zmk1962
-
Posts
2,988 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
68
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Gallery
Events
Fishing Tips, Advice and Articles
Blogs
Store
Posts posted by zmk1962
-
-
Hey Raiders,
With all the unsettled weather and big seas forecast for next week indicating that a trip wide was still unlikely for some time ....and Friday's (12/1/18) Seabreeze forecast being N-NNE winds 6kts (5am) - 14kts (noon) on 0.8m seas the Mrs and I decided to grab the opportunity and head out to target some flatties.
Earlier in the week I had scoped out on the marine charts some likely haunts along West Reef that we marked on the GPS. Friday was a 3am start, 4am departure from home seeing us launching the boat at Parsley Bay around 5am. We were anchored up at our first spot by about 530am - and put out the lines with pilchard halves, squid and Berkley Jerk Shads.
The conditions were millpond, with a low lying foggy haze so no sunrise shots folks.
Anyway, by 9am we had landed a couple of undersized pannies, undersized flatties, 4 banjo sharks and a a 60cm barracouta. So the barracouta was quickly dispatched with my shiny new 22 calibre ikejime, filleted for strip baits, the head went out on a long leader with a small bead sinker (I remembered reading one of rick's reports that the heads are a great snapper bait)...and sure enough, 15min later another 4ft banjo was being released....no snapper to be found!
So by 9am after 3 hours of junk fish the missus and I called it quits on West Reef and headed out further to our 40m mark to drift for flatties.
First two drops, a kindergarten pair came up, then another pair of juveniles then some teenagers...4th drop BANG.... she brings up a 60cm beauty! First keeper of the day and I marked the spot on GPS. I then brought up a keeper flounder and before it went quiet again. Motored back to our mark and dropped the anchor. We spent the next 4hrs swinging on the anchor rode and picked up a great feed of flatties mostly in the 50-55cm range (smallest 39cm). The last 6 came up at 12.30pm when the blazing sun
finally broke through...just in time for that boat ramp / fish cleaning dance - THANKS mr weather!!!
But all in all 14 flatties and 1 flounder - total of 3.6kg of cleaned flattie fillets - not bad from 14 fish !
Cheers
Zoran (and Maria)
PS - invited the mates are over on Sunday for a fisho dinner
PPS - you will notice the 22 caliber ikejime holes - works a dream to dispatch them - thanks scienceman!!!
PPPS - and given all the recent banana debate we put the myth to the test, made sure we brought bananas on the boat and had some for lunch...hmmm I know what will be in my lunch bag from now on !!!
-
1
-
-
This is Seabreeze forecast as Rick says it can be wrong but if you spot check the “live” conditions further down the page it can give you some assurance if the days forecast is progressing as per the prediction. Next week is a write off so Mrs and I are hitting the water early tomorrow for a sesh.
Cheers
Zoran
-
1
-
-
Great news ! Enjoy.
-
Awesome fish mate ! ... were you fishing solo? Not sure I could get my crew to stay our in 25kts and lightning.
You've got me itching to go find some reds.
Cheers
Zoran
-
21 minutes ago, Fab1 said:
How guys neglect their trailers to this point is beyond me.
Fab.... I think you have it all wrong. He is one of those guys that seems to take a really really long time at the ramp...and you don't quite know if he is in the boat, at the ramp or taken a quick trip to the loo....but in fact.... he leaves his trailer parked in the water while he is out....and we all launch and retrieve around him !
-
Awesome... can’t wait for the warm water to stabilize.
Cheers
Zoran
-
Ohhh nasty...looks painful !! Many lessons for the young ones on that trip. Good on ya for passing on the passion and better luck next time.
Cheers
zoran
-
NP. Hope you enjoy the dish as well. BTW I don’t mind a bit of chewiness if the flavor is there.
Forgot to mention the bigger tentacle suckers can have cartlidge teeth - so run the tentacles between your thumb and a knife edge to remove them before chopping.
Cheers Z
-
It really depends on the size of the occy. The bigger ones will be tough(er) but the mid size ones can be quite ok with a quick stir fry. But note that generally if you cook occy (or squid) too much they will go tough...there is a sweet spot during the cooking.
My quick occy go to recipe (often served as an entree) especially if we only caught one occy....
Clean occy and remove the guts, eyes, beak etc. I generally cut off the hood and turn it inside out. I don't skin the occy, but if you give them a generous rub of of rock salt and them wash with water you will get the slime off.
Chop the occy up into bite size pieces (remember that they will shrink a bit during cooking)
Placed the chopped pieces into a bowl, add olive oil, dash of red wine, chopped garlic, parsley, chopped chili, and fine ground white pepper to taste. (I don't add salt as it dries them out at this stage).
