macman

I have the exact same one as yours. Works great, but you are very limited as to the size of pan recommended to fit on it. They have the outine of the allowable size on a piece of paper inside the packaging. Matt

That's a good one, I might try that one. It wouldn't be the first time I had to chase half a dozen blackfish around a rock pool after the half hitch came undone

Looks like you are doing pretty well! The large catches will come, once you refine everything plus hit the times when the fish are really "on" Pay attention to the little things, bait presentation, length of trace, vary the depth added up they all make a difference. Matt

Well done mates. Looking forward to having a fish for them at Christmas time. Mates

I wouldn't go that far, but he can fish it out of the boat for now, not much casting required.

That picture is genius, a dude rockfishing in jeans. This is the sort of craziness that goes on. That the DPI would include such a photo is a measure of how out of touch people are on this topic.

Nice report and cracking reel. I've got one that I picked up second hand from UK, it was in terrible condition but I cleaned it up , painted it and filed the lineguard lugs off. My son now uses it for blackfish. It's so good that you can still buy these type of reels, perfect for this type of fishing, simple and hard wearing.

The following article is really written with bass and estuary perch in mind, but equally applies to many other species. I was keen to post this link as we often see photos of fish lying in the dirt and being suspended from their jaws or lip grippers for photos. http://www.basssydney.com/articles/ResponsibleFishHandlingPractices.pdf Happy bass and cod season to all of you. Matt

Rock blackfish or blackfish from the rocks?

Lots of things about it aren't ideal. I would be interested to see what the success/fail factors are around this "trial" I was also under the impression that they were talking about high risk areas only, but I notice that it includes all areas that adjoin water. Including Yarra Bay. This one affects me personally as I often fish there. It was one of the spots I was thinking of when I ask people to define what they mean when they talk about rock fishing. Anyway time will tell that is found from this "trial". Regards

There's nothing wrong with the river launching at tench, once you get up above the speed limit zone its pretty good. The other option is the river between Windsor and North Richmond, no boats and not bad fishing in a tinny. Matt

True of course. I seldom fish catch and release for luderick, one of the reasons I don't fish west of the bridge that often. I think if people are sensible and observe the DPI guidelines, its probably as good a guide as any.

Pool extensions are the cheapest, look or ask around, plenty of them on council cleanups etc. Then you just get a suitable net that will pop rivett into the pool extension. 4-5 metres is handy in some places, useless off the rocks, landing nets are just plain dangerous on the rocks IMHO but the iso blokes seem to always use landing nets, whatevs.

Nice report, miss the inland rivers. Sadly we used to really thrash them when we were kids, in those days springers and drum nets were the norm Matt

The trumpeter whiting have blotches along the sides, they may have other distinguishing feature, but that what I use. Do an internet search they are also called diver whiting or winter whiting. Matt

Another option are trumpeter whiting, no actual size limit on these and good bait for jewfish in the surf, as well as the usual PJ sharks, sharks and rays You do need to be able to tell the trumpeter apart from sand whiting which have a minimum size in nsw. Matt

I've used them pretty successfully in the surf, they last better if you lip hook them, they also cast better that way.

This is worth a read. http://www.fishingworld.com.au/news/manly-lagoon-a-state-disgrace I've personally caught estuary perch in there, not many and not big and that was before the massive fish kill some years back when the golf course released something nasty into it. Also caught several small GTs, also before the fish kill. Sub tropical species around Sydney aren't a new thing, spotted mackeral at Bobbin head would be unexpected nevertheless I've caught caught them there, and in the harbour off Dobroyd! Matt

Giant trevally

You can also buy snaps without swivels, majority of lures don't produce line twist, they (snaps) are smaller and seem to be a good compromise if you want to change lures often. Particularly good with hardbodies etc. With soft jigs I prefer to tie direct with a knot. I only use the loop knot when I have my glasses and feel so inclined but I reckon it improves the action of the jigs if you can be bothered. Matt

You'd be surprised at what has come out of Many Lagoon, not from Manly Dam though. At one stage there were some huge mangrove jacks in there and many sub tropical species of trevally etc have been pulled out over the years. certainly until there was a massive fish kill in there some years ago. Matt

you can only hope I hate the flaming things. I fish for bass a lot and they scare the crap out of you when a big one rolls under the kayak in the half light of the morning. Carp virus can't come quick enough. Matt

We could cremate them afterwards. Perhaps have a ceremony and usher thier spirits into the next life

Hit them with a priest and bury them in the garden Make great fertilizer.

You may be right, but I think it sounds a bit like conspiracy theory stuff I wouldn't want to discourage people from having a go at servicing these if they have a bit of manual ability, it's pretty time consuming and expensive to send these back to Shimano for servicing and it's pretty hard to find local tackle shops these days that will do it. Sad but true. Matt