cruisecraft

June 4, 2023

Great video report and thanks for sharing.

Regards Kit

June 4, 2023

Wow, Wow, Wow, Great to read the report and see fish from the other side of the world. Thank you for sharing

Regards Kit

January 31, 2023

Well Done. Beautiful pics and great report. Thanks for sharing.

Regards Kit

January 28, 2023

Nice dollies. I used to fish both the Botany and South Sydney FADs from about 2005 till 2015. After that time, too many fishos and spearos were there on the weekends and I stopped going, as it was a waste of fuel, time and effort and I didn't like some of the agro that was starting at the FADs. I couldn't go weekdays like you did, due to my work.

There are plenty of other options around the Port Hacking and South of the Hacking.

Well done on your catch. Cheers

January 22, 2023

8 hours ago, big Neil said:

Good report and photos of a successful few days. I was going to ask was the Salmon an escapee from a hatchery. Fairly warm water for the comfort of those species... bn

Hi Neil,

We spoke with Mitch, the hatchery manager, who said he had released salmon into the lake in the last 3-4 months. Patrick and Mitch are mates. We also had the "grand tour' of the hatchery with Mitch.

January 21, 2023

Hi Raiders,

I did a short trip to the Snowies last week and caught some trout. My mate, Patrick, caught a nice 74cm Atlantic salmon but he did not want to appear in the photo here. We fished the Thredbo river on the 12th and Rainbow lake on the 13th. Fishing was difficult both days as the fish were finicky. The temperature got up to around 30C on both days. I drew first blood with my 42cm brown in the morning, just downriver from Paddy's corner with a Rapala jointed lure and Patrick had the salmon on a celta in the same area around noon.

This is me with Dusty, Patrick's blue heeler, who is very interested in the salmon. The water temperature was about 23C in the river.

We fished the Diggings in the late afternoon but there was too much disturbance from the many campers in the area. 2 went past us on stand up paddle boards whilst we were casting some 500 meters up river from the camp grounds. We called it a day after that.

The next day, we fished Rainbow lake, and caught 2 trout each but we released them as we had enough fish from the 12th. Mine were on a pink Tassie devil, Pat had one on a dry fly and one on a celta.

We also had some beautiful yabbies from the 2 dams on the property we were at.

Regards Kit

ps the salmon would have been a release from Gadens

December 28, 2022

On 12/27/2022 at 9:11 PM, Larkin said:

Hit up the flathead drift - plenty of good sized fish where we were, only thing the current was 3-4klm/h and we pretty much had half a minute of drop to hook a fish before the drift lifted our baits - even with heavy sinkers

Try a sea anchor to slow the drift

December 8, 2022

23 hours ago, bessell1955 said:

Great fish, how well did it eat?

20 hours ago, Houdini said:

Great catches there Kit.

How did your wife prepare the "sashimi" trout?

It looks partially cooked is that right?

The section we kept was about a 7cm cross section slice of the fish at the belly. The belly part(otoro) was sashimied and the upper part of the fish was pan fried but only cooked with the skin side down so it is crispy but the flesh a bit under cooked so the meat was moist and juicy. It was coated with some salt and pepper prior to cooking. It was great eating, yum

10 hours ago, Volitan said:

Great fish and something I’d love to do too.

I’ve heard that those salmon farms will be moved soon. Did you hear that?

That's news to me. Those canal trout are monsters.

December 7, 2022

Hi Raiders,

I went to New Zealand for 4 weeks and managed to fish both islands for 3 days. My big fishing day was supposed to be from a charter out of Whitianga for "kungfish"(kiwi for kingfish), but it was cancelled due to strong winds. Anyway I had bought a new travel rod from that 3 alphabet shop, to fit in the luggage and took 2 reels and a few lures for trout fishing with me if the opportunity presented. Needless to say, I managed to create opportunities on those 3 days .

For non residents, the fresh water fishing licence fee for a day is NZ$35, easily done online but it is very important to read the local regulations carefully as there are many different rules for different places.

I had heard about hydro canal fishing for trout in the South Island, and tales that the trout are monster size. My first spot was at Tekapo canal near the salmon farms about mid morning. Due to the excess feed from the salmon farming that makes its way through the netting and into the waters of the canal, the trout in the canals are huge. Unfortunately, this spot near the salmon farm was unproductive that session. We(wife/me) went off to do some sight seeing for the rest of the day. After an early dinner, at about 7pm I headed back to Tekapo canal but closer to Tekapo A power station. This time, I could see some trout jumping out of the water as well as cruising about, just metres away. around 8pm , I heard that beautiful sound, zzzzzzzzzzz from my reel. I knew it was a good fish and 20mins later, a 72cm, 5.5kg rainbow was landed.

Without a landing net and in the excitement of landing the trout onto the bank of the canal, I broke the rod tip of the new travel rod. But I didn't feel any pain from the damage, as it was all smiles from me for a very, very long time.

The lure was a 7cm jointed Rapala

The next night, my wife put this on for dinner and with some Central Otago pinot, it was a top meal.

