REKLESS

Gidday seajay, at the risk of blowing the "SEA JAY" trumpet ,I have a much smaller version of the same boat (4m version). Blue cod is right about the safety gear ,dont leave home without it and make sure it works.I have taken my boat to a few locations in conditions that can only be described as a calculated risk. I can only re iterate what blue cod says about experience and can only say that if you want to team up with another boat ,let us know and we may be able to help. To give you an idea on what I call a calculated risk ,the photo I have posted is me at a place called Black rock ,I got there by crossing the small bar at Back creek at South West Rocks. The tinny even though small has had quite a few modifications added to it but it still adds up to a very sea worthy hull. Cheers Simon

I was reading the post about "the best lures for bonito" and got to thinking about some of my best hard bodied lures that I have. Now as all good lure fisherman have , there is Always one or two favourites in the tackle box that get tied on when all else has failed,these are usually treasured lures that usually display a "hard life". I dont have ready acess to a digital camera but I have two lures that have survived past two seasons,one is a rapala cd11 and the other a little bomber that Never goes swimming ever again.Period. The other ones were a cotton cordell popper that is stuck in a 30kg + GT's mouth in Savu Savu bay Fiji,and a black and silver nilsmaster lure scoffed by a king at North Head,never to be seen again Simon

Hi Peter, I would go with getting a centre or side console-no question. If the boat you are in is big enough to take a 50hp outboard ,and it is an open tinny,then you , by rights should have enough room inside the boat to fish comfortably with the console fitted. I have a 4m tinny that has been heavily modified ,I have tiller steer and use a tiller extension to get the boat balanced while under way.If it had a console the amount of room would be reduced to such a degree that It would be uncomfortable to fish out of. My next boat will be bigger Simon

Hi Gw77, Just out of curiosity where and when were you fishing,were you at anchor?,and what bait did you guys catch the fish on? Cheers Simon

judging by the reeds there the place has a very small (if any tidal movement),I reckon that it is the lagoon at the back of Terrigal Beach central coast,I dont have a map for the name Simon

Gidday all, Seeing as I cant get out on the sunday to watch all you guys casting over each other competeing for the salmon ,I can at least say that there were Two schools actively feeding off Ben Buckler at Bondi ,there was one boat I saw that was getting into them and judging by the waving antics of those aboard they were using salt water flies. Cheers simon

Gidday all, Well I managed to get out on saturday morning with Chris (a fellow Fishraider) as No.1 deckie and anchor puller.We put in at 600 and were first up out of the ramp,things were looking pretty good with a low low swell and about 10 knots of NW that would have the boat hanging off the drop off,trouble was that instead of the anticipated 18.4c water we were looking at 16c and the current was trickiling to the north . Laying down the pick we lasted there for about half an hour, feeding the resident black scourge (Sweep) until getting the shits and going to a secret spot in deeper water.There was a few schools of fish showing on the sounder and there was a few Big birds (Skuas)? hanging around .Laying down a trail of cubes we ended up picking up a small red and trevally for chris.While we were there burleying-the school of fish that had been on the sounder announced there presence,yup winter is here ,Cowanyoung and smelly pike.One went back down with a 10/0 (they were big) and spent the rest of the time twisting the line on my 24kg outfit,needless to say he didnt get touched. While all this action was going on Chris pulled out his silly gear and was happily hooking up all sorts of goodys on his soft plastics,some bottom ooglys made there presence felt-I reckon one of your wrasse would have taken out the largest on a lure Chris! . Seeing as it was winter and Chris is a Salmon Virgin ,we went out lookin,and looking,trolling all the way and exploring all the little bays to manly Beach and back again before pulling the pin on that idea and going for option #3,Flaty action. Well we drifted and picked up a solid flathead and a stud blue morwong and also picking up a new species for me .I reckon that it is a blue spotted Goatfish.As far as eating goes this fish is one that rates up there with coral Trout and Red Emporer,I will happily swap a Snapper for one again-any day. Any way we pulled the pin at 1200 to have a gentle little NE wind puff up,the end to what was a nice day out even though the fishing was a little on the slow side. Thanks again for coming out Chris, and you are welcome to come out anytime again. Simon

I'll be chasing them in the harbour tomorrow on fly. I hope they're around 'cause there's no bream around to have as a back-up plan. , Hey Swoffa ,you see, this is what you get when you get to go fishing while all of us poor bastards are busy paying taxes for the Government to spend on creating white elephants like desal plants. . I am going out on saturday to catch all the ones you missed on thursday. simon

Heading out in REKLESS out from longreef to go cubing for snapper ,and then having a crack at some salmon,if they are around . simon

did you end up Fish 'n' Chippin them?

