mrmoshe
-
Posts
2,395 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Gallery
Events
Fishing Tips, Advice and Articles
Blogs
Store
Posts posted by mrmoshe
-
-
Now that's a solid flattie! Well done. You'll have to replace the Nov pics with the latest pb. Great stuff.
Thanks Flea...I deleted the earlier entry and have entered the new, improved 75cm model.
Not fair having two flatties from me in the same comp. I reckon.
Cheers,
Pete
-
Orange roughy declared threatened species
Orange roughy is set to be the first commercially harvested fish to be added to Australia's threatened species list, to protect it from over-fishing.
The Federal Government says scientific advice indicates orange roughy is under considerable pressure and needs protection to try to secure its long-term survival.
Huge catches of orange roughy were made during the 1980s, before the stocks were given some protection.
The Environment Minister, Ian Campbell, says catch limits will be set at levels that will conserve the species.
"Orange Roughy is the first commercially harvested fish to be listed under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999," he said.
"My decision to add the Orange Roughy to the threatened species list follows careful consideration of the scientific information, as well as extensive consultation with experts and the public."
Orange roughy will be listed as conservation dependent, and will be managed subject to a conservation program to be implemented by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA).
Limits have been drastically reduced and trawlers are prohibited from targetted fishing for the roughy.
Orange Roughy are found in south-eastern and south-western Australia, the Great Australian Bight and around Tasmania.
The fish can live for 100 years.
-
Nice lizard there pete.
If it isn't already your secret spot, try half way down wakehurst pkwy near the big rock with the commemorative plaque. Lizards like the one you have there are commonplace in January and Febuary.
I grew up on Narrabeen lake and fished hard bodied lures before they were ever popular and when the only such thing as a soft plastic was a Mr Twister. You won't be disappointed.
Davo
Thanks Davo. Yes, I know thaat spot well. I fished there last week, but with the lake water level so low at the moment, the weed beds there make it almost impossible to fish without wading out.
It should really produce once again as soon as they open the lake up after the sand dredging is completed.
The lake level should resume to it's normal levels then.
Cheers,
Pete
-
A good business proposition?
Make sure you get me a copy too, mate! Flattieman.
Will have to have www.Fishraider.com.au somehere eh?
-
Great effort Pete,
She's a ripper & so glad to hear she went back to fight another day
Well done
Cheers
Dave
Thanks Dave..Funny you should say that about releasing her.
A woman and her little son came past as I was releasing her and she
was aghast as to why I would release such a nice fish.
She wanted to take it home to her hubby to prove that the lake has fish in it.
I think I'll get a Tshirt made up with the reasons to release big flatties printed on the back..just to
save me having to repeat it often.
Pete.
-
Well done Netic..I bet your fingers can do with a re-tread now LOL
Congrats on being ADDICTED!!!
Cheers,
Pete.
-
G'day geoff,
I have just retired too and did the same thing you are doing.
I nailed down the Fin. Planner guy as low as I could and he finally agreed to
my figure.
Admitidly, mine wasn't too complex..mostly super etc, so wasn't a whole lot
he couild sell me..He tried, but I put my foot down and did a lot of research first.
Research seems to be the key here I think...Do your homework first, then talk to 'em and see if they can improve on
what strategy you have come up with.
Hope this helps...If I can give you more info, just ask.
Retirement is bloody wonderful BTW...I now fish whenever I bloody well want to..which is getting more often than I had planned..LOL
Pete.
-
Your on fire champ, what next a 90cm. Don't need any company down at the spot do you?
Don't know if my heart could take a 90cm model...I'll have to blindfold you to take you to my secret spot though.
LOL
Pete.
-
Well,well...Am I a happy camper or what?
Chatting to a few of the guys on the new chat function on the site and we
got to talking about the weather (what else).
I got to thinking, it's a similar overcast day as last monday, but without the rain.
I had the urge to revisit my secret location where I got my PB Flattie on Monday.
So off I went and it looked very similar on the water, as then.
Four casts to see what was about and BANG!! It sure had some weight behind it and behaved
a little differently to Mondays fish.
This time it did the usual big runs, peeling line off my Stradic as before but then it buried itself
in either a weedbed or mud and I couldn't budge it.
I kept the tension on it, not wanting to bust off as I was using 8lb mono with a 12lb trace.
