jimmy72

hey sarge, sounds like your on the right track. i have no idea about $59 reels. if you can strecth the budget i'd hunt around some of the fly fishing websites ( both aussie and USA) that have classifieds , you might get a used $200 + reel for 100 or so, often they will come with a line and backing so its a good deal - most regular posters on a site wont sell lemons, make sure they have a high post count so they are more likely to be fair dinkum. there are cheap ones of "fleabay", though id search about to read reviews before i spent money on an unknown brand - buy i'm told you can get reels that work for $5 - for an 8 weight you want around a 100mm diameter spool / reel good luck on the bream they can be fun, i have some notes for fishing for them and what flys what retrieves work etc , i 'll PM you cheers gm

Hey sarge, I’m a little confused as to the exact problem, so I’ll start with the basics ..sorry if i sound patronising . Troutboy is on the mark, but I’ll write a more long winded and most probably boring response anyway gm Fly Line on the reel is not meant to look neat, like say compared to the fishing line on overhead or spin reel, the backing yes it must be wound on tight and crossed to stop it biting into itself and jamming when the fish run. Ok so you know that when/ before we start to fish / cast we pull off the reel 70-90% of the fly line.. say 60 – 80 foot (more on longer lines, less in tight situations, strip off the about the amount of line you expect to be casting plus say 10 foot more). To retrieve the fly and give it action we strip the line onto the ground by hand from below the bottom guide (don’t wind it back in using the reel) , - you strip the line onto the water, ground, boat deck or stripping basket or whatever as you retrieve your fly, you then cast again, so having it neat on the reel is never important, you want it loose in big coils on the ground to make the next cast easier. If the line is badly jamming against the body of the reel when you do wind it in fighting a fish you have too much backing on - leave enough room on the reel after the backing is put on to be able to pretty much wind the line in any old how without it jamming up….. but we don’t really wind in 'any old how' you do use your index finger to lay the line roughly side to side when winding the line in fighting a fish as troutboy mentioned, with some practice it becomes second nature If you feel you don’t have enough backing after making some more room, you might wanna consider using 40 - 50lb braid rather than Dacron backing to increase your capacity. Use 40- 50lb as it less likely to cut your finger off that 30lb and is still far thinner than Dacron. Winding Machines? I’d guess any machines you see being used for winding fly lines are for a quick changing lines and /or for putting the line on a bigger diameter holder to reduce line memory / coiling of the line while not being used. Winding your Fly line tight on your reel and storing it that way will only increase the dreaded coiling and line memory that brings about tangles. As troutboy says smart people stretch their lines before fishing - the night before works leaving it loose in big coils on the floor or stretched between things like two poles or chairs, or around large diameter objects etc will reduce the tangle factor in the line As for cost of a reel - sarge whats your budget? I’m a fan of not spending too much but also keen on getting a decent reel with a decent drag and large arbour –, I have large arbour ‘Colton’ fly reel CRGii 8 -10, its made in the states and in my opinion very very good for the price( 250 or so with spare spool and postage.. think the reel was 170 on its own ) – manufacturer has an eBay store too, but website often has massive discounts, I have also looked hard at the okuma reels the Helios looks good for the price , I’m sure others have experience with other brands and models and can help on that one too cheers

That's the way we used to get in before it was actually open to fishing ... And before the 10 or 20 grand fine they imposed for getting caught before it officially opened, lol.. There was a few fly rods broken doing the bolt thats for sure ! its just a short drive through private property ..( it was a very long time ago ...but If you buy enough beers for the locals at the alexander hotel rydal .. or maybe they drink at Wang now ??? and the right guy is there you might be able to drive down and jump the fence). Beats walking in from the front Good luck ! Grant

nice work there , been ages since i fished the goon -- i got a real bad case of giardiasis from there back in the 90's, just from holding flys and line in my mouth while rerigging. can be loads of fun down there... like a lucky dip cheers grant

no probs, i can crap on all day about fly fishing PS i'm told the salmon were smashing poppers & crease flies in the brown water on the weekend - go figure