Let it sit in the fridge for a few hours - perhaps while you are washing down the boat!
Then whack some olive oil, chopped chili and garlic into a wok. High heat and let it sizzle but not char the garlic.
Drop in the occy, and toward the end add a bit of sesame oil (great flavour) and a dash of soy sauce (there's your salt!) and a dash of red wine.
Stir continuously till cooked (the skin shrivels to nothing in a hot wok - just adds flavour)...your wok should be sizzling - if you have a lot of liquid and it looks like its boiling the occy then try to push the occy up on the sides of the wok and let the liquid boil down a bit. This liquid will become the drizzle for you salad.
Serve on a bed of lettuce / salad ....ok maybe some chippies on the side.
Voila Pepper chili garlic sesame oil stir fried occy !
Cheers
Zoran
-
Great write up too - must have been exciting seeing line peeling off to the backing !
cheers Zoran
-
So ya reckon soak in some milk and they'd be fine eh? Washed down with mouthful of bush tea to complement the gum leaves.
BTW, smashing photos and fishing on that gear...makes me wonder why I just spent my money on all that Penn gear ... from Dinga of course !
Cheers
Z
-
1
-
-
12 hours ago, raging said:
Hi all,
To prevent new holes in the dash, I want to make a mounting plate/block to put the new fish finder head unit on.
im after a black plastic block (similar to chopping board material) say 90mm x 90mm x 20mm. Where can I buy such a thing (timber is so much easier than plastic!)
cheers
Sounds like you plan to screw down the block (using existing holes in dash) and then screw the fishfinder mount to that.
If so, have you considered 2 sheets of 12mm cutting board. Screw first sheet to the dash and countersink the screw heads to keep the top surface flat and level. Screw second sheet on top with the same screws you plan to use for your fishfinder mount. The second sheet basically acts as a spacer.
Cheers
Zoran
-
1
-
-
I'll ask the same question I asked rick about his owl .... what did the koala taste like crumbed with a bit of chips on the side ???
-
Thats the one !!! ....
BTW, if you are still unhappy about running the leader with FG knot through the rod runners also take on board Rick's advice about doubling your braid where its snapping - a spider hitch knot is what I used to use with mono and should work well with braid given the number of turns you typically put in it.
Cheers and best of luck....
Zoran
-
Berleyguts and Jewhunter... I hear you. The whole topic of leader lengths has been covered before on fishraider ... the general conclusion there was "it depends" .... largely on what type of fishing folks do.
Myself and most of the folks I go fishing with do a lot of trolling and bottom bashing - so most of our rods have leaders with couple of turns on the spool (not fishing comp or ANSA etc). Most fish are lost around the boat and a longer leader helps there. For these rods we use an Improved or Modified Albright (quicker and simpler to tie than an FG). I have two rods set up for casting largely metals slices at schools offshore and a few wraps of leader on a longcast spool with an FG knot has not been an issue for me. Casts fine for me, the mono leader is comfy on the fingers during the cast and I am yet to have braid snap or snag, but then again I don't spend all day casting and I don't need max distance or accuracy for the casts.
So back to marks1984 question, the issue we were discussing is why is marks1984 consistently seeing his braid snap about 2" above the knot using 10lb leader and 10lb braid....and I think his last post gave a hint there... if the leader is only 1-1.5m long as he does not like it going through the rod runners, I suspect its snapping at the top runner from the strain and abrasion wear and tear that builds up at that point.
My proposed solution would be to learn to tie a low profile FG knot and run a longer leader in through the rod runners.
Any other ideas we can give marks1984?
Cheers
Zoran
-
1
-
-
Hey Green Hornet and New Signing,
Perhaps you can elaborate a bit more as fish-finder is launching solo.... and my info is a few years old.
I have not used Murray's for a few years - from what I recall it wasn't as much a low tide issue as an issue of where to tie up the boat if you were to launch solo. The ramp is tucked behind a breakwall, and although a new platform and walkway was built across from the ramp it wasn't a floating platform and at low tide can be very high to climb onto from a boat...that is if there is any space to tie up at all (the platform was quite small).
After tying up you have a run around the break wall to get to your car and a drive of about 200m to the car park...then a run back to get your boat out.
Because of this I always launched with someone in the boat... that drove the boat away and stayed out in the water until I returned.
I'd be keen to know If things have changed from what I described to make it easier for a solo launch.
Cheers
Zoran
PS - Agree 100% with concern about the car safety in the car park... that's what ultimately made me give this ramp away.