Finally after a wait of about 3 minutes, it swims off, luckily towards me.
One final powerful run in the shallows and a great big splash with it's tail and there she was, up
on the narrow sandy beach.
I thought by this time, the leader must be just about cactus and how right I was.
I put my rod down and jumped down the bank just as she bit through the trace, right at the hook.
I gently turned her over and got my fingers in her gills and gently lifted up the bank. She didn't squirm
or kick thankfully.
Up onto the grass and out with my camera for a quick couple of pictures and a measure.
She went a massive (for me) 75 cm. Another PB for me
Monday's effort was 65cm.
To say I was over the moon is an understatement. I lifted her the same way and placed her in the shallows and gave her a few gentle coaxes through the water and off she swam nice and slowly into the deeper water.
To get two PB's in the one week really made my day (and week).
I just wonder how much bigger the lizards can get in the lake at present.
After that, everything else was a bonus and I finished the session with 8 bream, one tailor and the "grand old duchess of the lake" All fish released.
By the way, she was caught on, of all things....one lousy whitebait!!
Rest assured, I will be back there again for a while, trying to better what I think will be a tough ask.
One stoked fisho here:
Pete.
-
-
Just gave it a whirl...It's great.
Come on in anytime and have a chat to your fellow Raiders.
Seems there's always someone there.
Pete.
-
Jimminy Christmas!!!
That's one hellava GT Sammy. Well done.
I bet you felt well stoked landing that fish.
Pete.
-
FLOUNDZILLA Hear a Whopping Tale About One Whopper of a Fish
Wade Hastings will tell you flat out: "There's no way I should have caught that fish."
Instead, he credits fate or providence. He talks of ripped nets, fishing alone, big pilings, sharp barnacles and a fish that "could have run to Sister's Creek and waved hello if she'd wanted to."
But despite all that, Hastings whipped a flounder that buried the 15-pound scale on his Boga Grip in the boat that day and ended up dragging the tournament scale to 16.16 pounds.
Hastings was fishing Oct. 14 in a Florida Lure Anglers flounder tournament held out of the Vilano Beach boat ramp in St. Augustine. His Team Trek Safari fishing partner, Scott O'Brien, had a conflict, leaving Hastings alone in the boat, but the two had worked out a detailed plan.
"Scott has a way with boats and tides," Hastings said. He fished the game plan they had devised - "what part of the tide to be where."
The plan was to leave St. Augustine and make the 75-minute run back north to Jacksonville. Hastings fished Mill Cove, Broward Creek, Chicopit Bay - never out of sight of Blount Island. Everything was working - but the game plan.
"I fished my rear end off," Hastings said, but didn't have bites by 1 p.m.
He was out of fishing spots to hit, and running out of time and luck as well. With the high side of two hours left until the weigh- in, and over an hour's ride to get there, Hastings' options were closing down fast.
But a former fishing partner, Randy Padgett, had told him about another spot where he'd had some luck. Ten minutes later, Hastings was working his 17-foot Action Craft into a tight, 10-foot "hole" between a barge and the pilings at Atlantic Dry Dock.
Hastings flipped a root beer-colored Gulp jerkbait pinned to a quarter-ounce Jaw Jacker jig under the dock. He felt the tentative tap of a flounder and brought up a 13-incher. The second cast resulted in another just like it. In a couple of minutes, he had brought a 10-inch flounder to the boat and released it.
"I was feeling a little better," he said. "At least it looked like I'd have something to weigh in."
Hastings pitched the jerkbait once more and brought it back directly under the boat, where he bounced it vertically a couple of times.
The lure stopped.
Hastings felt another tap and lightly lifted the rod. He thought he felt the head-shake of a flounder. He lifted again and thought he felt the heavy head-shake of a big flounder. When he set the hook, "it felt like a boot," he said - all dead weight. Hooking old dock lines left on the bottom or wads of monofilament feels the same way.
But just then, the "boot" took off, headed for the pilings. Matched against a medium weight Loomis GLX spinning rod, a Daiwa Sol 2500 reel and 14-pound Stren super braid, the fish could have ended the fight right there. Sixteen pounds of mad flounder, big eyes bulging in tandem and bull-dogging toward a barnacle-encrusted concrete pier isn't something an angler can usually whoa-up.