eyes fly 2 - 3 cms long - craft fur or polar fibre tail for the bodyUV cure resin or silicone over some silver flash for stomach sack then a lateral line one strand of silver flash couple of BMS salts - originally designed by muz wilson - recipie can be found on google couple of surf candys or is it candies??..tied nice and sparce.. avoid the ones that have no taper to the tail, and too much material. the grey and olive ones here are lovely and tied by australian tier chris beech..you can buy them over the net in a few places or direct from him. my mates fly that killed me was very similar but had kelly ( bright ) green on the shoulder with similar coloured flash.. it also had a similar effect on the kingies one day when i blanked on them ;-( thing is the fish can move onto different sized and coloured bait pretty quickly.. and within 20 minutes refuse the fly that you thought was a secret killer lol. go to youtube and search 'bait computer' by popfleyes .. its a short US vid from bob popovics (inventor of the surf candy/ candie lol and much more) .. you will see that the with bait fish from below often their bodies are well hidden with really only the eyes and backs,(and stomach sacks) showing as they swim ?? check it out silversides, rainbait and anchovy are pretty much same as what the harbour fish feed on here .. though there were schools of 7cms long slimies thick in the harbour around Dec Anyway enough ranting hope that helps some .. sorry for the spelling i cant be bothered trying to edit today. cheers grant shoot nearly forgot the gummy minnow fly has been working well too a few patterns around.. google 'fred hannie hold the anchovies" for the pinnacle of gummy flies.. justin duggan of sydney flyfishing also has a good vid on youtube on how to tie a much quicker basic one

those fish can make you pull your hair out its not always size of the fly.. they dont always need to be 2cms eyes flies for the fussy salmon ( but often they do need to be). somedays you need no flash in the fly , some time UV flash, or silver, sometimes the fly needs to be offwhite .. not the bright white , sometimes black flies, sometimes its olive over white , or kelly green over white . ( go light on the flash would be a general rule though) somedays its who *&^&%^ knows.. once a mate got 10 fish more that me after i caught the first 2 or three.. i ended up with 4?? my mate eleventy thousand or so!!! so who knows sometimes - that fly was a medium sized surf candy had grass green shoulder /back and white / clearish body. i had a polar firbe minnow of similar size and colour and youcould see the fish turn off when they got within a metre of the fly ?? then go and smash his fly?? get a few olive and green surf candies that are tied sparcely, say upto 5/6 cms long and take scissors to trim if needed when you are out on the water,- to trim, dont cut the tail off but cut into the tail form behind, horizontal to the fly -- cop into it like taht so all firbre end up diff length and it will maintain the taper get some white BMS,& grey BMS, about 3- 3.5 cms long..they have saved the day for me more tahn once.. get some eyes flies , black eyes flies, tan eyes flies some with no flash some with UV flash and some with silver and pearl if i can work out how to uploadimages i will.. it keeps giving me a grey haze over the thread and thats it ?? also its also the retieve and tactics very important get upwind and or up current and slightly to the side of the school too ( you dont want to drift over the middle of them and spoil the action for everyone.. your likley to get a sinker in your boat or yelled at ) .. salmon near always feed into something wind or current .. you must have your fly swimming away from them .. bait does not attack pelagics!! lol cast and strip as soon as the fly hits the water, cast to the most agressive bunch of fish within the school, make 4-5 strips, then pick up the line and cast in again, stripping all the way to the boat is often a waste ( but not always) - i think some times when they are fussy and you catch a few .. they eat your fly by mistake, or take it as it splashes down and they dont see it very well - e constant recasting just gives you more chances for that possibility ( no matter how good the flies are .. they dont really look like baitfish) also dont always strip super fast,mix it up, if the fish are calmly sipping down small bait .. calm down and slow strip.. its hard to do but last week off balmoral i was winning with long (near 2m) very slow smooth strips, the fast jeky stripping was having the fish turn off - leaving boils behind the fly -- heart stopping but depressing also note when using the tiny hooks , you can pull too hard open the hook up and loose the fish, and the small hoks / flies are usually are also fished with lighter tippets .. down to 8lb on the salmon sometimes let me work out this image thing cheers grant

