Hill373737

Great photos, thanks for sharing!! What camera and lens do you use for the bird photography?

Ouch mate, that would hurt but makes a great story!! After having a cod hanging off a HB treble in my index finger while about 4kms down river in the kayak, I now always have small boltcutters with me whenever fishing. It happened very quickly and I was fortunate I was fishing with a mate and not solo - once we got the cod off , after a big of wiggling (and squealing) we got the hook out with a loop of leader and a quick tug, he used the age old method of telling me he would pull it on the count of 3, and did it on 2!!

Every year, on my birthday (so there's been a few), I tell my wife .... "don't worry, I might be getting older, but I'm not about to grow up!!"

I'm not familiar with tides4fishing but if it is providing a solunar chart to provide recommended fishing efficiencies, it would be using moon above and moon below times, as well as moonrise and moonset. It wouldn't be including tidal information to do the calculation. It may or may not be a good guide as a time to go fishing, depending on other factors such as barometer, general weather, location etc.

66cm is a good flathead @R E G I C Y C L E , nice work! It would be a female at that size and I've seen underwater photos of large females with smaller males laying around it and on top of it so that may explain 3 fish in 3 casts from the same area.

Plenty of good advice in this thread and a good reminder for all of us that we need to look after ourselves. My other advice would be to " do your living while you're living" .... none of us know what we have ahead of ourselves that could change our lives, maybe even the biggie that is inevitable for all of us!! This applies to everything in your life ... not just fishing!!

Depending on where you're based and where you fish, there may be a third option which is to keep the boat in a rack and stack. I've had 2 boats in the stacker at Akuna Bay which gives you access to a lot of good options for fishing in the Hawkesbury, Cowan Creek, Pittwater and offshore from Broken Bay.. It is very convenient, at the time it enabled me to fish during a very busy time in my life and you don't need a trailer but it was a fairly expensive option.

The flats in Gogleys Lagoon adjacent to the breakwall on the Dunbogan aide of the river is a very good area for casting bent minnows to fish topwater for flathead - I prefer the 110mm Crossfire and try to fish the last hour of the dropping tide, focussing on the flats adjacent to the dropoffs or the areas where the water drains off the flats .

If the beach on th eastern side isn't working or gets blown out - have a look at the area around McKenzies Jetty, south of Kingfisher Bay on the western side. It has very good flathead fishing on the flats and around the mangrove drains and as a bonus, the ruins of the old jetty and sawmill are worth a look.

Have you seen an Aeropress https://aeropress.com.au - great way to make coffee especially when camping, quick and easy to clean up.

@DrRaymondSnapper Good advice from bN on what you need for bait fishing. If you prefer to try yellas on lures, similar rod and reel as you'd flick lures for flatties, maybe upsize the leader to 20lb to minimise snag damage. Small 1/4oz spinnerbaits, similar to Bassman Carls Compact, I like Chartreuse/White or Black/Orange but any colour will work or if you want to play with hardbodies, Stumpjumpers in Size 2 or 3 work well. Try and fish areas with structure - logs, weed or especially twiggy laydowns. If the carp are anything like they are around here, they'll occasionaly take a lure meant for a yella. You can also sightcast small paddletails or grubs at carp if you find them in shallows, try to cast past them and slowly bring it back to where they're sitting, sometimes you need to be almost on there nose before they seem to notice it.

Great trip mate, good to see you scratch the 'toga itch!! Beautiful scenery up that way, helps make up for the lack of fish.

I think they would definitely work on flatties, I've tried throwing big chatterbaits on the flats, they don't work so well on shallows but I reckon would work in 1 to 2 metre water depth. Funnily enough, this week I've been using Jig Spinners with plastics for yellas and it got me thinking I should try them for flatties, maybe this coming week as I'm heading back over the coast again for a few days! 🙂

We should definitely plan another trip, I might end up down your way in November as we're thinking of spending a few weeks along the Darling / Murrumbidgee / Murray, will let you know . cheers mate!!

Definitely frogs on spinnerbaits is the way to go for the rivers around Tamworth, the river that bN fishes is a different propostion in that it often has higher flow rates to what I fish in my kayak that are in many places, hardly more than a creek!! My thinking on adding the frog to the spinnerbait is that it adds bulk and action to the spinnerbait and slows the sink rate as the Zman 4 inch frogs I mostly use are floaty and I generally only fish a 3/8 oz spinnerbait. Cod are often found sitting hard against the bank in undercuts and tree roots so slowing the sink helps attract those fish and get them interested.