Hastings said he had no choice but to palm the spool, snub the line off and hope for the best. And somehow, the fish stopped and turned back toward the boat. Now Hastings was into the fray with a slim but fighting chance to whip whatever it was on the other end of his line in eight feet of water.
The fish took him around the boat. It was about this time that workers on the dry dock noticed the earnest ballet onboard.
"Seems like the whole dock put down their air hammers and spray guns, and came over to watch the show," Hastings said.
And here's a coincidence. One of those workers was his old partner, Padgett, who had told him to fish that spot in the first place.
Around that time, Hastings received a first glimpse of the fish.
There are a number of things that can hit and pull like that. A stingray is the most aggravating and frequent impersonator of a big flounder. So the first sighting of that broad, dotted back had to be an epiphany for Hastings.
"That fish has got to be 10 pounds," he said to himself. And I'll wager that there was a quieter whisper leaving his lips in that moment too.
Chances are, it started something like this: "Lord, I know we haven't spoken a lot lately, but ..."
The fish stayed on the hook, despite all the ways it might not have - including the fact a flounder that big has teeth that can make short work of a mono leader.
It was about the time the flounder was wearing down that Hastings remembered the new landing net he had won in a tournament last month. It had blown off the boat a week or so prior, but Hastings had his old backup net, which was recently ripped. However, he had tied a knot in it.
Hastings said the fish wouldn't fit in the net sideways. He had to turn it parallel to the flounder, and "all of a sudden, she just swam in." He didn't know just how big the fish was, but it became clearer when he lifted it out of the water.
"I just freaked," he said. So did the workers on the dock.
But the story isn't over yet. It now was about 1:25 p.m., the weigh-in was 50 miles and 75 minutes away, and Hastings was out of gas. But he fixed that, and, with the help of a falling tide and a 20-mph northeast wind at his back, made it to the weigh-in on time running 47 knots, bell to bell.
On the ride back, Hastings had figured it all out. He would sandbag at the weigh-in, pulling the 13-inchers out first and then Floundzilla. But by the time he reached the boat ramp, the story of the big fish had preceded him. It seems that guys on dry docks carry cell phones and aren't afraid to use them.
The International Game Fish Association doesn't keep records on the Southern Flounder by line class, but what most fishing guys will tell you is this: Hastings' fish likely is the biggest ever caught on an artificial lure.
But here might be the best part of this tale. In one significant way, this story is just beginning.
I asked Hastings how the fillets looked on a fish that measured 32 inches long, 16 inches across and 4 inches thick.
"I released her," he quietly replied. "Somebody else should experience that, too."
And with the traits of survival, size and savvy she has locked into her genetically turbo-charged mix of DNA, it might be that the fish will leave behind a brood stock of whopper baby flounder. The implications of that will be infinitely more important to her species than our own.
Wade Hastings gave her that chance. He won more than a tournament that day.
-
Jail for abalone poachers
Three poachers have felt the full force of Victoria's tough abalone laws when a magistrate jailed them, confiscated a car and boat and penalised the men more than $10,000.
In a legal first, they were ordered to pay compensation to the state of Victoria for the 517 abalone they took during the close season.
Magistrate Max Beck today warned that the message would eventually get through to offenders that "it's not worth the risk to poach abalone".
Mr Beck told the men, who fought against losing their possessions, it was irrelevant whether they had a Rolls Royce or an old car because "if you use it, it can be confiscated as property used for the purposes of committing offences".
Peter Phung, 45, Lung Van Luu, 38, and Hung Quoc Doan, 28, each pleaded guilty to a charge of trafficking a commercial quantity of abalone, a protected species.
The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years' jail.
They also pleaded guilty to contravening the prohibition on fishing for abalone and other offences, while Luu and Doan pleaded guilty to hindering or obstructing Fisheries officers.
Department of Primary Industries prosecutor Ian Parks told Geelong Magistrates Court the men travelled by boat from Werribee South to Point Wilson on May 4 this year where Luu and Doan dived for abalone.
Mr Parks said Fisheries officers were alerted when someone rang the 24-hour "Call 13 Fish" number for suspected illegal fishing.
Doan was later seen stashing the abalone in bushes before he and Luu returned there at 7.10pm in a stationwagon to collect the fish.
Mr Parks said when officers tried to intercept them they drove off and were followed onto the Princes Highway where they threw the two bags of abalone weighing 39.5 kilograms from the car.