hey mate, Flycaster is right, lessons will save you much heartache and get you catching fish much faster. what line did you get? .. a floater or intermediate of a fast sinker? flies to consider are flathead - clousers, bend backs, and half and halfs ( half deceiver half clouser) as these will ride hook point us and save you getting snagged too much as you want to bump along the bottom - also deceivers and other baitfish patterns will work too, you just have to keep them just off the bottom. i find medium fast strips and a pause in between works well with the fly resting on the bottom for a second then leaving a puff of sand get the flatties biting - try and imagine that when you are working the fly.. watch it in shallow clear water first to see how it responds .. then its just a matter of counting as the fly sinks to know how deep you get and when to start the retreive bream love small baitfish flies, baited breaths, BMS pink assed hammer heads, and crazy Charlies. i found short sharp 4-6 inch strips work....with a decent pause so the fly settles on the bottom on the pause, something like hopping the fly . or sometimes you need to crawl the fly along the bottom slow with the odd twitch - crab flies work too whiting = small poppers with steady retrieve, and crazy Charlies , and two hook worm flies - whiting are bugger to catch consistently though.. drive you mad you can get blackfish on weed flies with a little weed burley you use an floating "strike' indicator on you leader to see the take .. just need to work out the right depth and is a dead drift with no real retrieve tailor will eat just about anything stripped quickly through the upper weather column, eyes flies , and surf candies deceivers, small flash profile flies - ditto for salmon .. always have a few 2-3cm eyes flies if you can see the salmon and they wont eat .. most likely on micro bait.. the gummy minnow flies works here too leaders would be 10lb minimum for flathead , 4lb for bream and same for whiting, for salmon 12lb is fine -- tailor .. they will bite you off even using 20lb .. use you worst flies for them ha ha the above bream whiting and flathead adviceis based on using a floating line , leader of around 10ft and fishing water less tahn 6 ft deep. drop off weed beads and structure is importatnt when consideringw here to fish.. just like with lures and bait you can get sinking leaders ( called poly leaders in various sink rates ) , sort of a coated weighted line or 6 ft you attach your 6ft mono tippet to ... these will turn your floating line into something like a sink tip and help for water of 6-12ft deep. save buying a new line?? shallow water leaders can be hand ties using various sized mono ( google will give you some recipies i.e weight of line and length of the sections ) or you can buy tapered leaders and then when you loose the first couple of feet through tying knots and bite offs, just tie on an appropriate weight tippet to the end of the leader , make a small loop in the leader fo this -- tippet = the last few feet of the leader .. the thinest bit that you tie to the hook/fly.... .. this way ou dont need to replace the whole leader which gets pricey. im on the other side of sydney from you, drummoyne so its unlikely i will get down your way to help - plus i would not know where to fish down there, if you are up this way , there are a couple of spots that are reliable for the fish you mention ;-) let me know . there is the illawarra fly club that is pretty active or used to be and not far form you .. thats likely the best place to get info and make friends to assist - google will reveal all you want to know about them there is also the sydney fly rodders but that might be further away -- feel free to Pm me any questions at all always happy to help, as it is a little daunting when you first get started fly fishing. my advise is get the book - read it , play around for a weekend, get a lesson and then join a club and get out there ..practice in the park but cut the point off your fly ! cheers grant PS dont forget the carp in our mark ponds.. they love bread flies ( a little bread burley to get them going) - they fight hard and you can catch them on sinking and floating bread flies .. catching any fish on a floating fly is great fun --watch em come up to it and take it ;-)

what a cool dad you are ! what weight rod did you get him, what do you want to catch? both the peter morse book on saltwater fly fishing fundamentals and rob sloans book on trout fundmentals is a good start, add that to some days on the water and you'll be on your way. let us know and i'll try and help you out ! cheers grant

great read - thanks

i live and drummoyne and pretty much see them every day i look .....definately salmon they are all over the upper reaches of the harbour at the moment --....seen them from from the bay run in iron cove, (not far where you hooked up), drummoyne bay, around gladesville bridge, even in 2- 3 ft of water at canada bay (actually seen them in canada bay every weekend for the last month or so when playing golf .. usually on the higher part of the tide morning or arvo.. just look for the gulls all hyped up and hovering) the schools of fish are small compred to what is around the heads and they move about .. ./. but seriously offesr shots for LB guys if you can work out a pattern and sit and wait -- or bring a push bike as most of that area has a road or path around the water edge you could improve your chances. actually saw a guy get one land based at 4pm two sundays ago.. direct opp barnwell park golf club -- guy had about 6 people come out of a function to watch him land the fish.. a big sambo too easy 60cms ...seen them in and around the mouth of the canal there in the middle of the bay and also up around the mouth of the canal at the nth western end - on the run out tide get stuck in ! cheers

id say the last one is a hopper with its knotted legs.. usually an easy way to know if they are wets or drys is by the stiffness of the hackles ( the spiky bit - feather wound around the hook near the eye) . if they are stiff could be a dry fly , wets usually have softer hackles so they move in the water.. stiffer hackles will hold up the fly in/on the surface film dont worry too much.. plenty fish have been caught on sunken dry flies and floating wets just my 2c worth cheers and good luck ! grant

