Daniel Frost

If your after a big flatty I would suggest 10lb to 16lb leader , big flatties often engulf the lure and will rub you off on the lighter leader very easily , also flatties are probably the least finicky fish around so heavier leader of 10 to 16 lb will not be a prob and will give you a good chance at landing a big fish . Yes you will get more fish on lighter leader 4lb or 6lb but ,you will lose most of your big flatties as well . So if you want a bigger fish I would target them with 100mm plus size lures and heavier leader . Good luck mate Bubba

Great result Roberta , glad to see you have a a crack at the comp side of fishing and also to do so well , top effort and hopefully you will make the GF next time . Cheers Dan

Havn't caught an Ep since last year , good to know they are around at the moment , thanks for sharing the info mate much appreciated . Will have to make the effort to do a few night sessions for them in the Georges im only a couple mins from pinic point boatramp and should be able to find them again this year , fingers crossed . Bubba

Well done mate , nice fish. Now over the next couple of moths you will start to see the bigger bream a lot more often , fish that will have the power to smoke you if your not on the ball . To increase your hit rate on these bream you should take note of not just where you caught them but what the tide was doing at the time also the time of day or night and water temp , was there bait around ? Is there structure which may hold the fish , rocks , mussels oysters weedbeds etc. There are many other factors but these would be the most important to start with. When you start putting all these things together you should be able to target bream a lot better and you will still get a lot of bycatch such as whiting, flatties and the odd jew if your lucky. Keep casting and remember the learning never stops , Good luck on your next session mate , Bubba

What a great feeling , your first boat , look after it well mate and you should have some great times in it . I just sold my first boat and it was a hard thing to do , the memories , so many fish and so many trips away with mates . Make sure you have plenty of rope with a sand anchor and a reef pick so if the motor does have a bad day you can at least anchor up and try to sort it out or hold position while waiting for help . hopefully that dosn't happen and your biggest problem is getting back home before the gets the shits because you have been out all day catching fish, enjoy mate . Bubba

My mate ANT [Anthony] will be up there for the comp and he has caught some quality flatty's and lost some monsters in Lake Mac of recent. Got a nice flatty there myself about a month ago , and my mate and I both picked up fish around the 80cm mark in the bream comp there on sunday , so good luck and im sure there will be some great fish caught , especially near the warmer water and off the rocky points south of Wangi. Bubba

Went after work on friday with a mate in his trusty vessel ,we fished lures along the bottom in 30 to 50 feet of water for about 2 hrs , picked up this little model , but still had a really good time with some great company and plenty of laughs . Bubba

Was thinking what it would be like to be in the cabin of the excavator , What would you be thinking ? "Hey man... why don't we just drive around it ?" or " Hey isn't that Dave the new Workcover inspector down there?" Bubba

Having fished lake Lyell 4 or 5 times now and camping there once in winter , I would recommend some warm clothing , it gets cold...... i mean really cold, when the wind hits and it can go straight through you and it's not good , it's fine if the wheather is good but be prepared with clothing like your going to climb Mt Everest . Personally I wear thermal gear as its not bulky and hace a balaclava , if you don't have this sort of gear then you could try 6 t-shirts , 4 pairs of trackys 2 jumpers 1 rain jacket\ wind breaker , 3 pairs of socks and about a dozen pairs of undies . I hate the cold with a vengence , maybe thats why my name is D.Frost Bubba

G'Day Roberta , Good to see they are still hitting the surface lures and it's always good to see a fellow angler catch their fisrt fish on a surface lure congrats to you both . Im not sure if you fish this spot but if you haven't it's a must . Where we saw you in the keys on the weekend , if you go up to the entrance of channel[ that leads inbetween the islands and out into the lake ] on the shore opposite the red and green markers there is a small bay . There is a small island that is only just under the water and it is maybe only 3 meters or so from the shore . That is the Honey hole for me . Have pulled whiting over 44cm and quite a few over the 35cm mark as well as bream and flathead. Usually I cast around that underwater island and bay for 5 or 10 mins at least , it's a great topwater spot and can be easily fished shorebased . You love that sammy and I bet it pains you when winter really hits and it rarely comes out of the tacklebox , im sure your shedding a tear just thinking about it but at least the big ones will be around more often. Great report Roberta , cheers Bubba

Would be a great idea to have a few 3 to 4 inch plastics wrigglers or paddle tails and some 4 or 5 gram jigheads , as you should be able to pick up jew , flatty's and bream in the Parra river with a little practice and persitence, it can keep you busy for a while when you waiting for your baits to go off . Caught quite a lot of jewfish in the Parra last year it's a good area to get into some school jew. The lane cove also holds good fish and is not as busy as the Parra river we have pulled plenty of big flatties in there and it's not very far in the boat , Good luck and if you fish the harbour a bit im sure i will see you out on the water . Have you named your Boat? Bubba

That sounds like a good way to handle them Poddy Trapper , but at the moment I will stick with my current method of letting my old man unhook them whilst I them repeatidly Far out 5 stitches , thats nasty , I will be taking a bit more care when handling them in the future , cheers mate Bubba

Dicko was just having a look at your set up very nice mate , although a small criticism would be your tow vehicle , don't get me wrong im sure it pulls the chicks but is a little unrealistic at the ramp , if you ever have trouble getting your boat out pls don't hesitate to call me , as i have just picked up a new tow vehicle myself , it's a bloody beauty . Noticed your boat although beautiful was a little on the small side , you know if the swell is up and your wanting to troll out past Browns Mountain say , so just wanted to let you know there is plenty of room for another anlger on my boat and would love to share a lobster lunch with you and some time trolling for marlin. Anyhow Donald Trump and I will be switch baiting this weekend so if you want to tag along PM me , Cheers Bubba

