a Bream , it looked like something you would catch off an inshore reef , anyhow here it is .

Here are some of the fish caught with Slinky and over the coarse of my holiday .

While staying up at Forster for a couple weeks at christmas I fished hard getting on the water most days by 4.30am and arriving at my spots at the sun was rising trying to get into some surface action . The first few days around the moon fished really slow and were testing on my patience . But couple days after the moon it all started to happen and I began to catch fish in good numbers and size. Slinky had alerted me to the fact that he would be in Forster over chrissy and organised to jump on my boat for a day out bream fishing . Picked him up nice and early then proceeded to the first spot of the day where we both quickly boated some fish on topwter lures , Slinky picked up his PB on surface so I was really happy for him . It was a nice fish but I had been catching some bigger models and was hopeful that this would be the case for us later on in the day . Then all of the sudden the weather changed and I took him to my spot x at light speed with high hopes and a sneaky grin on my face . We arrived and straight away Slinky had hits and then a fish on surface and as we drifted over the spot it all came together , I was getting them on shallow divers and they were quality fish when the conditions changed again I threw the surface lure out and got myself a nice photo worthy model . Slinky was having a ball in the overcast conditions and we continued to score quite a few fish between us and have a good laugh as well . Slinky mentioned he wanted to get a flathead for his Mrs so I took him to a fav spot and he picked up a good fish within mins so he was smiling again nowing he could go home with a feed as we had put all the bream back that we caught throughout the day . Really enjoyed fishing with Slinky , he was good for a laugh and I could tell he was enjoying himself from the massive smile which came across his face on every hit he got . We had caught plenty and it was time for me to get back , so I drove Slinky back to his floating home and then proceeded to take his girls for a spin in the boat which they seemed to enjoy . So when I find my camera cable i will upload the photo's to complete the story . Bubba

Nice bream and even better when you catch em on surface , the quality of the fish down there is amazing , a lot of solid fish in the Basin . well done

That I pilot is a great idea I wish I could get one but I have a cable drive , anyway some nice fish there and it's always good fun to get fish when your testing out new gear , well done . The bream in the secoond photo , I have caught quite a few like this and so have people I fish with , we used to think it was nets but then came to realise that the areas we were catching them in had not been netted by pros for many years and some were very small fish , so now I think that it might be a gentic problem , who knows , they do look weird though . Cheers Bubba

Well done JJ looks like you cleaned up mate . Hooking them is the easy bit , Mick and Dad were lucky they had had you on the boat ,a young fella with a strong back and plenty of enthusiasum, those old buggers would have had hearts attacks if they had to wind in as many fish as you did , luck you were there stretching your arms for the team , putting in the hard yards and resting the old boys dodgey backs. Shame I was up in Forster at the time , will catch up with you next time JJ. Tight lines Bubba

What a great feed of fish , fire up the barby and crack out the blue monsters !!!! Well done mate.

Well done mate those are some quality fish , it must be those lucky crocs your wearing

If you make your own just make sure the Dacron is rated for the same [or higher] breaking strain as your leader and that the leader will fit into the center of the dacron . I did not know you could buy a tool to help with the dacron , but I was shown how to do it by my boss years ago have made heaps of wind on's you can just use a bit of single strand wire about 35 to 40cm long , fold it in half then push it up through the center of the dacron about 15 to 25cm then out through the side of the dacron then you have say an extra 10 cm of dacron above the point of your dacron where the wire comes out of the side , so then you just put the end of the dacron into the wire and pull it back through the dacron [making the loop your braid will join to], this takes all of about 15 seconds and anyone could do it . Once that is done you just feed the lead up the other end by pinching the dacron together it expands and then you inch the leader up into the dacron to the desired length and bind and glue it down . Once you have done a couple it becomes a quick process . It can save you heaps of coin and is a good skill to have . Your leader material mono or fluro will be worn out before the dacron. Im sure that someone has probably taped them self and put it on the net.

HHHHMmmmmmmmmmmm Pike ... Mate they better taste bloody good or I will be cursing you . Might give em a go , a mate once convinced me to eat fried pidgeon heads and I wasn't to keen on them but they tasted alright . Still it would want to be bloody good to be up there with john dory, coral trout , pearl pearch and Threadfin Salmon.

Give the blades a go near the runway , out in the open do some big drifts with the wind at your back and cast blades , hop them back and try to fish in around 10 to 16 foot of water . This has worked well for me , you can pick up a good mixed bag doing this .

They really do look the goods , but is that right snag are they only 2 grams ? If so they are a bit light for me .

I would go to the local tackle store in your area and take the rod so the staff can help match something up and you get to support the local tackle store industry , to many people are buying gear online in my opinion and if it keeps going this way then in years to come we won't have that many actual tackle stores left . When going to tackle stores you can often get a lot of tips and helpful info that these online stores don't provide . Sure occasionally I will get something online that I can't buy here in Aus but the rest I buy from Real Tackle stores, and when you get to know the staff they will often give you some good tips on whats biting at that moment , how they are being caught and they will have a variety of tactics for you to try.

Good to see another lure fisherman joining the site , I will keep an eye out for your report .

Threadfin salmon is my fav . Coral trout, pearl pearch and john Dory are also up there IMO. But PIKE , man thats ruffing it . They have such a lovely aroma too...

Remind me not to book a charter with those blokes. A ROUND boat?????????? Thats some crazy stuff. If I ever head to vietnam i'll be bringing the Skeeter .