Lunker_Hunter

Well done, that bream looks nice & meaty. It's a damn good first local bream.

18 fish in a couple of hours is impressive. Do trout put up a good fight?

What's the best pattern & size of hook to use to catch big carp with?

Looks like an awesome location to have a holiday. Great catches, well done on the PB's! The last picture looks like the thing you put at the bottom of your door so the wind doesn't blow in.

Nice pics, wish there were trouts near where I am. Always fun taking a new outfit for it's first test-drives, especially when it scores you PB's.

Hey Sharky, I wouldn't mind going either, if there's another one maybe we could go in 1 car & split the petrol money since you're not too far away from me. We could also have a bit of a flick up that way before we head back. Hopefully I'll see you at the local fishing spot soon, I'll be fishing there more in the night time since I am after jewies now too.

I'll be starting a few rounds late... makes me feel like the Warriors starting from behind. Sonny Bill Williams will be back soon for the Dogs, that is when the Dogs will be unbeatable, it'll be season 2002 all over again minus the salary cap penalty WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?!

Well done ozeash! Now that's how you break in a new fishing outfit. I was impressed that you & your son caught all those fish by the looks of the pictures, land based. That makes it a really good session. Sometimes I would spend several hours using lures & a few of the anglers there would use bait & they would clean up with a lot of quality fish using live & dead bait & I all I got was a few hits but no hookups. hehe So now when I fish, I setup a bait rig while I flick lures around. I have a dumb question, since I am new to fishing lingo. Are pillies pilchards? hehe

moonlitecreeper: your catches are like, if not better than the ones they post in the fishing magazines, well done! I wanted to ask, since I just recently put together an outfit mainly to hunt the awesome mulloway/jewie, what's your fishing outfit for them? By that I mean, rod kilogram class, reel & line, leader + hook sizes if you don't mind me asking.

Hi Rus_cb, Once you start catching fish on lures, it gets pretty addictive. A good spot near you that I use to fish alot is Rockdale next to the Airport runway. There is a bridge (just up from Bestic street) & if you go under it's on the nearest Rockdale beach side, not the side with the plane watch tower, you will see a walk out (the mouth of the cooks river) & at the tip of it on the side facing the beach, is a real hot spot. The rest of the spots are slow but if you're lucky enough to grab the tip facing the beach before other anglers, you will catch something. I've attached pictures of the 2 breams I caught there. There are big flatties & trevally there, not to mention the odd big tailor & snapper etc. It's pretty near the Botany Bay Container wall that has the Kings etc & sometimes those big species come in close, so the spots a real smorgus board. I hooked a 5Kg plus Kingfish there on the lightest of gear & after a decent fight I had to lock my reel up so I didn't get spooled & "ping" it busted free. Crazy action when a big King takes a small lure meant for bream. I use the Berkley 3" Minnow (Pearl Watermelon) & the Tournament 2" grub (pumpkinseed) alot, the grub does better. so I use it more. Only downside with the grub is that the tails gets bitten off easily by the bait fish. The minnow just reel in slowly & the grub bottom bounce & be eractic reeling it in. I don't know if the prawn lure you got was a Prawnstar one. That's a hard lure to animate in the water & make it kick like a prawn etc. Takes alot of practice, you can practice your lure fishing skills at Foreshore Drive, it's all sand. Nice spot & sometimes lots of big fish swim in & out of there. Happy Hunting!

I have a Twin Power 1000SDH (Paddle Handle) reel with a Loomis rod & they are a great match. The Twin Power is structured around the Stella & is a new series compared to the Sustain which has been around for yonks. There isn't a significant difference between the 2, the Sustain has a better reputation (being around longer) which will help you sell it down the track. The reason I chose the Twin Power over the Sustain (which was what I was going to get at first) was that Twin Power is new generation of reel based on new design of a proven reel (Stella) which in my guess is a positive thing. The other thing was that I managed to find the paddle handle version & I have always liked using paddle handles, I find they wind back like a baitcaster, that nice line flow. If you think of it this way too, the Twin Power only comes with 1 spool (well mine did) so if you add the cost of the extra spare spool that comes with the Sustain, you will think that the Twin Power then, actually cost more. In some countries Shimano only have the Twin Power & not the Sustain line because the Twin Power is the new generation. * I have a Twin Power & love it so am a touch bias hehe, you really need to go to a retail store that stocks both & check them out that way. Either way, you're going to win, they are both awesome reels.

G. Loomis don't make a GL2 Drop Shot rod that I know of. They brought the new GLX one out last year but it was always the IMX blank they used for that series- so that's interesting. The Innovator Nitro range in my opinion are the best rods you can get in that 250 - 300 AUD price bracket. You could also pick up a Ian Miller rod, he has a nice bream buster range that's a bit more. I use a G. Loomis rod now (SR range) & also had the IMX G. Loomis Drop Shot rod, casting distance wasn't one of it's strengths when it came to those small jig heads for 2-3" soft plastics, it had really nice line feel & tweaking performance & that was what I missed about it about the one I have now isn't that far off & can cast alot further than it & it as isn't easy to damage. I sold mine on eBay for only $350 last year. The problem I found with it, was the tip was very easy to snap off & it couldn't cast tiny lures well. They made the tip a lil' weak to get that nice flicking effect but then the mid section & butt had a bit too much grunt for the delicate tip. Great feeling rod however if you like babying your fishing outfit. That's all in my opinion, the new GLX one would be great. If you tell me what exactly you plan to use this new outfit for I can help a lil', I went through the process of buying & selling lots of gear just to get it right.

Well done, now that's what I call a THUMPER! Surprize catches when going for another species of that quality always puts a smile on my dial! Got a 4kg chucky size eel this week as my surprize... creepy looking bugger, took me over 2 hours to clean my landing net, no thanks to it's icky slim coat, it was almost impossible to get it off the net. Keep landing those Lunkers!

If you get a reel that's undersized or spooled with too heavy line class, it will strain the reel & it won't perform properly & the reel won't last as long or perform as it should. Since you bought one of the high-end reels, it should handle it well & the line class of the rod is close enough match for the reel. Good hunting.