Mr Squidy

Nice work Tom. Pawning from a pontoon sounds much more civilized than the times i have done it by standing waste deep in the channel up at the Entrance. Rich

Nice work Yowie, you're doing well getting consitent feeds out of the Hacking at this time of year. Might be time i got out of my Winter hibernation and give it a crack by the looks of things. Rich

Anyone know of anywhere down the shire way that does rod repair??

Hi Cobba, Nice work on some good sambos. I had a similar problem with my first spin setup i used with braid where on big cast i would get these wind knots forming and catching in the guides. As said above it can relate to the line being to loose on the spool but from my experience when using light braids you shouldnt spool them to the same depth as with mono and this over spooling will be a big part of the cause of wind knots. I also reached the point where i was about to rip the braid off and head back to mono but instead i first tried just cutting the braid off at the base of the wind knots each time they formed. Did this about 6 times and then it just seemed to stop happening as i think i had got enough braid off the real that it then spooled off correctly from then on. If your gonna rip the braid off anyway i'd give this a go first as for me looking back it would have been a big mistake not to have persisted as braid does have some really big benifits and i love it these days. Cheers, Rich

Ha!! Dont worry, once the All Blacks do their usual choke in the semi's people will be jumping at the chance to take you out for a fish Seriously though, try searching back through the old posts as i know there have been a few on the different rock and beach options in the Eastern suburbs not to long ago. Good luck Rich

Nice work, good to see a few jew coming in. Reckon the kids would have had a blast. Rich

About five years back i had a day on the Hacking where i was pulling in Tailor one after another, then up shows one lone dolphin, didn't see a Tailor for the rest of the day. Rich

I hear Superman wears GregL undies...

Hi Mate, Unfortunately i don't know the area so can't really help. Only thing i'd say is that if your going to sign off with a P.S. line like that then i'd be double checking the the safety of any spots that get suggested P.S. Go the Wallabies!!

As Fezza says some of the Eastern suburb beaches are more productive but agian you'll be fighting to find a space free of surfers. If your coming from Bankstown a good bet might be Garie beach in the Royal National Park, tends to produce reasonably reliable catches of Salmon and Tailor at times and you shouldn't have to struggle with Surfers. Just note that they lock the gates down there at night so make sure you dont get locked in. Alot of guys from Southern Sydney drive down to places like Austimier, North Wollongong and Windang as well. Rich

Hi Jacks, If your fishing day time park in the lot up north of Wanda and walk a bit further up the beach to get away from the surfers. Find yourself a decent gutter and fish pillies on ganged hooks for Salmon/tailor and the odd flatty. Other option worth a shot would be live beach worms or pipis fished along the edges of the gutters for bream and whiting. With your rigs it depends a little on the conditions but generally a simple running sinker rig just heavy enough to get the bait in the right spot will do the job. Best fishing the top of the tide and either early morning or late arvo rather than the middle of the day. I find Cronulla is not a very productive beach unfortunatley but its still worth a shot if its your local. Hope that helps a little. Rich

Hi Brad, Check out this post from a few months back, Link I reckon it looks pretty similar. Probably a different species within the same sort of family. Rich

Wow, that car must have been going at some clip. Glad to hear everyone was ok. I reckon there's a few fish out there cursing their luck that a new and improved mad mullet is on the way.

Nice work on some top fish

Great footage. How good are the underwater cameras now!! I love them. R

Have to say i agree with brettmann, all of our different activities hold different levels of risk which we all need to be aware of. Just this winter there has been a number of deaths relating to boat capsizes. With that in mind where do your draw the borderline for cencorship on a safety basis? At the end of the day surely its better people get the info off this site along with the numerous warnings and safety related messages attached to the posts rather than other sources where these warnings may not be so prevalent? Rich

Nice work Yowie getting a few nice fish in less than ideal conditions. The rivers still pretty quite. Are you sure that they were pillies being chased as opposed to mullet? If so i may have to get the old sabiki jig out and get a few for bait. Rich

Ooooohh shiny!!! I like the idea of the offset weight to keep them off the bottom a little as well as being able to change the weights for different sink rates. Might have to add a couple to the Jig collection when they come out. Let us know how they perform. Rich