Oh, after we caught the trout, we gave most of it away to a German couple(tourists) fishing nearby, as it was too much food for us.

The next morning about 8am, I was back at the same spot, with the same lure and on the 2nd cast, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. That beautiful sound again . This fish was much bigger, it took > 200 yards of line and and it was smart. It swam into the middle of the canal and used the flow of the current to assist itself. After about 20 mins, hardly getting any line back and the drag nearly on lock, the hooks pulled. However I was not upset as I was still on a high, and I would have released the catch anyway. It was a top experience fishing the hydro canal at Tekapo.

Later in the holiday when we were at Wanaka, I checked out Deans Bank. This spot is the Mecca for fly fishers, and it is about 3 km of fly fishing heaven. Closer to Albert Town Bridge, there is a 600m zone for spin fishing which I did do but I did not have any hits or follows. I also did not see any trout at Deans Bank orat the spin area.

At Whitianga, after the kungfish trip was cancelled, I went to the Whangamaroro river and tried my luck there. Driving up 309 road, yes that is the actual name, and most of it is gravel, we pulled into Gamers Hole reserve and fished 2 of the pools there. I had many hits with hookups but only landed the one 35cm rainbow trout. I believe this was due to my rod being shorter and losing that vital extra flexibility of the tip and letting the fish throw the lure due to the stiffer rod tip. One of the fish lost was probably about 50cm visually

I threw this one onto the BBQ hotplate at the park.

New Zealand is a great place for a holiday and for a fish. People there are friendly and polite.

Cheers

Regards Kit

ps The first photo was taken close to darkness and hence the wife's camera work can be forgiven as part of the fish is missing

December 7, 2022

Wow, Wow, Wow.

Thanks for sharing, some great fish there.

August 26, 2022

Thanks fellow raiders for the good wishes. Yes, the catch and release policy does help to preserve their existing stocks, but the lodge is allowed to keep fish that is consumed onsite as per their agreement with the local community. As the kitchen had sufficient supply, all of my catch was released.

Regards Kit

August 20, 2022

7 hours ago, LuckyFil said:

Was there an opportunity to do any blue water fishing from the lodge?

Fil

Hi Fil,

You discuss with the guide at dinner the night before, as to what you would like to target. He would advise you depending on the weather, the time of year and what was biting. In early May, generally the target will be barras, the guide said Oct/Nov for blue water as the seas are calmer then.

Regards KIt

August 19, 2022

Hi Raiders,

I shouted myself a retirement present in May, after 40 years of working by booking a barra fishing trip to Melville Island. The only way to fish the Tiwi islands is with one of the 2 fishing lodges based there.

I went to Melville Island for 2 days of solid fishing. The lodge accommodation is clean and of 3 star standard but the onsite food is excellent. There is only 1 room with an ensuite and the rest of the rooms have access to shared bathrooms and toilets in each block. Air conditioning is available in all the rooms. Telstra reception works on the island.

I flew from Darwin airport with Air Frontier and it took ~30 mins to get to Milikapiti runway. My ride to the lodge soon arrived and in it were a happy group of anglers who were leaving soon on the Air Frontier plane back to Darwin.

After a 5-10min ride into town, we reached the lodge where I met more happy anglers. At dinner, I met my guide, Wayne, as well as heard some tales of the day's adventures from fellow fishos.

The next day started with brekkie at 6.30am for a 7am start. The aluminium boat used was about 24 feet and was a centre console with a forward casting platform. The boat is readied at the lodge and I was beckoned to board the boat which was already hitched to a Toyota and the whole setup was driven to the boat ramp which is about 5 mins away. Return was 4pm

After launching, the boat headed in a north easterly direction initially and then followed the coast to the next inlet which was Snake Creek about 40mins away. The centre console had sideway sonar fish finders which were excellent at seeing barra against the banks. Casting was with bait casters, and hard body lures as well as soft plastics were used. Even though the barras could be easily seen on the sonar, enticing them to strike was not easy. The change of tide at about 10am seem to switch the fish on and I was finally getting hits. On both days, about 10 fish a day was boated and released on Snake Creek(the Tiwi is a catch and release fishery).

Further up river, the water is fresh and clear and lily pads abound, and this is saratoga territory and it was the white soft plastic frogs that did the damage. Whereas down river, the water is muddy and both soft plastics and hard bodies worked. The hits from both barra and togas was awesome, the togas especially as the lure was swimming on the surface. Many a lure were hit but alot did not stick.

The staff at the lodge were great and the guiding excellent. Thanks Wayne.

Biggest barra was ~80cm and toga ~55cm. Here's a sample of some fish boated.

Regards Kit

April 9, 2022

50 minutes ago, Pickles said:

Great report @cruisecraft, nothing better than a feed of crabs or prawns. Hope you’re getting better weather than here in NSW. Thanks for sharing.

13 minutes ago, Blackfish said:

Great report CC, fresh Blue Swimmers are my favourite and it certainly looks a fun way of getting them to.

Hope the rest of your trip goes equally well.

Hi Pickles and Blackfish,

I live in Sydney, I was away for 3 weeks only, and since return , it has been wet. