wrasseman

Hi all, After a failed sesh on friday where I spent several hours for just one brief hookup, I headed back out yesterday morning for a brief sesh before work. Conditions were perfect for people with crystal clear glassy waters though it was still pretty fresh in the early morning. However, it remained to be seen if the fish would play the game. In contrast to friday however, the wait wasn't long with my little tango taken on the drop after just a few minutes drift casting. A nice little tussle ensued as I worked the fish over to where another fisher was spinning from the bank and asked him to net it for me as I didn't want to pull the hooks on this one like the last. Although not a big fish, this one was about average and was destined for the pan as I'd promised a friend a fish the next time I caught a nice eating one. As it turned out the release option was taken out of my hands as the net man promptly unhooked and then Ike Jime'd the fish for me before I had a chance to even thank him for his net work. With the mission accomplished early I elected to head in to give me plenty of time to clean the fish, wash the blood from the yak and have a warming thermos coffee while I watched a few other fishers before getting changed and heading off to work. Cheers Col.

Yeah, it'd be nice to get down there but I for one won't be going. Can't afford the time atm, its a long from home to strahan, at least 5hrs each way. Besides, all the locals will just net em as Tassie still allows "recreational" gill-netting (dark ages hey). Its more of a bonanza when the southern farms lose fish as they are closer to the people in hobart. Up my way we only have one farm and as far as I know they've only ever had one breakout, but that made for some fat times. Col.

Great report, Certainly sounds like a fun day out. Nice fat rainbows there. Though by the looks you may as well be hitting that dam hard now as there won't be water there for much longer. Cheers Col.

Thanks for that it just looks a bit different to the everyday sweep i've seen before, the brown tail tips are just part of it, the shape is slightly off too and it was a bit thicker through the body and there's a faint band behind the head too. Sea sweep it is. Cheers Col.

Yeah, we got two others of the same species but that was the prettiest (male i think) and best pic.

So I'm right on both counts? That must be a first. Has anyone ever seen those brown tips on a sweep's tail before? col.

Caught a couple of these yesterday, any suggestions. I'm thinking Barber Perch Caesioperca rasor or possibly butterfly perch C. lepidoptera but I could be wrong. Also scored this which I reckon is a sweep but I've never seen those brown bits on the tail tips before and sweep aren't real common down here. cheers col.

That's a monster. Wow. Col.

Shoulda kept the cuttle, best eating of all the cephs IMO at least if it was aparma which I reckon it was. As for the stuck occy, you did well to get it out at all. I had one grab a scrubbing brush I was using to clean his tank and three people couldn't drag it away from him. We had to just wait til he got bored and let go. col.

Well done on the treble (quadruple) thats a quality spot you must have there. Cheers Col.

I don't hit the bream very often at all as they are very rare in my part of the state and I haven't had the time to drive the 200km to reliable spots very often (compared to 10min drive for trout streams). It'd be different if I lived in Hobart. I've caught a few down here but nothing to brag about. I will try to give it more of a go before I leave though. Cheers Col.

I second that, roast duck... yum. Col.

Hi all, Down here in Tas the brown trout season has just finished and so for the next three months no more of my beloved stream fishing. However on the last weekend I managed to get out a bit with some success. Saturday was the time to finally take a workmate up on his offer to fish on his land and hit a relatively unfished section of one of my favourite rivers: the meander. The first fish came on about my third cast and though only small at about 28cm it still augered well for the day. for about 30min I continued to fish off the bank in an area cleared of willows picking up two more fish which got progressively bigger to 38cm before the relatively deep water and overgrown banks forced a retreat to the car for the yak which I had left in there from a previous trip. Continuing upstream in the yak I quickly hooked up again to a nice fish only to have it jump off at boatside and several more earned their freedom by doing the "swim towards the yak then go ballistic" thing. Finally one stayed connected long enough and came in with his fins up in surrender. After this I broke out the mini gear for a shot on the penrod (small enough to fit in the backpack - luv it), shortly after getting my first yak-fish on the toy gear. After this I went back to the real gear and as the river changed character to a shallower shingle bottomed affair and it was time for a bit of wading. A long cast to the head of a pool produced a solid whack and then with a sharp crack the line parted just above the reel. Luck was on my side however as I sulked about the loss when I spotted my line floating on the surface upstream. To my surprise as I pulled up tight I was able to not only retrieve the lure but also the fish which was still attached. On that note it was time to call it a day and head off to work but the season wasn't over and on sunday after my first option was washed out by overly high river flows I headed to the lake river, a little stream I've only fished a couple of times since "discovering" it earlier this season. With little water about it was a wading session and though this river is typically a lots of small fish spot I was fairly confident I'd get a few to finish the season on a high note. I wasn't disapointed, picking up a few typical river fish. But the best was yet to come, as towards the days end I came to a lovely looking spot where a relatively large pool bottlenecked into a shallow gravelly run along a shaded udercut bank. Occasionally you do a cast that you think just has to be worth a fish and this was one of those and my little spoon was absolutely clobbered by a nice fish that put up quite a tussle in the fast water before allowing me to land and unhook it. At 53cm, it wasn't my best for the season but certainly up there and a great way to finish. However me being me I just had to have one more cast and so my last fish for the season wasn't actually such a high note. Particularly when a cast into a small pond on the walk back to the car produced this: Still a nice end to the season so I can't complain. Col.

Some nice looking fish there, would have been great fun on the poppers. Cheers Col.

I'll let you know when published... Col.

Most squid tested (all but one as far as I know) possess only one photo pigment and as such are unlikely to be able to substantially distinguish between wavelengths. Certainly red light seems unseen by at least calamari and dumpling squid. There will be some squid visual research published shortly that will provide some confirmation of colour-blindedness at least in one species. Col.

From my experience, the expensive jigs are unfortunately worth the cost. In the only semi controlled experiment I know of, me and two others fished from the same boat using three different brands (and costs) of jigs in the same colour scheme and regularly swapped the jigs between us. The most expensive (yo-zuri) was easily the best, outfishing the cheapest by more than 5:1. This was a few years ago and there are some newer jigs on the market that may give the old yo-zuri a run but I reckon you still get what you pay for. Its interesting that there's so much emphasis on colours for a colour blind animal but they do have very good vision, comparable with the best fish vision and as they are particularly shade sensitive and can percieve polarisation, they can certainly detect differences in finishes and likely percieve differences between different coloured lures due to this rather than due to colours (wavelength differences) so in practical purposes its still wortn having a variety. Most shallow water cephalopods do not detect red light at all so some of the popular colours like pinks and redhead (my favs.) must look quite different to them than they do to us but they still work. Col. PS. Here is a cross-section of a squid eye (Sepioteuthis australis southern calamari hatchling) and you can see it is quite complex with many of the structures found in a vertebrate eye, the most obvious difference being its more logical organisation.

Yeah thats the one, Last stop for the Mosman ferry after Cremorne point, musgrave st, and old cremorne. The park at the back of the bay is called reed park and there is a foot bridge over the park that you used to be able to swing from on a rope swing before it was taken down because it was to dangerous for the "Nanny State" we live in. Where Mosman Rowers club, Mosman wharf, Mosman sailing club and Mosman Bay Sea scouts are. Its not an inspiring looking piece of water but can fish surprisingly well, I grew up quite nearby (5min walk) and used to fish there alot so caught quite a few fish there. There are many other bays in the harbour that probably fish as well or better but there and balmoral are the spots I know best as I fished them the most (especially Mosman Bay). There is a foot track that goes right around to cremorne point and beyond but I always found the best fishing right at the back of the bay or around the rocks near the yaht (spelling??) squandron slipway past old cremorne wharf (towards cremorne point). Biggest fish I caught in the bay was my biggest ever flattie (93cm) which came out of the back of the bay when it nailed a chopper tailor that had grabbed my lure and somehow found the hooks. It might still be swimming around there somewhere. col.

