[Sambos on plastic]

Nice work Hodgey, good to here that the sambo's are back in numbers. How do you find the ZMan placcies hold onto the jighead? I have had probs once they get pulled down, not staying put. Might be time for a session down there with you again.

[Daiwa Rebuild]

Hi Guys,

We've had this rod sitting around for ages. It was brought in for a new tip top, and was going to end up costing more to repair than it was worth, so they bought a new rod. I decided I liked the action for some light surf work, so A rebuild was in order. The rod is an old Daiwa 127MC 9' 2pc rated to about 3-6kg. I stripped back the grips, Reel seat, and the 5 guides. I replaced the old EVA with some nice cord grips, slapped a new reel seat on it and replaced the guides from 5 to 8 new ALPS guides with black frames and gold inserts. I went with a double foot for the stripper and single foot guides for the rest given the light nature of the rod. Given the blank was yellow, I went for a good old Green & Gold colour scheme, OI OI OI!

Very happy how it turned out, and looking forward to getting stuck into some sambo's in the suds.

Cheers Nick.

[Bluefin Tuna.]

Good to see they're not bait shy

Hoping they pop in to Sydney for a visit

I'll be kind to their palate and feed them gourmet pilchards

chris.

Mmmmmmm, Pilchards, high in "iron"

[Bluefin Tuna.]

They have been catching them around the sea mounts of Narooma and Bermi, which is about 25mile off shore. A bit hit and miss at times, but when they are on they are thick. Good luck.............

Dave

Yep, that's about right Dave 25miles, Further if going out from Bateman's Bay, about 50miles.

[Latest build]

Hey Nick,

How are yo udoing your labels? I am getting mine form Decal Connection but would love the flexibility of doing them myself.

Another good looking stick!!

All my labels are printed on water slide decal paper using a ink jet printer. The decal is then sealed with an acrylic spray to stop the ink running when soaking the decal, then epoxyied over. You can't print white, golds or silver though. If you are looking for the water slide paper, search for it under online shop.

Cheers Nick.

[Bluefin Tuna.]

Hi All,

For all of those of you who like to chase the tuna down the south coast, we have been hearing awesome reports from down Bermagui and Narooma way. Blue fin in plague proportions once berleyed to the back of the boat in excess of 100kg. Fish have been caught on everything and anything with reports of fish taking sausages', donuts, cigarette butts, coke cans basicaly anything that goes over the side,(not that I recommend chucking crap over the side). A few guys have even been hand feeding them over the side, until fingers were mistaken for a food source !!

Get into them if you are able, they might not hang around too long.

Nick.

[North Durras session]

Hi All,

On Tuesday I headed up to North Durras to check out the opening of the lake. The lake system itself has been closed to tidal influence for the last 4 years and the water levels finally triggered the point at which council are required to help the system open. I arrived at North Durras at about 10am to find the excavator already doing it's thing ready for the high tide to peack at about 12.30pm. While I waited for the opening I set a couple of rods with bait and threw around some metals. The sambo's were willing to play ball with schools of about 15-20 fish moving along the gutter no more than 15m from the shore dump. It was just a matter of waiting for a school to cruise past and tempt them with any flashy metal.

I set one rod with bait while I walked down to check out the digger getting close to opening the lake. After about half an hour I decided that I should check the rod, good thing to as the rod was doubled over and losing line at alarming rate. I upped the drag and put pressure on the fish with only 50m of braid before I hit the backing knowing what the outcome woud be, PING! The fish had headed straight for the bommie out the front and braid meeting reef was never in my favour. I retrieved about 100m of braid losing about 150m in the process !!! Never saw the fish, but it was either a shark or Jew given the two or three head shakes I felt. A lesson learned!I was lucky not to loose the whole outfit!

Kept 2 sambos' to about 3kg and witnessed the rebirth of a great system. From all reports the mouth is now abpout 20-30m wide and flowing nicely. I'll head back on Monday for a return visit and see if I can exact some revenge.

Cheers Nick.

[Long weekend]

G'day all

Well, if you can't find your family and friends this weekend, and they own a boat, then there's a good chance they're on our lake! Last weekend I would have been lucky to see 12 boats all weekend, but today they were everywhere. From Riviera Cruisers to Hobies, lone fishos to overloaded tinnies, we had it all. There were some VERY nice hornets/trophies amongst them as well.

