gibodfisho

Gday Will. My thoughts on jig heads are that the darter/pointy style are for stick baits like minnows or flick baits and that ball heads suit grubs or wrigglers, keeping in mind my experience comes from luring for bream. The reasoning behind this is the darter like its name suggests allows the stick bait or plastic that has little inbuilt action to dart around. Where as ball heads pull the grub tails straight down giving them action on the drop. I think it is more important to have quality jigheads that are the correct weight and size to suit the conditions. As always in fishing there is room to experiment and certain combinations work particularly well together.

First one is a Bomber fat a Baby bass colour.

Nice report Ray, wind gods are fickle beats.

Cold clear water and absolutey nothing landed . Tried blades, gulps, deep chubbies, and vibes. Fished deep points, snags, shallow banks, and racks. Nice day though.

Thanks for the replys, some useful information there. Only problem if I charted Ross or Glen would be chasing gold and not red.

Prevention is definetly better than the cure. But if you have listened to the little devil on your shoulder and been on a bender, or your best mates bucks and you are looking for a place to roll up and die, the only cure is a couple of hair of the dogs. If you can't stomach it your not desperate enough.

What is the best way to start targetting Snapper out of Sydney Harbour? I need info on mainly what is good snapper habitat and there general movements. For example- what is gravel patch and what does it look like on a sounder? - do you get snapper on top of hard reef or just the rubbish fish? - is drifting the way to go to find fish and new spots of your own or is anchoring and berleying the only way to get quality fish - what depths are considered shallow, average and deep? - if you catch a few in close and the bite shuts down as the sun gets higher how deep do you fish - snapper seasons, is spring the best, do they go deeper in summer etc Hope someone can point us in the right direction or you can tell me to pull my head in and work it out for myself Cheers in advance Dave

Great report Mitch, Karma must have owed you after the flay tyre and faulty electric. Would have been priceless your reaction when the electric started working again after laying the boot into it. Hope you get into the Jewies up Wisemans way.

Thanks for the comments guys. Hodgey it would be hard to tie on a blade when fishing for bream when you were nailing them on surface, now that it is really cold it could be there chance to shine for you.

Zipbait and tuning pen.

I have ordered Zipbait hard body crab imitation, its similar to the prawn imitation Daiwa has. Will post pic tomorow. Also I have a Shimano tuning pen, great for getting your bream hardbodies to run straight.

Had a good session fishing Berowra on a grey and cold Sunday. In the begining things were slow and two normally good spots resulted in one half hearted bump, and the fact that the water temp was 11.5c did little to help my confidence. Kept moving and finally some life started to show on the sounder, although whatever they were they were not interested in the lures I was using. I decided to fish the same area but tighter to the shore and finally a good bream about 35cm to fork. Moving again a similar pattern emerged. Plenty of something on the sounder but no hits and then another Bream 33cm to fork from against the bank. Scored an average flattie for dinner then continued to fish deep to try and figure out what was going on down there. At about the same time a small tinnie came up and anchored not far from the point I was fishing. Out came a pair of long slopy rods, floats and berley. Blackfish, no sooner had I taken all this in and I'm on to a decent fish, a Blackfish foul hooked up the back passage. I got another smaller 2 hooked in the mouth all on blades, and after I was about to move on happy knowing what fish were on the sounder I gave the blackfiherman a tip the fish were further up on the point, they were happy waiting where they were and hoped they would come on the bight for them at the turn of tide. Another spot and another good bream in close this fellow was very sluggish and only took about 2m of drag on a 3pnd leader, he went 37cm to fork but was very thick, deep and old looking. Another foul hooked black fish and then started heading back fishing some jetties along the way. Got two good bream about 30cm and a bonus EP. which makes number 4, all on deep Chubbys. Last spot and 2 small bream the only sub legal fish for the day. There were a good number of bream boats some I recognised and others I did not. Cheers Dave

Gday Langa, blades are a very versatile lure and can be used many different ways. I was sceptical at first and was reluctant to fork out the big dollars for them. This was a mistake as they do catch fish, lots of fish. I feel most confident using them in deepish water with or without current and use either a long slowish single lift or a qicker double hop. If there are active fish nearby they will come and have a look at what has made that strong vibration you mentioned. There strong points are how well they cast and how quickly they get to the bottom, use this to your advantage and you will soon be catching fish and not just bream, monster flattie whiting and blackfish are regular bycatch. Cheers Dave

Brett just a heads up there is a ABT Bream comp on the 28-29 of this month, with 50 plus boats competing for spots it may lessen your tranquil experience in a yak. ps if you go prior be shore to pm me where you caugt em

I guess I dismissed the Prado as being too cumbersome with it solid rear axle but Toyota has had a lot of time to refine it handling. It sure is the most credentialled mid size 4wd, and would make an excellent touring vehicle with a range of over 1000ks. May have to go for another Test drive?