hey guys , long time lurker .. infrequent poster .. my mates and i were lucky enough to fish thomos for a while before it was open to the public ( lose lips at the alexander hotel rydal gave us the heads up on access via the back of the dam though a fellow drinkers property)... we had some great days with no one around fishing both to crusing & rising fish around the edges when it was warmer and the false spawners in winter... (could not belive the false spawners when we first found them.. never saw anything like that at lyle or wang dam.. ).. back then the max size then was not much more than 4lb.. with 2.5 - 3lbers the standard --- but catching fish was lots easier, as they had hardly seen a fly..... we actually dobbed ourselves in as word got out to try and stop the meat fishos who were killing masses of fish ( this resulted in a large fine for ebing on the dam, until it officially opened ) .. we fished it hard with success after it opened too but these days the fish usually make a fool of me and my dying casting skills - my hat goes off to you guys getting amoungst some of the trophy fish available now on a weekend similar to the one just gone (pissing down) we fished the drain/ normally a dry tiny creek bed.. just before the quarry -- it was a raging torrent of brown water we were really just mucking about and ran a fly down the torrent, wham .... we scored around 5 fish before a mate jumped in and started tickling the fish ( funny but stupid ) -- all released.. even seen fish trying to swim up the clay pipe up the back that comes form a local farm dam. One evening we even sight fished in the full moon to fish feeding over the sand flat in the sth east corner near the wall.. in less that 2 ft of water.. feeding fish swiming between you legs - getting chased by security in the dark to nearly get trampled by stampeding goats WTF?? ----- that place was full just of surprises for a youngish fisho on the subject of spawners i think you will find that generally the trout population in any specific fishery will have different groups spawning (trying to spawn) at different times, .. i.e nature does this so that all the eggs are not in the one basket so to speak (pun intended)... so we may see the spawning routine go on for a few months if the westerlies keep constant .. they will effectively have running cool water i think thats why they seem to choose that sth east bank as its the usual wind for the winter and creates conditions like moving water that may??? enable some reproduction - from what i have heard and read over the years natural recruitment can happen in lakes if all goes well .. its not likely but apparently can happen ( dont forget lake trout .. as in salvalinus namaycush.. breed in lakes ) with rainbows silt build up over the eggs kills them hence the flowing water being a usual requirement for success. anyways i'll be down the megalong chasing the NSW ' steelheads' over winter if my old legs can get me in there -- been a while since conditions looked so good tight lines and fast fish ! grant

great report ! thats one top trip:thumbup:

:thumbup: classic.. they blend in really well

PS Langa, do yourself a favour and get a casting lesson -- obviously a qualified instructor is best , or at least someone that knows and understands the mechanic of casting. youtube cant replace good personal instruction - as it can't see what you are doing wrong Seriously it will - save you heartache and frustration get you catching more fish faster make your fly fishing much more enjoyable cut 6-12 mths off the learning curve make you look very cool laying out long smooth casts good luck ! cheers grant

hi langa , how much do you wanna spend ?---- decent reels from around just below 200 to 1000 for the hollywood stuff. ( then you might also consider a spare spool in the cost to keep your otherf ly lines on for a quick change .. floating to sinking etc) we all like nice gear but for bream whiting etc you dont need a top class real, but would suggest it has a large arbor and some sort of drag....... but sometime buying cheap mean buying twice... as i'd bet it wont be long before you start chasing pelagics on the fly -- that where the real fun is at... and you need a decent drag for that. as for line a floating weight forward line is a good start for the sort of fish you mention ......for fishing water depths to say 6ft , using a long leader and weighted flys you can gtet down a little further say 8ft ..... for whiting a floater will let you fish poppers.. i know you said you love topwater but incase you do fish snags etc fishing 6- 12 depth you will want a sink tip line or intermediate. - any deeper and you will want a full sink line. ( they come in different sink rates.. -- you need to work out what you need for your situation -- depending on speed of water movement and how long you are prepared to wait for the fly top get to the desired depth / zone etc) but to start a floater will likley do -- you can also get sinking leader made by a few companies .. think poly leader is name of one.. getting a fast sink one of those ( you attached mono / fluro tippet to them too) will make your floating line a lot like a sink tip ( might hinge a bit when casting but will save you a lot of cash when setting your self up ) hope that helps ! cheers!!

here is the little fella, he went hard though !

