Grantm

GDay Macman, You have every right to rant, it does seem very broken. But we must persevere. And old outdated bag limits etc is a start. Reading some of the posts and threads in this section at least keeps reminding us that there are people out there trying to make it better.

DPI, Geez id love to go in a mulloway comp. Trouble is I cant catch one !

In light of "the other thread" there is obviously a lot of opinions out there in regards to bag limits etc. Why not put them here as general opinions, this will keep them off the fishing threads, and in a place where they perhaps belong. Im sure the mods would not have a problem if everyone put their comments and beliefs into a general discussion and away from the reports. That way no one is having a go at any one else which seems to be the problem. Im sure 'opinions only' wont be offensive. This particular thread has asked for this type of discussion and no one else has posted their thoughts or opinions which I find strange seeing there is a lot of passion about this topic. Cheers

Hey GW, If thats a picture of your fish cooked on the plate, im coming to your house for dinner ! That looks sensational - and shows me what a bad cook I must be

I would like to see smaller bag limits for estuary species. A bag limit of 20 for Bream and Luderick is ridiculous for one person. 5 max I say. In fact most estuary species need to be dropped a bit. I would like to see a maximum size limit on all estuary species as well. Maybe this is a bit over the top but thats the way I feel. I hate seeing monster fish laying on the cleaning tables. Its getting harder and harder to catch a feed, and although this is moreso to do with the pro's, I still think we need to fish responsibly. I love to take a feed home but only ever what I need, and I always return the odd biggun I actually catch to continue breeding. Im only talking estuary species cause thats all I know. Love to see option two of the Flathead plan min 40cm max 70cm. Bream werent mentioned I dont think, but they should have a max limit too. The irony is of course by taking less fish as rec anglers only gives the pro's more to take. Is there really a winner ? The other thing I dont like is that our fishing grounds are almost bare due the pro's raping them and rec anglers have to limit their catch as as result. What are the pro's going to do to help ? BTW my opinions about lower bag limits and max size limits are not because of the current state of our fishery, but because it is a responsible way to fish to ensure ongoing populations, regardless of the fish stocks. Cheers

I think it can also depend what size boat it is. Boats under 4 meters I cant see being worth it unless you get a really good deal on a second hand one, and dont go overboard on the upgrade. $5000.00 to $5500.00 can get a a brand new boat of this size on a trailer with safety gear as a general rule. The best chance would be a 4 to 5 meter boat where the prices for used and new can jump up a lot and the opportunity to do up a boat in this range would perhaps give you the most value. Depends on you circumstances but boats over 5 meters are just a damn big job. Personally I would like to do it, but moreso for the project value and for a bit of fun. You will be suprised how much it will actually cost to do this. My advice is to work backwards from the finished product you want including eveything. Rego, safety gear, trailer, motor, accessories, everything. Add this up including what your time is worth perhaps, and see how much it leaves you to buy a hull with compared to a new or second hand boat of the same calibre. This will give you your answer. Hope this helps

Awesome fish on light gear. Well done to your mate Bob.

Sorry Mitch dont live there, but did live down that way ages ago. Beatiful spot to hang your hat thats for sure. Very sleepy place hope you enoy it.

