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That's great that you are wanting to minimise the damage to the fish for release. You could either switch to single hooks which are still very effective or you could leave the trebles on and squash the barbs flat. As long as you keep pressure on during the fight it should not decrease your catch and makes release so much easier.

Nice stuff, good fish,good release,glass conditions......how good is fishing??

Oh nice croc....Love them over 80cms and beyond. Great work letting both of the ladies go, thats the way to do it.

Great work, its interesting that the plastic outfished the fresh baits.....much more fun too as long as you dont have to make 300 casts. Will start to target them myself too now but im not sure about that 4am stuff!

Wow thats an exciting shit day.....Any day with a bite off a Blue is a good day. Bad luck how it ended but still exciting.

Good work on the bites...I agree with the comments about using the heavier outfits on the short lures as that lets you use a bigger pusher style lure in the wash and the slimmer or smaller lures on the riggers in the clean water where they are more easily seen. Marlin love those short lures around the boat and teaser. Good luck.

Great job on releasing a big roed up croc...love it,good on ya.

Josh..well done champ. Nice dollie and some super tasty wahoo. Gotta love a day like that. And I would say judging by the big dorsal fin on that marlin that it is a stripe. Nice work releasing it. Karma will reward you with lots more.

Thats no good. I have always found some nice flathead hang around the marina at Little Beach that you can get to land based. Also you can walk along the beach between the marina and the boatramp flicking plastics for good sized flatties. Hope you get some.....

Cracker croc and really well done on the release. Theres been a few nice ones around lately.Karma says you will get some more now.

I believe you too. I have seen a stripe harassing the salmon schools at the colours and have had a small black try to hook itself on a skirted lure inside North Head. So many bonito around that there has to be a good little black season this year.....please.

I am not worthy....thats 2 good crocs,rediculous things...want one!

We used an orange timber bird with 2 Moldcraft softhead pushers behind. Basic really but effective.Have been reading the blogs from the weekend up there and it continues to fire with one boat going 4 from 5 on big fish to 500lbs and every other boat seeing several. Lets hope they continue down the coast and give us a summer to remember.

Thats a nice lizard.Good on you for the release.May you keep catching them bigger and bigger.Will be seeing you on the water a bit more now that the big girls are starting to wake up.

No the big fish were all on lures. The gars were for the sails but no result on them.It was nice of the Flat Dog to give us a bunch of them tho.Pics were hard to get as we were pretty short handed.Those things go nuts.Just as a sidenote 15 of the 17 shots were on the right corner flat lure behind the teaser.We now call it the "Blue Corner".Hope you get on em Emu.

I said the same thing myself. there is everything you need there for a grander.Its not underrated by me anymore.

We have just returned from a trip to Mooloolaba on board Chris Herbert's 54 Bertram ABSOLUTE. We fished for sailfish at the 8 and 10 mile for the first 2 days and didn't turn a reel. We missed out on what was a fairly good bite a week earlier.We then proceeded to Cape Moreton to fish Blues heavy tackle for 3 days.Within half an hour of lures in we released our first fish of 150kg and followed it with 2 more of 280kg and 200kg.We missed one more around the same size. Day 2 was hot...damn hot. 10 shots for 2 tags.A couple of the fish were big girls too...over 300kgs .Twice we even had 2 fish in the pattern together.Day 3 was a bit slower....1 release from 3 bites, but again nice big fat healthy blues. The fishing was concentrated on a canyon mark SE of the Cape that was holding a nice ball of bait at about 40 fathoms.The water temp was around 25 deg and cobalt.Flat calm too. Big thanks to Allen from Flat Dog charters for giving us some nice quality garfish and some local info.

Thanks Rick. Just got back. No luck with the sails,they decided to shut down the day before we got there. The Blue Marlin fishing on the other hand was incredible. We got 6 from 17 bites in 3 days. Best released was 280kg with several bigger ones missed. They are blessed up there.

Hi raiders Im going up to Mooloolaba on a game boat to target marlin and sails out of Mooloolaba for a few days. I have not fished the area before and would love any inside info on spots for bait catching and methods that seem to work best in that area. I have the GPS marks for 8 and 10 mile. Both myself and the skipper are sydney based so we welcome anything that anyone can help us with. Thankyou

Nice.....good croc! loving the release. Its so cool watching them swim off after they have made your day hey? Keep it up.

WOW that is a superb beast. Third cast hey? Fishing really is an unpredictable sport..which is why we love it. The best part of this encounter is you let that beautiful lady go on her way. Im so envious.Good job.

Hang in there, they are a frustrating fish to try to rely on. My last 2 trips have not produced a bite but the trip before that I got 6 jewies on Gulps in 1 hours fishing. I caught 4 with my first 4 casts. They were just thick and hungry as. They were all around 3 - 3.5 kilos and they were all released healthy.Best colour was cajun chicken in 5inch. They stopped biting 1 hour after the tide started to run out (9.30am).They were in Botany Bay in 5metres of water and they got me addicted. Must admit I would find it hard to stay up all night for them though. Good luck in your quest.

We have recently returned from our NZ adventure. We were the second group of the trip organised by Guy and Mirren fishing aboard Assassin with Brett.On our trip was Mirren,Slicka,Tim,Ricardo and George.We arrived in Whangaroa to reports of fairly slow fishing from Guy and Boonga etc but with some big fish caught.The weather was blowing and raining but that was what Brett was hoping for to spark things up. Day 1 brought clear skies and no wind but with a nice swell making wash against the rocks and the fishing was beyond unbelievable.Mirren and myself hooked up on our 1st cast of the trip on big reds and that was the way it went for the next few hours with triple and quadruple hookups the norm. Brett then suggested we do some kingy jigging and that was just rediculous with the 1st 4 jigs put down instantly monstered by 15kg hoodlums.Screaming drags and bending rods evrywhere you looked. We probably caught 10 in no time at all and as soon as it slowed down Brett had us on the move to a rock wall which must have produced 50 reds to 6kg. We also had Slicka produce a John Dory and a Stargazer just for something different. Final tally for the day was a staggering 150 snapper and 10 kings. I told Brett it was the hottest day's fishing any of us had ever had. Day 2 again dawned perfect and Brett had us on big fish straight away at Stevensons (now re-named Mirrensons)island where we caught several fish to 10kg. The fishing was slower but the quality was better with fish that we drooled over on day 1 now not even getting a second look today. We caught a lot of Kahawai(salmon) as well which are used as livebait for kingys.Crazy! Day 3 was more craziness with Brett heading north and straight onto big reds upward of 10kg. The best fishing method was again working along the washes and throwing 5 and 7inch Gulps. Its fairly tricky but after some practice we all had it worked out. The snapper mostly grab it on the drop in the first 10 seconds and there are plenty of kings in there with them. Another day with over 100 reds released. Yawn! Day 4 we returned to Mirrensons and struck the best fish of the trip with several over 10kg. Mirren got the prize with a 91cm fat red thing among so many other PBs for all of us. We decided to give Brett an early mark at lunch time as it just couldnt get any better. The gear used was mainly Daiwa Certates and Branzinos in 3000 models and nice soft rods with 20lb braid. Soft baits were Gulp 5,6 and 7in and not much else got a bite. Brett is the best skipper/bloke you will find and we will all be returning soon. ____________________________________________________________________ .