Yeah ,stick me in there Bluecod. By the way, I was down at Bondi again and even though I was there for the tide change it appears that the fish have moved on to another spot. Cheers Simon

Gidday all, every Tuesday I get to visit some restaurants at Bondi.Any way I had a look out from Ravesis there and could see a school of salmon working off the Northern point.Drove out to the car park at Ben Buckler Head and it turns out that the birds I saw were only working a tiny portion of a Massive shoal of Salmon. From the way they were feeding it appears that they were feeding on "Eyes" or the like ,ie they were just swimming and "slurping".These fish were like a blanket in the whole area and were "cycling" ,that is alternating between sounding and feeding on the surface but staying in the same area. Anyway I dropped into Ottos on the way home and he mentioned that there were schools of salmon stretching from Longreef right through to North head,-no mention of any in the harbour though. While I was there I managed to pick up a "secret weapon" for the salmon,with any luck I might get to show some of you guys," it", on the seventh at clontarf (if I can get a ride on a boat that is). Simon

Good to hear that you found the mother load of trevally off Bluefish,I checked out the MHL website and it seems that when you were at longreef coincided with a pretty fast moving eddy, Simon

I use a an old MT4144 with a 5" alvey with 4kg and an MT 7144 with a 600A5 alvey with 6kg .If I am going for Jewies I have another 650A5 with 15 kg tortue that gets thrown in the ruck sack as back up. Simon

Gidday all,I was going through the old photo album and came across an old photo of me catching fish off Charlotte headland.Anyway I seem to remember there was a lauching ramp/spot in the southern corner of Elisabeth Beach,it is at a pretty good spot to fish in season and I was wondering if anyone has launched from there recently and if it still exists for future reference. Ta Simon

That looks like the point at North Whale beach,looks like you had a bit of fun. Simon

Hmm no fishing this weekend ,guess I will just have to read about it on the monitor.

I have had a few problems with the Hi Vis Jarvis walker braid. The classic was when we were setting the drag on a mates bottom bashing gear (30lb) and the line kept breaking at 8lb.The bad bit was i had just spooled up with 800m of 80lb of the same brand,I double checked the knot and it let go in my hands ........,. Back to dacron for bottom fishing for a while at least.

When I have gone after Bonito for bait we usually find them by trolling CD 9 or 11's if out "blind trolling".I still prefer the 20g chrome slugs as Bashir said at "warp speed",when they are on the surface and feeding .....come on summer.

yep,here we go again. The length and width of the fish were not measured,there were no scales where we were, that would have been able to measure the fishy . Perhaps I should have put up the post asking for everyones guestimate as far as the fishes weight. The bill was shorter then normal ,possibly broken off when the fish was a wipper snapper.The fish is bigger then it looks,Max jonno weighes in somewhere near 140 (he wont tell me exactly how much) and he is stands around 6 ft tall. Simon Where is Changa?

I can vouch for the makos,mmmmmmmm just like a Broady only with teeth. The hammers and whalers are okay ,trouble is the ammonia<its a bit like sticking your head in a mop bucket

This Was Max's First Marlin,took nearly an Hour on 15kg -It ate a Pakula loumo sprocket off the Long Rigger and was part 1 of a double hookup. It was caught about 5km NW of Browns mountain in Jan 04

Just experimenting with photos and will progressively get it together.

Gidday all, On saturdayI gave in to temptation and ended up putting in at little manly with my brother Dan.The plan was to fish for JD near quarantine on the tide change and then maybe go and do a bit of wash fishing and then hassle some salmon if they were some where around. We had a late start and as we were heading down in the car at manly, I saw Pete in the Black pig off quarantine swinging in the wind off quarantine .We put in and were looking at 15knots of sub zero SW wind ...yuk. Doing the rounds around the bouys to find some cunje (for wash fishing with) we drew a nil,everyone must have cleaned them up I guess,went and said hello to the black pig and "Doll Face",they had moved to reef beach by that time and did not have any promising reports to mention. We had a crack at a spot near quarantine and after picking up a bit of bait on the sounder picked up a lonely cowanyoung .There was other fish there on the sounder ,they appeared to be slimeys but were not feeding.(I was hoping to load up on bait). The water was only 15 c so we went out to the front of north head to see what we could see,there was a solid 2.5m swell coming in and it made for a bumpy ride out the front.I tried anchoring in close but ran into problems with the wind. the plan was to fish in close enough to be able to lob a bait in at the washes and yet fish in 80ft of water.The wind was curling around the headland and ended up blowing us into the rocks and when one particularly large set came in , we only had the backwash keeping us away from the rocks sanity prevailed and we went out a bit wider and caught nothing but assorted reef fish. I know better then this and will do it properly next time.(sorry dan) There was no sign of salmon around with the only action being us idiots trying to drown ourselves.There was quite a few dedicated "salmon " boats out looking but were all doing the same thing,just looking. Pulled the pin at 300 and have decided to give the harbours a miss untill I know the water temperature is up .....long reef here we come. simon.

Aww,now that would have been a good one Mottyman- a nice sized semi tropical fish,in the middle of winter!!. i suspect that it would have sparked a bit of scepticism from quite a few people unless photographic evdience was given.I am quite fond of cobia ........where were you again? . good one simon