t14 is a cheap option but you gotta get the length right for the particular rod, and learn to huck and duck.. not a line for more than a false cast or two... could take you ear.. or head off for taaht matter lol sage running out of the graphite.. thats no good i had better be careful then , but luckily my mate who does not fly fish anymore has a 9wt RPLXI with two spare tips .. so i think i will make him an offer soon ! i'm just back into fly fishing - say last 2 years.. after i dropped out of fishing in the early 2000's. in the quiver i have an RPL+ 3wt and a 5wt.. and the RPLXi 9wt .. oldies but goodies --- i have cast a few of the new rods they ARE nice but i feel no need to change.. but its always nice eyeing off the new stuff. my old 9wt reel died late last year - the one way bearing went.. so i bought a CRG11 colton and its very well made and beautifully smooth and pretty cheap --- it got a 'reel' workout on this fish a few weeks back ( went near 70).. had some bigger models try and eat hooked salmon and bonnies but with only one loaded rod in the boat i could not get at them ;-( dont know why i gave up on chasing kings on the fly

hey hooked up, there are a couple of 2nd hand sage ( 9wt) and Loomis ( 10w) rods for sale on Justin Duggan’s site in the classifieds -- sydneyflyfishing dot com dot au going cheap for 220 and 190 respectively .. not a bad deal was thinking of getting the sage just for spares as i already have one I’ve been hucking flies at kings for years with my 9wt RPLXI and it handles most of the harbour fish.. ( most lol you do get smoked too.. i have had a few tips break but that more likely flies hitting the tip or clashing rods - and as Luderick says sage will sort you out with a new tip and decent price ---BUT the last tip did cost me $180 .. not the usual $80 -- but my rod was shop custom so tip came from USA and then built up here-- i used top only pay $80, but anyways ) with rod weight i have mates that do ok on 7 and 8wts too... at least with a lighter rod in Sydney the bonnies and salmon are more fun.. which is what you will actually catch most of. as for reels well 2nd hand might not be so great as you just don’t know how they have been treated.. But you can save loads if you can get a good one like the other guys say Lampson , okuma hellios , Colton reels , sage etc etc are all good enough for harbour fish...you don’t need to spend massive $$ to get a decent reel --- big YF tuna might kill em but kings bonnies and salmon in the harbour wont the advice you have been given on lines is spot on.. though maybe you might wanna make a shooting head out of around 26 ft T14 or 29 ft of LC13 for working deep on the markers.. and deep dredging .. that way when you get smoked you have only lost $15 not $100 anyways .. hope you enjoy your adventure chasing kings its great fun .... no doubt I’ll see you out there... I’ll be sneaking around in the hobie powerskiff with the 40 Honda on the back -- hopefully this season get better.. it’s been pretty hot and cold so far. cheers grant

wicked -- now i hate seals even more

great read - made my day ! nanook -just wondering have you even tried the jenolan just up from the coxs' junction ..if so .how would you compare the two? we used to do that trip ..its a shorter walk -- but i guess you'd get much less chance of having to share the water on the k? cheers grant

nice report - looks like you had a good time.. i went to lyell on friday .. idea was to polariod from the banks from 9 am - 12 am , fly rod in hand .. not a fish seen in close .. just those buggers that rise 100m out and laugh at you ! mate flogged the water with sp's a decent space behind me and did not touch a fish either. i knew i should have hit the river... but the rydal pub called and i could not leave it ! cheers gm

Hi Kurt, I have researched them as best you can from your desk top... lol ... i found the the hellios reels have a very good reputation for value for money, smooth drag and standing up to beating ( as told mainly by americans using them on stripers, mack tuna and bones fish and small tarpon ) , The hellios is not yet distributed by okuma in australia for some reason ( my mate is a rep for them via an agency here in aust and i pestered him for the last year about the hellios and the cedros.. get me a tester please .. but never happened). they only started selling the SLV in Aust. in early July, hopefully they start selling the hellios here soon too... our fly reel market needs some of these good value reels to shake up companies who think its OK to price reels at $1000 just for use in the harbour....if you know what i mean (but those reels are pretty i do admit) From what i have found the SLV have a cork drag as does the hellios but it’s not water proof... ( is water proof a good or bad thing.. i dunno if something does get in..how do you get it out ?? can you fix it of it breaks??) the SLV is cast rather than machined alloy like the hellios is ...so would likely not stand up to same sort of punishment.. especially if like me you might be in the blue water and use it on something far to large or more likely step on it . but you could get 3 SLV's for the price of one hellios the okuma cedros looks good for the Bluewater- a bit heavier and more solid drag a few months back i narrowed down my choice of new 9wt reel to the hellios 8/9 and the Colton CRG11 8/10, both machined and cork drags, the Colton is Teflon impregnated .. dunno if that good but it sounds cool ( though okuma is water proof sealed drag the Colton not) i ended up with a Colton as its usa made and its possible to get to the drag should something get in there and had a better backing capacity in case i did throw a fly at a decent YFT.. ... but the other thing that motivated me was the Colton was initially more expensive but became cheaper with the aus dollar going up where for some reason the Okuma did not (both on fleabay) in any case i think either of the SLV or the hellios would do you fine fishing Sydney inshore hope that helps cheers gm

BIG PIG OINK !