We had a reasonable day on the water, although the constant buzz of traffic was trying on both nerves and fish numbers. I bumped into a couple of locals on the water, including my nephew Mark. {Tuross Brown} Mark had a good morning, but unfortunately dropped a couple of big fish as well. We managed a couple of very nice mid-50's fish for a feed for Dene and his wife, and released a few that were 40cms or smaller. This little lady was the best fish of the day and was released after a happy snap:

The cooler water is making them fairly timid, which leads to a lot more fish being dropped. Tomorrow sees me cooking a BBQ for the local Fair, but weather permitting, I hope to hit the water for another session on Monday. I hope you all have a great long weekend and get into your fair share of fish. Stay safe on our roads and waterways folks!

Cheers

Hodgey

Nice fish Hodgey! I really struggled on Sunday, couldn't find a sheltered spot to save ourselves let alone the fish. What you done with them all? I reckon you must be the pied piper of Tuross, hiding them all in a secret spot !!

Cheers Nick.

[recent builds + blackfish rod]

Nice builds there mate. I like the look of the decorative work on the St Croix.

[Latest build]

Hi All,

Have just completed this one for Toby. He will be using to troll for trout using lead core line.

Blank is a Rainshadow IP844F 7' 2pc

Cork rear and fore grips, Gold hooded Fuji reel seat and gold Alps winding check.

Guides were salvaged from one of the Toby's previous rod that was damaged. I believe they are Fuji Titanium Sic.

Toby chose the colours himself, all are from the extensive Maderia Polyneon 40 range. Orange #1955, Yellow #1824, and Blue #1733.

Originally this rod was going to be a std overhead rod for his Catalina C15 reel, but when static testing the guide train, I found that it really needed an extra guide to prevent line/blank contact. So it was decided to spiral or acid wrap the rod. This involves transitioniing the guides from "up top" to under the rod. So yes the guides are "crooked", something Toby is going to have to get used to hearing !

It was a fun build, and I'm looking forward to seeing some pics of cracking trout that find the pointy end of this setup.

Cheers Nick.

[Just a feed]

Nice little session there mate.

Nick.

[MoP Jigging Rod.]

Nice work Nick. What blank is that?

It's actually a blank I stripped down and re-built. It was, in it's previous life, a Pioneer Tuna Terror rod.

Cheers Nick.

[Sneaky South Coast Creeking.]

G'day Nick. It appears that your "research" into fishing for "black bream on ultra light weight plastic presentations" was very successful!

Great lookin' bream in the net!

What line and leader were you using?

Cheers

Peter

Peter, I was using 6lb Fireline Excel and 6lb FC leader. I have just scaled down to 4lb Diawa braid to help with the casting of such light plastics, but will stick with 4-6lb FC leaders.

Nick.

[MoP Jigging Rod.]

Thanks All,

Got another on the go as I type, should be finished in the next week or so. Just need to get some more brushes for epoxy application.

Nick.

[Sneaky South Coast Creeking.]

Hi All,

I've been exploring some of my local waters in the last couple of weeks in an attempt to nut out black bream on ultra light weight plastic presentations. Last week saw me put 2 5 hour sessions over consecutive days in the kayak up one of my local systems. I spent my time playing with different plastic/hook combinations and found that no lead was the way to go to keep the plastic where I wanted it (in the top 6" of water). Over the 2 days I managed 12-15 fish to 35cm's, with most of the fish taking a walk the dog surface style presentation. I found that if the bream missed the surface take, a do nothing pause as the plastic slowly sank would see a return bite usually resulting in a hook up,........or a bust up !

Any way here is are a couple of pics of the biggest from the 2 days fishing. Plastic is a Berkley Hollow belly on a Daiichi #2 worm hook, one of a couple of patterns that worked well for me.

Cheers Nick.

[MoP Jigging Rod.]

Hi All,

I have just completed another build. This one took about 4 months to complete (2 of those months were spent waiting for parts to arrive).

The rod is a 6' 2pc Butt jointed jig stick rated at 10-20kg. Custom painted with pearl blue and green fleck.

The Reel seat is Alps lite Tich.

Gimbal and all but 1 blings bits are also Alps, the odd one being Fuji.

Blue Camo Matagi EVA custom turned and shaped.

Guides are also Alps low profile with blue inserts.

Ab-Veener under all the guides and the split grip.

Guide wraps are Pac Bay #A Nylon in black with Met Blue & Met Green trim bands.

Tiger wrap is Met Blue, Met Green and Gudebrod HT Pearl with Pac Bay Nylon black over.

Split grip is trimmed out with HT Pearl Olive branches.

Looking forward to seeing a bend in this one.

Cheers Nick.

[Latest Rod build]

well done - looks awesome !

how long have you been doing builds

Thanks Mate!