They were later chased and captured on foot after abandoning the car. Doan said he "saw so many (abalone) I got greedy" while Phung told investigators he knew May was included in the abalone close season.
Sophisticated operation
In his application for compensation of $1830 from each man, Mr Parks said the abalone was valued by a commercial processor at $5491.
He described the operation as sophisticated and urged Mr Beck to make the confiscation orders, including the $13,000 boat which was a luxury rather than an commercial item.
All three had been given infringement notices last year for possessing more than the commercial abalone limit while Luu has twice before appeared on Fisheries charges.
Defence lawyer Daniel Piekarski asked Mr Beck not to penalise Phung, a truck driver and father of two, twice in sentencing him for the offences and in taking his boat.
Mr Piekarski said Doan, single and unemployed, would be disadvantaged in finding work if his car was forfeited, while Luu, self-employed and a father of three, opposed an order to confiscate his mobile phone.
Imprisonment justified
He submitted that jail was not the most appropriate sentence for men who had been foolish in breaching such strict laws.
Mr Beck said imprisonment was justified given the men were aware of the law, the impact on the abalone industry and environment and that each defendant was as guilty as the other.
Luu, of Lalor, was jailed for 12 months with a minimum of six months, fined $750 and ordered to pay costs of $720.
Doan, of Lalor, was jailed for nine months with a minimum of three months and fined $1250 with costs of $750.
Phung, of Sunshine West, was jailed for nine months with a minimum of three months, fined $400 and ordered to pay $750 costs.
The men, who were released pending an appeal to the County Court, were also banned for 10 years from being on or near Victoria's coast or on certain boats if connected with abalone.
This boat used by the abalone poachers was confiscated in Geelong Magistrates' court today.
-
Awesome fish mate Well done
why dont you enter it in the Catch of the month?
Coollamon
Thanks Coolamon...Done.
Cheers,
Pete.
-
No, the flattie was caught on half a pilchard.The others were all on whitebait.
I've tried lures and SP's there but they seem to go for fresh bait better.
Only managed the old girl's smaller (34cm) daughter today..also released.
Plus about 20+ small bream which were bloody everywhere today.
My secret spot seems to fire better when it's very overcast or raining. Today
was just too sunny.
My neighbour was also down there in his kayak towing a squidgie. He managed an
almost identical flattie to my one yesterday (65cm), futher around the lake.
Just can't wait until they open the entrance again when they finish the sand dredging.
Should be only 2-3 weeks from now.
Pete.
-
Pan Fried Red Snapper Fillet with Raw Artichoke and Fennel Salad
Ingredients
4 x 150g red snapper fillets, skin on
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 baby fennel, trimmed, shaved lengthways
2 globe artichokes, tough outer leaves and hairy choke removed, shaved lengthways
2 witlof, quartered lengthways
½ cup flat leaf parsley leaves
½ preserved lemon, skin only finely diced
Dressing
4 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 small garlic clove, crushed
pinch caster sugar
sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Method
Score the skin of the snapper and season with a little sea salt. Heat the oil in a pan over a medium-high heat. Add snapper, skin side down, and cook for about 3 minutes. Turn fish over and cook for a further 3 minutes, or until just cooked through. Allow to rest in a warm place for a few minutes.
Meanwhile, whisk all the dressing ingredeints together, taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.
Mix the fennel, artichoke, witlof, parsley and preserved lemon gently with enough dressing to lightly coat the vegetables.
To Serve
Assemble the salad on serving plates. Place the snapper on top and drizzle with any remaining dressing.
Serves
4
-
Going to go down to that same spot later this arvo to see if that old girl flattie's
great grandfather is around. (After the Cup is run of course)
Fishing in the lake lately has sure fired up.
Cheers,
Pete
-
Baked Easter Schnapper
Ingredients
2 kg fresh schnapper deboned with head and tail (1.5 kg flesh)
1 bunch spinach (125 grams)
1 medium coarsely chopped onion (100 grams)
20 medium sliced mushrooms (300 grams
2-teaspoon mono/polyunsaturated oil (10 ml)
1- tabsp water (20 ml)
1 1/2 slices of turkey bacon (100 grams)
1-cup 7% low fat cheese (120 grams)
Method
Bone the fish and remove all scales. Leave the head intact.