Thought we would have another run here seeing as the weather looked so good. It all started out well, put the boat in and headed off. Not far from the ramp the low oil alarm went off. No trouble I thought ill just top her up which I did. Took off and soon after off it went again. Oh shit. Had a second look and it was the NO OIL light not the low oil light. This doesnt look good. This meant no oil was getting to the motor via the injection pump. Testamant to how good ETEC's are, and why I got one, the engine goes straight into SAFE mode and allows you to idle back to port for up and will run for up to five hours with no oil being injected. How it does this I dont know, but its a damn good trick dont you think Iain. Not wanting to lose a days fishing we idled back towards the ramp with the intention finding a spot nearby. On the way back I was determined to see what the problem was. I was pretty sure it was nothing major and felt it was something to do with me letting the oil run a bit low before topping it up. A quick call to Craig at Huetts and he suggested I winterise the motor, which meant following a sequence which drowned the motor in oil before it shuts down, hopefully purging a possible air lock from it running low. Did this trick, and BINGO were back in action Damn I love ETEC'S. Oh, of course just cause we were in trouble didnt mean we werent going to throw a couple of lures out the back while idling back and have some sort of fish, so we did. Trolled up a nice chopper to kick the day off. With that behind us 'Oldmate' and myself decided to head for Swansae to sus out the run in tide at the drop off. We got up there and the wind kicked up a bit but we persisted. Tried four different spots including a drift of the flats in the channel for zip. Not a touch, not even a fish sighting. Very tough indeed. A quick check of the water temp and it was a chilly 14 degrees. This was enough for us to look for warmer water elsewhere believing this could be why it was dead. Headed back towards Wangi point and the water temp lifted to 16 degrees, still cold but getting warmer. Still not a touch, not a fish to be seen in the crystal clear water. Throwing all different types of lures and getting zero. Hmmm. Headed further south to Western side Pulbar Island, up another one to 17 deg. Decided to anchor here and burley hard, throwing grubs and whatever else back into the trail. Still nothing, damn quiet. Baited my little baitcatching 4 pd handline with a piece of tuna on a small long shanked hood and thought id try and pick up a livie for later on. After e few minutes the hand rell was bouncing all over the deck, grabbed it and felt a heavy weight. What the hell ? Whatever it was it was winning the battle on 4 pd line with me using my fingers as a drag. Some minutes later my " livie " came on board pictued below. Shovel Nose Shark if im not mistaken, might even post it for a record. Not bad on a bitcatching rig, and quite unexpected. Good fun to catch thats for sure and lifted our spirits. Small peckers were the only takers up the burley trail after that so we headed further south again. This time to the Vales point area. The water here was at 20 deg some 6 degrees warmer than Swansea and there was plenty of life in the water. Tailor and Long tom could be seen chasing baitfish and we were hopefull of picking up some Flatties or Bream here. After a couple of drifts Oldmate is on. And after a very decent fight we boated this respectable Flattie, which went 56cm ans was very fat. Nice pb for oldmate. Drifted around this area for a couple of hours and managed 6 nice flatties between 43 and 56 cm, a nice little Bream at 28 cm, a Flounder and a number of Tailor. All fish went back to fight another day. Also had a few Long toms on but dropped em all. All fish taken here were on Gulps. Im a big fan of the Gulps. Stacks of flatties here, they were scooting around all over the place. Said to oldmate when we got there a wanted to actually see a Flattie take a lure in this clear water and my wish came true that day. The water is clear and only 1 meter deep, and on a retreaval that was nearly back to the boat I saw my lure and was watching it bounce on the bottom when a flattie came right up behind it. I had barely had time to say "theres a flattie behind my lure" when it engulfed it before my eyes and zzzzzzzzzz. No 3. Loved seeing that. Have to say I expected fish living in the Newcastle area need to know how to fight but damn the fish we caught this day went hard for thier size. The Bream I picked up went like a rocket and I was almost suprised to see it was under 30cm. Any one who says Flatties dont fight get you backside up to Lake Mac and check it out. The last Flattie old mate caught went 50cm and had 4 hard runs taking good drag each time. Caught plenty of Flatties in my time none going as hard as these. All fish were very fat and heakthy looking which helps. Ended up being a top day with 6 good Flatties and a legal Bream being the highlights of the fishing not to mention the Shovel Nose on a handline. Very happy with the result considering all reports about Lake Mac have have been very quiet, even the Waterways Officer on the lake said no one had fish, so we were stoked. Also very happy my motor was OK. Cheers

Bob Nice to have your input on these issues, and it will be interesting to see where this one goes.

I should have added that I fish mainly with lures but because my boat is a runabout style I tend to fish deeper water weedbanks holes and drop offs etc and try to bring the fish to me as opposed to chasing them under electric power style boats. I do this fishing for Bream as well and its worked well at times. And yes I know perhaps lure fishing and berlying is cheating but you gotta work with what ya got and I need all the help I can get

Talking about estuary fishing mainly, but when I berley I usually use a combo of bread, tuna oil and mashed fish, but it tends to and up being more of a bread thing than anything. This invariably attracts a lot of baitfish to the boat whether it be mullet or garfish or whatever. My question is does having your boat swarming with baitfish affect your fishing. Does it increase you chances of a good catch or work against you ?

Tough day Burnsy, I had pretty much the same routine but on Saturday, and got blown off the water about 11.00am. Can always find a few spots out of the wind its just getting there thats a pain. Picked up a couple of flatties as well and one lone Bream all on 3 in gulps near the Vales outlet.

I know we discuss this all the time but I though id throw another one up there. Its pretty obvious we all feel the same way about pro fishing and the need to protect our waterways from unsustainable pro fishing activities. I for one would like nothing else but to see pro's gone altogether, but - Although it is great in theory, is it a realistic expectation to think that pro's will some day be completely gone ? It seems every state in Australia has them as does most countries in the world, and an industry harvesting any kind of food would be hard pressed being totaly removed for any reason especially for rec fishing purposes. Maybe the blanket approach of 'all pro's gone' will simply be swept asside and seen as another unthinkable situation dreampt up be crackpots as far as the government is concerned. I see that lobbying for specific individual problems can be quite successfull (ie kingy traps) and other things like buying out certain pro licnences in certain areas as more of an achievable goal that will hopefully lead to their demise in the end. Writing letters to the minister shunning pro fisherman is all well and good and tells him our frustration with the whole pro thing, but I feel this type of approach wont lead to much, and it certainly wont get a response unless it deals with specific issues, and not just pro bashing propaganda which im sure the minister wont even read. My point is, stick to the facts and specific issues, dont rely on emotion and anger to win the battle. Lets pick out targets and hit them individualy on their merrits. Id hate to see such an important issue be turned into some out of control slugging match which has no winner. The way Iain picks his mark is fantasitic and always seems to get some sort of action or response because it is specific and factual. Like I said, I too would love to see them gone and see chipping away bit at a time as the best option, and taking small wins we can get them. Im not sure if this post makes any sense or not but its just my thoughts on how I like to deal with problems. If getting rig of them altogether is not an option, that lets send them to some remote isolated place no one wants to live in - like Victoria