Thanks for the replys guys. Iceman had a drive of the diesel Pathfinder strong torquey motor and good gearbox but not sure about diesel noise, may have to have a drive of petrol model and see how different they are. It has the bonus of low range 4wd the others don't. Taree was a real surprise and $5000 what a bonus. Inhalzi the Klueger is a nice car and seems to me to be the comfiest of the three, good for longer trips. I would look at base model Awd the KX I think.They are also feature packed. Flightmanager I was looking for that type of feedback. So low range is a must to be competent and confident on the sand, I was hoping grunt would get me out of trouble. Sammy the Klueger has a lot of grunt for such a free revving engine I am not surprised it tows your rig without drama. I just like pouring over spec sheets on most magor purchases until the best product for me jumps out at me, but this hasn't happened yet . Just like there is no perfect boat, its all about compromise cheers Dave

Hi Raiders! I am in the market for a new tow vehicle and with my new family, beautiful baby girl Kirra just arrived, I am leaning towards the three models above. They are all more than capable of towing my current rig which probably weighs less than 1100kg. But being fisherman we all know we like to explore, do the odd bit of beach driving and launch our boats at less than ideal locations. To be honest after doing research I am leaning towards the Ford, mainly because of its torque and car like handling "dynamics". I launch and retrieve 95% of the time at good ramps in Sydney, and the other 4.5% at bream tournament venues up and down the coast which also have good ramps. My dilema is the other .5% which involes holidays. Which if any could handle beach driving without concern or perhaps tow a boat out to Fraser Island for an example??? Thanks in advance Dave

Fished Berowra on Sunday morning wanting to discover some new areas and try some neglected tactics looking for Jews and Bream. As per usual mucked round fishing for bream to long and missed the turn of the tide. With only 2 sub legal bream to show for my efforts belted down stream and fished deep. Despite bait being present no jewies but I did hook a monster flattie. Played her to the boat carefully had one net attempt (no way was she going to fit) then was looking for the boga grip when the line parted. I blame the Bream again using light trace and flatties don't gel, but what I think was more interesting is I'm confident I had caught this same fish before. From memory I think it went 68cm about a year ago and looked to be >75cm this encounter. The reason for my theory is that is a specific spot, a mini point on a point in tight to the rocks more like a bream ambush point then flathead. Would have been good to get a closer look and a photo. Two small bream later another move and a change back to hard bodies, heavier trace and more powerful rod, produced a good hit and I was tight to an good average bream of 30cm or so I thought when I got a quick visual. The structure was pretty rough so I tried to rush the bream in. The bream had other ideas and did not allow me to dictate terms at all, and when I polled it in to the boat I could see why. It was 38cm to the fork and had your typical Hawkesbury Bream look, big shouldered and mean. Little else happened and was of the water by 10 and at the pub by 12 for a family do. Cheers Dave

Fantastic Jewie! Great capture from the bank, well done.

Gday James, I have given the 4 inch sandeeels a try and caught the odd bream. I probably prefer the 3 inch minnows and frys but they are something new to show the cunning little blighters.

Thanks Iceman, it was awesome to take out the overall points and the cash was a 'reel' bonus. Great way to finish the series and Rich P and I achieved some PB's along the way. Rich fished Hard bodies on the flats and surface along shorelines, I fished gulps looking for a big fish but besides our smallest weigher was net boy for most of the day. Looking forward to the next series already.

Gday Roberta. I was fishing up at Forster on the weekend for bream but saw heaps of Blackies in the Hells Gate and Wallis Island areas.

Yeah they are working well, hope they can do the job in Forster this weekend.

Thanks Iceman, was rapt to get my first CASH pay out and to have two good days of fishing with two nice guys, I could not have been happier. Saturday started with a good fish on a hull then a procession of 24cm throw backs. Moved up to a flat, worked it for a little while but not enough water on it. A marina was next and it was very quiet, could not see any bream but was lucky to stumble onto what the fish wanted on the day. Proceeded to catch 2 legals and a heap of throwbacks. Worked a rocky shorline next using same technique bagged out with a couple of small upgrades. Used Hidden weights and Gulps pretty much all day. Sunday was much different Hulls did not work for me, the marina produced only 1 fish and the conditions were getting worse. I think I was lucky to get 2 more fish in spots I had not tried before. Plus there was more pressure from other competitors for the same runs. Returned to weigh in drenched but happy to be in the top 10. Cheers Dave