It's pretty rare for me to loose a lure to them [ Long Tom's ]except if im using 2lb leader on the clear days over the flats , then it can get expensive . Usually im using 4lb and it's not a prob . But we do loose a few lures to big flatties . Cut loose , im not sure how the blades will go up at Forster , im sure there are certain spots that they would work in but the vast majority of spots I fish in Forster are with H\B's as it is a pretty shallow place in general and the racks and weedbeds are my fav spots . But let me know if you do well with them up there as I struggled with blades in Forster. Roberta great to hear your getting your Mojo back ! and helping out another Raider . Bubba

You can put an internal sleeve in it if you want to save the rod , if its halfway down that isn't the worst spot , i assume its in front of your stripper guide? You can sleeve it and that will stiffen the rod in that area a bit but at least you have a rod while you save up for your next purchase it should still cast well , I have repaired rods for customers before like this and it isn't hard to do , and if not at least it's an excuse to buy a new rod. Bubba

Had a couple hours on the water at Forster over easter and we caught a couple nice whiting and bream and Big Max got a beast of a long tom in about a foot of water which played up like a red headed stepchild going crazy and lurching all over the place just out of control. The fishing didn't start till about 10 am absolute gentalmens hours , but the fish were biting straight off the bat and all on poppers , would have liked to stay out all day but time didn't permit . Great to know Forster is still fishing well and it was good to see Roberta out there on the water . Keep on Poppin Bubba

Well done mate , it's always good to get into the wild ones , congrats mate , you must be lovin the new boat sounder up the front and everything , nice! Bubba

Great to catch up with you Roberta , and yes I think dad was having Skeeter withdrawals, it was great to get on the water in Forster again and get some fish , we got ours on poppers . Will let you know when im coming up next time , it was just a last minute rush to get up there and drop my tinne off to put it up for sale , and yes those 4 massive speakers do give me extra speed , i don't care what anyone says Bubba

Sounds like a great trip Roberta , and well done on your Bass . Will have to get up there one day myself . Saw the shots with the kayak in the back of the shaggin waggon ,can't believe how much room there was , pretty handy on that sort of trip and really is a lot safer to have your gear locked up as you said and well worth the extra effort. Congrats Bubba

Fishing for dam Barra can be painfully slow at the best of times and especially after temperature drops . When you know you will be often casting all day and may only get a hit or two , or even none , it makes it hard to completely concentrate on every retreive , and thats what you must do . To the guys asking how could 4 experienced anglers not come back with a fish , give it a go yourself and you will see that they are not an easy advesary to catch in a dam . Think about casting all day in the hope of one hit , it dosn't seem that bad but when your out there with the beating down on you and you have been fishing for 2 or 3 hours without a touch and you don't know the area like your local system , you don't have "go to" spots and all the inside knowledge ,it is mentally very challenging to keep up your confidence . It's a HUGE challenge and this is one of the reasons we do it , to capture one of these beasts is all time , and from my experience just one of these monsters makes your whole trip a great story, and incredible memory . Even getting smashed by these fish on a surface lure is mind blowing:1yikes: , if your ever caught bass on surface , multiply that by about a thousand. Getting smoked by one [when you don't even slow it down yet alone gain back a cm of line as it disappears with your lure] after casting your plastic 500 times that day will only make you hungrier to land one and have you in awe of the intial strike which can easily rip the rod out of a your hands . These fish have had every lure imagionable thrown at them ,so it's down to finding a pattern , finding where you think multiple fish will congragate in an area , and hammering these areas ,certain depths,and structures or types of weed etc . Especially when your with your mates fishing together and not being put onto fish by a guide it makes it that much sweeter to do it yourself. To all who havn't tried , get up there and give it a go either with your mates or a guide , as hard as it can be , the reward is worth it and fish or no fish you will never forget it. Well done Grant ,Slinky and the boys , it's awsome that you found fish , got hits , hookups , and worked out a pattern . It was obvious from talking to Grant the other night that he is keener and hungier than before the trip, im sure you will all make an effort to get back there and all get your trophy fish . If my mates asked me why we caught nothing I would blame the ! Anyhow im off to polish my horns and practice the secret handshake , for this months meeting . 115cm CLUB Bubba

Thanks for the info , much appreciated . Shame to hear about the weed , that is a bit of a worry , but i am all paid up so I will be going down anyway and hopefully come back with a few for a feed . Hopefully the weed is not all over the bay , as I have a pretty quick boat and will do a bit of traveling to find some ground thats not full of floating weed . Thanks again , Bubba

G'day Captn, some really good fish your getting there mate , ive only used surface and H\B's there , glad to hear the plastics are working too ,would love to see a few photo's next time your out. Well done Bubba

Hoped the info in my PM helped . Will put up a post of the trip sat & sun just passed , and when you see the photo's im sure you will make the trip down from Forster quick smart mate . Bubba Also Nabiac has some good fish as well , pulled one around 45cm last X-mas, but it's really shallow in some spots , perfect yak or cannoe country .

Yeah Great morning shot , and some good fish too . You definately have WB sorted , well done mate Bubba

Quality fish mate , that would of put a huge smile on your face , Congrats. Bubba