I have been buiding rods for about 3-4 years now, and have so far clocked about 10-15 builds and rebuilds for friends etc.

Nick.

[Latest Rod build]

love the rods,

nothing like using something thats made just for you,

for shipping, Fedex charged me about 70 - 80 dollars to ship to NYC, and it arrived in about 4days

kim

Thanks Kim,

I did a UPS online quote the other day and it was about $250!!!! I will look into Fedex.

Nick.

[Latest Rod build]

Hi All,

Here is my latest build for my Nephew in the U.S. There will be another rod to match this for his dad (my Brother). As you can see they are both Washington Redskins fans, even though they now live in Texas.

Blank is a Snyder Glass Flame wrap (no longer available) and is tough as nails, so it should last the little tacker for a few years!!

Cork Rear split grip with custom Redskins feathers logo decal in between. Fuji reel seat with cork foregrip. Three thread Tiger wrap as butt wrap topped and tailed with Olive branch wraps. Guides are just cheapies (SureCatch) as they will only be fishing freshwater, so corrosion is not too big a deal. Total length 5'6".

Just need to finish his dad's and find out how much to post to the U.S.A. .

Hope they will enjoy them as much as I did building this one!!

[6-10Kg Jew/snapper Stick.]

hey guys intersested in rod building where do i buy supplys from?

kind regards eric

Hi fishboi,

You could try your local tackle shop and see what they stock or can get in for you, google rod building supplies, try online oversea's the US for exammple.

If you ned any help send me a PM or email.

Cheers Nick.

[White On White.]

Hi All,

Just finished another build for a customer. This one was only 11'6", so easier to handle. Blank is a Wilson MT6144 cut down 6". Pac Bay reel seat, and another Pac Bay reel seat modified to use a butt cap. Grips are 3mm cord spiral wrapped with x patterened heat shirink over.

The customer is a St Kilda fan, so the coulors are red, white and blue. The rod was built for use with an alvey so stripper guide is a 70mm wire frame style. Came out really nice, although I dont think I'll do another white on white, every grease mark shows plain as day. Felt like I had OCD at the end from all the hand cleaning!

[Quick Arvo Session!]

Woohoo! Another top session - even better,being on FLY!! Would that be a PB on fly? I must give that a go!!

Now, excuse my ignorance, but what is an SB? I know what HBs are & SPs ...... can't think of an SB!!?

Well done - if you are ever up Forster way, (with or without your yak, as I have a spare Perception Minnow you can use ..... looks like you might have one too!) send me a PM! I have some fun water to play in up here too, for fresh & salt.

Cheerio

Roberta

That would be the humble "spinnerbait" Roberta, my favorite choice of hardware for snag dwelling bass!

Nick.

[50+Cm Bass Pics, As Promised.]

I have a small tripod that I could use to set up a me & fish pic, but prefer to get a quick snap of the fish and send them on their way.

[50+Cm Bass Pics, As Promised.]

Catch me if you can Skip!

[50+Cm Bass Pics, As Promised.]

Hi All,

As hodgey and I have alluded to, I finally managed to crack the magic 50cm mark landing a trophy sized bass 2 weeks ago. This bass has been the result of many hours spent prospecting new and varied waters. The past couple of sessions have seen me tangle and loose to a much bigger class of bass this year. I think the floods we had last Feb really freshened the whole system up, and allowed alot of big bass to make the spawn run down to the salt. Subsquently, all those big mean and fat bass are heading back upstream right through my regular stretches of river. Tackle loses have been high in the last 3 sessions, with me losing 5 SB's in 3 sessions . It had been a procession of 44cm bass (4 in total), so I was itching to set a new PB and break the 45cm mark !

This big bass came from a new stretch of river, after a fruitless 1.5km paddle down stream past a series of high rapids I finally managed to find some bass. I placed my favorite SB onto the leading edge of a likley looking snag into 3' of water. As the SB splashed down a big bass turned and boiled the surface as it headed over to investigate. 3 cranks of the handle and the whoile retreive came to a quick and shuddering halt as Mr bass decided to take me for a run up stream. I knew this was going to be a good fish as it easily peeled 6lb braid set under a heavy drag setting. These big fish can pull! After a couple of deep dives and a heart stopping failed first net attempt , the bass came to the kayak !!!! Crap, I think i said to myself (or something similar), this was going to be a new PB, I just didnt know by how much.

Any way here are the pics, I think I've babbled enough!The only down side to fishing alone is there is no one to take a victory pic of me and my fish!!

Cheers Nick.