Take the bones home and make fish stock for Seafood Laksa.
Blanch the spinach in boiling water for 2 minutes and then drain in a colander.
Saute mushrooms and onions in oil and water for about 5 minutes or until soft.
Wipe and dry fish and place on a large heavy sheet of aluminium foil.
Stuff fish with a layer of spinach, a layer of mushrooms and then sprinkle with the cheese. Close firmly.
Season with salt and pepper and then wrap strips of bacon over the fish.
Cover completely in foil sealing well to retain moisture.
When cooking fish allow 4 minutes per cm through the thickness part once it is stuffed.
Bake in preheated 220'C oven for about 40 minutes or until the flesh is easily pierced with a fork.
Let stand for 10 minutes, slice and serve.
De-boning the fish means whole slices with the colour in-between can be served.
An alternative is to use smaller quantities between 2 fish fillets.
Other suitable fish are barramundi, dhufish, salmon, and shark. Fish should be large with big flakes.
This may be done on a barbecue with hood.
Serves : 8
Nutrients per Serve : KJ 1152, Calories 273, Fat(grams) 8.3, Cholesterol(milligrams) 146
Tips
Saturated fat content 2.8 grams
-
No. Horse Trainer Jockey
1 YEATS (IRE) Aidan O'Brien K Fallon
2 DELTA BLUES (JPN) Katsuhiko Sumii Y Iwata
3 RAILINGS John Hawkes D Beadman
4 TAWQEET (USA) David Hayes D Dunn
5 GEORDIELAND (FR) Jamie Osborne L Dettori
6 HEADTURNER John Hawkes G Childs
7 SHORT PAUSE (GB) David Hayes N Callow
8 ACTIVATION (NZ) Graeme Rogerson M Rodd
9 LAND 'N STARS (GB) Jamie Poulton J F Egan
10 MAHTOUM Kim Waugh C Brown
11 ON A JEUNE Peter Montgomerie D Gauci
12 POP ROCK (JPN) Katsuhiko Sumii D Oliver
13 ZIPPING Graeme Rogerson G Boss
14 DIZELLE John Hawkes B Shinn
15 ICE CHARIOT Ron Maund J Byrne
16 KERRY O'REILLY (NZ) Jim Gibbs C E Lammas
17 ZABEAT (NZ) Donna Logan O Doleuze
18 ART SUCCESS (NZ) John Collins A Pattillo
19 DEMERGER Danny O'Brien S Baster
20 GLISTENING (GB) Luca Cumani S Seamer
21 MANDELA (NZ) Richard Yuill C Williams
22 DOLPHIN JO Terry & Karina O'Sullivan A Spiteri
23 MAYBE BETTER Brian Mayfield-Smith C Munce
24 EFFICIENT (NZ) Graeme Rogerson C Newitt
Bloody Efficient scratched this morning due to an injury.
Guess what horse I got in a sweep??
Yep, you guessed it..Efficient!
I never do well in sweeps and looks like my track record is going to continue.
My pick now is Maybe Better, the bottom weight.
Might go have a fiver each way on this nag.
And a boxed trifecta:
#4 Tawqeet
#1 Yeats
#23 Maybe Better
Pete.
-
Jellyfish venom 'may become medicine'
Scientists will investigate whether toxins from several species of deadly jellyfish may be useful in treating heart complications.
Jellyfish expert Dr Jamie Seymour said a world-first study would attempt to extract various compounds from the venom of the box and irukandji jellyfish, which could be used for human medication.
Dr Seymour, from James Cook University in Cairns, said it was possible a non-addictive painkiller could be extracted from jellyfish venom similar to one which had been found in the cone snail.
"It is likely that novel toxins will be found that may be useful as pharmacological tools or even for treatment as drugs," Dr Seymour said.
"In fact (in) some of the initial results ... we've isolated a compound from the box jellyfish venom which actually kills bacteria that's resistant to a lot of the medications presently used."
It was still unknown exactly what type of ailments jellyfish venom could treat.
"But given that the venom is predominantly a heart venom, so it kills the heart, it wouldn't surprise me if there's compounds in there that we can use for various heart complications," Dr Seymour said.
Dr Seymour will carry out the study with three other scientists as part of a grant of $280,000 over three years from National Health and Medical Research Council.
Dr Seymour said the money would also help investigate treatment strategies for box and irukandji jellyfish stings.