GDAY Tim, No frills kinda boat, and pretty good construction. As Target said they are on the budget side, but you do get a pretty good boat for your money. Just dont pay top dollar for a second hand one. Id be more concerned about the motor.

Went for a fish around the mouth of the Hawkesbury on Saturday. Dont have much to report but here goes anyway. Not many boats out, I think the forecast was bad so most stayed home and missed a great morning anyway. We started out ok picking up a couple of nice Flatties at Hungry Beach on the old fav 3 in gulp, then moved over to Juno for the tide change. Started out ok here too as well picking up some choppers which went out on the big gear, and landed a nice Bream. Stayed there for a while hoping we would land a Jewie, which the boat next to us did, but couldnt coax one on to the livies. Put out some nice fresh squid which kept dissappearing with hookups. During this time I was having trouble getting lures or baits to the bottom chasing more Bream without getting whacked by choppers. The penny dropped as to where our squid was going anyway. As the tide turned the choppers were in plague proportions and made any type of bait fishing too hard and even lures were no good. I must have lost 6 or 7 jigheads to theses little buggers. Moved out to Lion Island but the wind was a pain, and so was the reef ooglies we were catching. Tried a few more spots as the wind picked up even more which made the bay pretty choppy, by about 3 oclock decided to head home. Must have landed 30 choppers for the day, but at least we got a couple of nice flatties and a bream which is better than nothing or sitting at home. How do you beat the choppers when there going nuts like they were ? Cheers

Nice Flattie mate, nice release too. Love to see the look on some peoples faces when you let those go.

Dont underate 2 strokes on outboards, they are made for it. Yes 4 strokes are quieter and smoother, but they have to work a lot harder as well, but this is often missunderstood because they are quiet. And with more moving parts are still open to problems. I wouldnt say one is prodominantly better than the other, they just have different good and bad points. Personall preferance I think. The new 2 strokes, Etec etc, are just as quiet and fuel efficient as four strokes but with the advantages of being a 2 stroke. My 50 Etec has been excellent so far.

When I switched to higher quality gear the biggest noticeable difference for me was the overall lightness of the outfit, which made casting all day a lot more pleasant and managable, as well as being able to cast light lures further than before. I Agree with LW about motor technology which plays an important role too. I will add though that the new two stroke technology will see them make a big comeback over the next 5 years. My Etec is unbelievably good in all areas. Without out doubt the biggest technology winner for me is the internet and sites like this, which allows you to learn and share valuable info which would otherwise have taken a lifetime to learn.

Did you see that Brown Hornet. Plastic licences. How can you possibly resist getting one now.

Thanks boys. The more laid back the better for me, ill check out the probream for starters. I fished last years Roseville day which was good but havent managed to make another since. Must try to get to some more of these. Just looking to have some fun but compete at the same time and improve my skill. Thanks once again

Hi all, Me and a mate are thinking of having a crack at the Bream comps down the track ( when we get a bit better ) and I was wondering if anyone can answer some questions. Do you need to be an ABT member for ALL bream comps or some open ? What is the format for a comp ? ie do you fish as a team or individuals ? I have seen the boater / non boater classification used in ABT COMPS. Can a boater choose a partner or is this selected by the comp organisers. Obviously as a newbie going in as either, it might be a bit intimidating with a stranger perhaps. Are there team events out there, Swoffa's post looked like that I think ? I know we would feel more comfortable starting out fishing these comps together. Is there a listing of comps available ? Thanks in advance Cheers

Certainly hasn't been kind to you Jethro. Hopefully you will crack it their soon. I know there is bigguns in their somewhere.

I noticed that Terrigal Lagoon was also open on the weekend which is good. Suppose the same effect happens in here cause it was very low. Nice work on the Sambo's

Great advice so far.Just to add a bit. Be wary of buying private where no service history can be produced for the engine. If you purchase from a dealer get a warranty and check the log books too. Dont buy someone elses trouble, take your time and check things thoroughly as described. Have fun