Do it, well worthwhile I reckon. Great fun even on the littlies, I certainly can't can't complain after a total outlay including postage of less than $20 and the drag upgrade took about 5min and cost nothing. I'm not convinced about the baitcasters and flyreels though. I don't think either would be castable as the tiny spool on the baitcaster would need to spin extremely fast and I doubt the rod could cast a fly, I know I couldn't flycast with it. Col.

Yummy, I love blue swimmers. Pity we don't get them down here. col.

Hey, nice salmon. Thats my old stomping ground, spent many a day flicking lures off the rocks between the island and the baths, off the drain at the island (deep channel in front but you have to steer hooked fish around a big rock, off the beach (watch out for swimmers) and wharf. The rocks in front of the drain between the island and the wharf were the standout spot though especially if you're willing to get wet getting out to the furthest ones. Decent bream can sometimes be found schooled up on top of these flat rocks in the shallows at high tide, I've seen them snorkelling but never got the hooks into em. Also pulled lure eating bream from the reefy corner at the island and there's a big rocky dropoff about halfway between the island drain and the beach which you can wade to at low tide if you pick your path carefully, another good spot. Those frigates certainly are frustrating, but fun when you hook em. They also like to cruise around at mosman bay on the other side where they push bait against the wall and then fly through at a million miles an hour, hard to get a lure in front of but if you can get one in front of them and heading in the same direction but faster than they're swimming, youve got a real good chance. A sitting fly (whitebait pattern) was another option that I found drew strikes too and I'm sure SPs would work but the problem is the fish then take off and almost have to take you through the marina as its their only way out so landing them on light gear is a problem. col.

Hi all, I bought one of those little penrods (3ft telesopic that folds up to a pen) you see on ebay a couple of weeks ago for a bit of a novelty and of course I had to give it a whirl. Spooled it up with some light mono and hit the river with a 2g spoon hoping for a little reddie or three. Initially I was pleasantly surprised by how well it casts and it wasn't long before a fish came along to test it out. On about my third cast a lovely 50cm brownie grabbed my lure and proceeded to demonstrate the many lumps in the drag and just how little power the rod has in reserve but jeez it was fun and I somehow still landed it. Unfortunately I didn't have the camera with me though so I've had to go out a few more times to try and get some piccys. Of course I haven't managed any more decent fish (the next good one came off due to an excessively light drag I was using to combat the stickiness) but even the littlies are fun on the micro outfit and 2&3g lures and I've now fixed the drag by honing the metal washers and replacing the fibre ones with oil soaked leather.

I headed down to one of the local rivers today for a bit of a sesh. Some of you might recognise it Though it looks a bit different in the flesh, particularly with the low water. After climbing down into the gorge I began to fish my way upstream soon dropping a nice fish and then missing another few including one that hit halfway down a waterfall. Unfortunately whilst rockhopping I heard this strange ripping sound and felt a bit of breeze. Sadly this spelled an early end to my sesh as I wasn't keen on getting a sharp plant scratch somewhere painful. I did manage to pick up one fish before pulling the pin though. Cheers Col. Gorge from water level:

I figure its about time I filled this one in. My name is Colin and i'm 31. I'm currently living in launceston tasmania, though I grew up in sydney. I moved down here a few years ago to study and kinda got stuck here. I'm married to the beautiful Tracey, no kids yet but thats gonna change in a few months. I'm currently finishing off a PhD in Marine Biology (Squid - particularly vision, thesis submitted last week) and consequently looking for work though I'm also working in the local casino to pay the bills. I've been fishing since very young and now mainly chase trout on lures (and occasionally fly) as they are the closest available option, usually I fish small streams or from my kayak in the larger rivers and lakes. I do a fair bit of lighter estuary, rock and beach stuff too but this is mainly in the closed trout season or on camping trips. Cheers col.

Yep, the black diamonds certainly are nice rods, I'm an especially big fan of the tiny butts on the clear cut ranges. Unfortunately their rods are still on the long side for what I want and if spending that sort of cash I want it to be closer to ideal. Cheers col.