He said little was known about jellyfish toxins and how they worked in the human body.
"We have a small understanding of what's going on but certainly for things like big box jellyfish, how the venoms operate and why they work, it's very hard to work it out in humans because people die so quickly," he said.
Dr Seymour said a large box jellyfish could kill its victim within minutes by inducing cardiac arrest.
He said up to 150 people were stung each year in Australia by jellyfish, threatening Australia's image as a safe tourism destination.
"From November through to May everybody's forced to swim inside nets on the coasts. That changes the entire way the beach is used up here," Dr Seymour said.
Associate Professor Wayne Hodgson, a Melbourne-based toxinology researcher; Dr Geoffrey Isbister, clinical toxicologist at the Mater Hospital in Newcastle and Associate Prof Graham Nicholson, from Sydney's University of Technology, will also participate in the study.
-
As I was going stir crazy at home with all the rain, I decided to hell with it!.
In between rain showers, I hit my favorite spot at Narrabeen Lake. I knew I'd probably get wet
but I'd rather be wet than go nuts shut inside.
I tried first down where they have just finished dredging the sand on the Eastern side of the Ocean St. bridge,
just to see if anything had improved with all the sand removed. Got a big donut here, except wet when the heavens opened up for a brief period.
I then moved to my favourite spot where I knew flatties lurked, especially after rain.
Three casts and WHAMMO!! Line starts peeling off my Stradic like there's no tomorrow.
I first thought it must be another stingray as i hooked one a couple of weeks ago in the same spot.
It took off across the lake and felt just like a ray with powerful bursts, then stop, another big run, then stop.
I managed to retrieve line between big runs and thought I'd cut my line as soon as I saw it was a ray.
It did one more strong run taking line, but by this stage, about 7 minutes into the fight, it didn't have the same power as before.
But to my amazement, into view comes a terrific flattie. It was a PB for me and measured 65cm.
I carefully laid her out on the grass and luckily, I remembered my camera today.
A quick pic and I laid her back in the shallows. She laid there for at least 5 minutes and I thought perhaps the fight had taken more out of her than I thought. I was afraid she was beyond help at this stage.
I rolled up my jeans and got beside her and carefully steered her into deeper water where she did one mighty kick or her tail and off she swam. I was so glad to see her on her way.
Some bystanders by this stage had gathered and wondered why I was releasing such a large fish. I explained that she would have been a breeder and they all thought it was best she was freed.
After that, I managed 5 bream, most going about 25cm, one flounder 22cm and one snapper about 22cm (all released too)
It was a great session, even though I did get wet and beat the hell out of being indoors watching the rain.
-
Let's go down to the sea ... in plastic?
Maybe it really is over for us, just as it eventually was for Greece and Rome and all the rest.
What, these days, dominates our media-saturated Internet-centric politics?
Endless debates about homosexuality, the question of whether John Kerry is bright enough to pour you-know-what out of a boot, Madonna's adoption of a kid from Africa, and on and on.
It's an age when newspapers struggle to find readership, but grocery stores barely have room for all the magazines devoted to celebrity worship. (In a twisted reversal, that worship is expressed in the magazines' focus on celebrities' weight problems, personality flaws and dysfunctional relationships.)
Meanwhile, a friend, Michael O'Donovan, whose concerns about his daughter's asthma led him to take an activist role on air pollution, lent me a magazine I have never heard of -- Best Life -- and I got a glimpse of where our inattention is taking us.
In its November issue, the magazine about men's health reports on what scientists call the Eastern Garbage Patch.
It is an area of the Pacific Ocean, between Hawaii and California, about twice the size of Texas. What makes it stand out is that it is, the magazine reports, "a stew of plastic crap."
Also called the North Pacific subtropical gyre, it is an ocean "vortex" formed by swirling tides and air movements that accumulate debris. In this case, plastic debris stretching for hundreds of miles.
Discovery of the site in 1997 by an ocean racer named Charles Moore lead him to found the Algalita Marine Research Foundation (algalita.org) to learn more about the impact of all that plastic.
And there's a lot of it. BestLife reports 60 billion tons of plastic are created every year ... and according to Moore, "except for the tiny amount that's been incinerated ... every bit of plastic ever made still exists."
Each American, the report says, tosses out 185 pounds of plastic a year.