Hi Mate, When you read of people having a specific set up for specific fish this really is more a set up for a specific technique of fishing rather than a species, its just that as you get more specialised in your technique you reach a point where you really do just target a single species of choice at a time. Obviously different techniques require different abilities in the gear and this is what drives the choice of outfit. Once you understand the technique for a species you'll have a pretty good idea of what constitutes a "snapper outfit" or a "Flathead outfit". So, for example, a flathead outfit would usually mean a light and whippy rod suited to casting soft plastics or light baits and probably about 7ft and rated in the 2-4KG range because flatties dont tend to fight to hard and the finesse is more important than brute strength. You'd expect this to be matched with a size 2000 or smaller real as this will match a light rod nicely and its not like you really need hundreds of meters of line to fight a flatty on as they dont run that far. Now this outfit could just as easily be called a light soft plastic outfit or even a bream outfit if thats what you targeted with it, its just that someone who uses it to target flatties only will refer to it as their flattie outfit. Lastly, because it relates to the technique of fishing different people will have different interpretations of what a species specific out fit is. For example a "kingie outfit" used for land based game fishing will be different to a "kingie outfit" for jigging because the techniques are very different. Another example would be that a "flattie outfit" used for bottom bashing outside the heads would be completely different to the one described above which is for fishing soft plastics in an estury. Anyway, hope that makes some sense of it for you. Rich

I reckon there are a few raiders who've spent long cold fruitless nights chasing those things just shaking their heads right now that you've nailed one on a nice warm sunny afternoon. Well done on a nice bi-catch.

Nice work guys, good haul there. I have to say i disagree on much of whats been said regarding shining your torches straight at them. Whilst large fixed lights definitely attract the squid in as they provide a constant steady light for them to feed in (in a similar way to a full moon) but I think it is a totally different story when people go flashing their head torches straight at them. Sometimes they are agressive enough that it wont bother them but at other times, from my experience, it deffinitely spooks them. Reckon your much better off just getting your lure in front of them and geeing them up that way. Rich

Great read, I hear your pain mate. Its an awefull feeling droping any decent fish let alone a fish of a lifetime. Here's to hoping you can get another shot at one soon enough. Rich

Pretty sad if that is the case. We used to get heaps of them but then that was a few years ago that i was last up there and the beaches we hit to the north are pretty remote. May be worth buying some live beach worms for bait just in case. Rich

To get the pipis just walk along in the wave washed zone with bare feet, preferably at mid tide. Every 20m or so stop and twist your feet in the sand while the wave washes over your feet, this will wash away the loose sand and your feet will dig down. If the pipis are there you'll feel them with your feet and see them washing down the sand in the wave. Up there they used to be thick enough that you should see them even without doing this. Once you find some just keep digging in the same area for a while and you should get plenty. Often they seem to be in the same area as the good gutters as well so sometimes you can just dig them out as you need them. Rich

Hey Mate, I used to go on regular 4x4 and hiking holidays up that way and camped on some of the beaches up north of Hawksnest (between Yagon and the big gibber if your looking at the maps)before the national parks set about locking it all off and making it an offence to camp in there except at the park run site at Yagon . The beach fishing up there is something really special when your used to what we get here in Sydney. Although i dont think the main beach is quite as good as the more remote ones its still where i would be heading, try driving up Mungo brush road and walking in at one of the access ways a little further North. With the gear you've mentioned i'd walk the beach in the late arvo or early morning until you find a pipi bed and use these for bait targeting bream and whiting in the close in gutters. With the cold water you'll probably have more luck on the bream. In my time up there i found the bream really seemed to love a pipi bait where i would smash the shell up rather than fully removing it. Also, when i say close gutters i mean it. I used to pick up alot of bream just on a handline lobbed a few meters in from the shore. Also, while your doing this make sure you have some metal slices 10g-20g in your bag as you will at times see huge salmon schools right in close and if you can come across one of these you'll be in for a lot of fun, especially on 4lb Anyway, cant help in regards of the river as i never fished it but hope that gives you something to go off. Rich