-
26 minutes ago, marks1984 said:
Mr. Z,
yes I have thought that I have been making the initial knot tight before I pull them together but no I have left it lose at times heaps of spit as well this has got me Fed. I am using 10lbs cast away braid and 10lbs fluro as trace
How long is your leader?
Also how do you know you are snapping 2" up from knot? Are you casting with your braid through the runners, leaving 2" of braid hanging from the rod tip and then you have the leader tied on.
Cheers Z
PS: braid is not good for casting like that - most folks run leader through to the reel with 2-3 turns around the reel spool. Hence a low profile knot like albright or FG so it can feed through the rod runners and tip.
-
I have no experience with a double uni as a knot for leader to braid connection. But looking at the knot and how its tied... 2" from where the knot ends is about where you would start your leader over braid wraps ....so speculating could the force of the leader locking down on itself be tearing apart the trapped braid at that point... and then when you pull the two uni's together that weaker braid spot is about 2" up?
what size braid and what size leader ?
Just speculation mate.
Cheers Z
-
49 minutes ago, marks1984 said:
.... for some reason the braid snaps about 2" above the knot
Hi marks1984, I think reel' em in was using the uni knot for leader to terminal tackle such as a hook. You mention your braid snapping 2" above the knot .... are you using the uni knot to tie the leader to the braid? There are better knots for this job - albright modified, FG etc.
What knot are you using - is this damaging your braid?
Also if the braid is consistently snapping 2" above the knot... maybe review how you tightening the knots up.
Are you wrapping the braid around something to help tighten it up ... is this damaging your braid 2" from the knot?
Cheers Z
-
9 hours ago, rickmarlin62 said:
I have a 90hp yammie on my vsea and luv it...all motors are good when they are going..haha..rick
Speaking of motors "when they are going" ..... My wife always complains about the smell of our 2stroke Merc.... and I always tell her that smell is a "good thing"...it means the motor is working !!! ... and she should really start worrying when she can't smell it !!!
Cheers
Zoran
-
1
-
-
Great start to 2018 - love them flatties.
cheers Zoran
-
Nice one! Great way to start 2018.
-
They are called mechanical over-ride brakes. The tow ball coupling is on a spring loaded piston. When you apply the car brakes...the trailer keeps pushing forward toward the car, the piston is pushed in and drives levers that pull on cables that activate the callipers to apply brake pressure. When the trailer has slowed down or you stop the spring pushes the piston out and releases the brakes.
The flappy bit stops the piston being pushed back when you reverse - hence stops the brakes being applied.
My advice....lubricate everything. Spray inside the tow ball coupling, inside the piston etc... keep that well oiled. Then spray each of your brake callipers, all the joints and shafts. Brakes should move freely to engage and disengage. Problems arise when they get stuck. You can spray the metal backing of your brake pads to keep them rust free... BUT do not spray the brake pad material as it will break down and fall apart.
re: Adjusting the brakes. Once you have freed up all the rusty bits and have them moving freely, you will be able to see how much movement you have in the piston and calliper levers. Adjust the cable length so that the calliper levers are disengaged when piston is out (normal driving mode) and engaged when the piston is pushed back. I have not run mechanical over-ride brakes since 2001 so apologies I have forgotten the rule of thumb as to how far your piston pushes back - perhaps you can google the manufacturer for their recommended settings. BTW, once you have it all set up, remember to retighten the cables after a few trips as new cables will have some initial stretch.
Cheers
Zoran
PS - I have changed brake pads 3 times in 16 years... so if adjusted correctly and well maintained then you will get lots of life out of them.
PPS - I find it easiest to do the lubrication maintenance just after I have launched the boat and parked the trailer. It takes less then 2min to run around the trailer with a can of INOX, LANOX or Silicon Spray and hit all the moving calliper parts. If you do your trailer springs at the same time they will last a loooooong time too...(eg. I am running original springs from 2001 trailer build).
Welcome to boat trailers!
-
I use the uni knot on both fluorocarbon and mono leaders. Has not (knot!) failed me yet !!
How many turns did you put in it? I usually go 4 on the lighter lines and 3 on the heavier. By heavier I mean the line diameter not necessarily the breaking strain. So generally if over 0.6mm I do 3 turns otherwise it bulks up too much.
I did notice the other day, I had sunscreen lotion on my hands and the knot was slipping more when I tightened it down...so made sure I left a slightly longer tag until I was satisfied it had locked down.
Cheers
Zoran
finally broke through...just in time for that boat ramp / fish cleaning dance - THANKS mr weather!!!
Barrenjoey Wide 12/1/2018
in Fishing Reports
Posted
I'll keep that strategy in the kit bag..... local conditions always prevail.... on any day we can only try mate !!
Cheers Z