What happens to it? Way too much disseminates into the environment, and then works its way back into our bodies.
In fact, it seems to be everywhere.
Scientists are finding increasing numbers of dead seabirds stuffed with plastic; one had 1,603 pieces, including "bottle caps, cigarette lighters, tampon applicators and colored scraps. ..."
The magazine said one study indicates pellets of raw plastic -- called nurdles -- account for 10 percent of plastic ocean debris due to "sloppy transport" that spills them. These pellets soak up pollutants like DDT and PCBs, long banned in the United States but stubbornly persistent in the environment.
Worse, these nurdles and other plastics are breaking down into tiny particles that, in the water, resemble fish eggs and even plankton -- fish food. The fish eat them -- and we eat the fish.
Using mesh nets to collect samples, Moore's research in the gyre found, by weight, six times more plastic than plankton in the water. They're even finding the sand on remote Pacific island beaches inundated with plastic.
Meanwhile, scientists say, we also absorb the myriad chemicals by storing and packaging food in plastic, from physical contact and even breathing in fumes (that "new car" smell is, in part, the result of fresh plastic materials "off-gassing," especially when heated by the sun).
Scientists fear the impact of these chemicals, many of which have never been tested, on human bodies -- especially unborn and young ones. These chemicals can act as "estrogen mimickers" that can disrupt basic human development (estrogen is a key biological regulator).
Intriguingly -- and frighteningly -- scientists are finding a link between plastics and obesity. While many blame high-fructose corn syrup for adding calories and disrupting liver function related to insulin, a University of Missouri at Columbia study found a link in rats between prenatal exposure to bisphenol A (a chemical in some plastics) and obesity after birth. "Their insulin output surged wildly and then crashed into a state of resistance -- the virtual definition of diabetes. They produced bigger fat cells, and more of them," the magazine reported.
If that follows with people, the report says, it could help explain the epidemic of obesity and diabetes.
Oh well ... I wonder what Angelina Jolie is up to?
-
Four-finned dolphin an 'evolutionary throwback'
A bottlenose dolphin captured last month off western Japan has an extra set of fins, providing further evidence that ocean-dwelling mammals once had four legs and lived on land, Japanese researchers say.
Fishermen netted the four-finned dolphin off the coast of Wakayama prefecture (state) on October 28, and alerted the nearby Taiji Whaling Museum, according to museum director Katsuki Hayashi.
The second set of fins - much smaller than the dolphin's front fins - are about the size of adult human hands and protrude from near the tail on the dolphin's underside. The dolphin is 2.72 metres long and is about five years old, according to the museum.
Although dolphins and whales with odd-shaped protrusions near their tails have been caught in the past, researchers think this is the first one found with well-developed, symmetrical fins, Hayashi said.
"I believe the fins may be remains from the time when dolphins' ancient ancestors lived on land ... this is an unprecedented discovery," said Seiji Osumi, an adviser at Tokyo's Institute of Cetacean Research, at a news conference televised Sunday.
Hayashi said he couldn't tell from watching the dolphin swim in a museum tank whether it uses its back fins to manoeuvre.
Fossil remains indicate that dolphins and whales were four-footed land animals about 50 million years ago and share a common ancestors with the hippopotamus and deer. Scientists believe they later transitioned to an aquatic lifestyle and lost their hind limbs.
Whales and dolphin foetuses show signs of hind protrusions but they disappear before birth.
A freak mutation may have caused the ancient trait to reassert itself, Osumi said.
The dolphin will be kept at the Taiji museum to undergo X-ray and DNA tests, according to Hayashi.
Make sure you get me a copy too, mate! 
Narra Lake. Another Great Session
in Fishing Reports
Posted
I'm not a big fish eater, except for my favourite flounder when I can get 'em.
I release just about everything else, but occasionally, my rellos will ask for
a feed and I will certainly oblige 'em.
Just love the thrill of catching anything really...the release part also gives
me a good feeling inside as I know someone else will get the chance to hook up
the same fish at a later date.
I'm no greenie or anything...just like to see nature looked after for future generations to enjoy.
Pete.
Thanks Davo, I will give that a shot. I better go buy some waders first.
That spot always did look the goods with those weed beds out to about 10 metres wide.
Nice sandy bottom after that too.
Thanks again for the tip.
Cheers,
Pete.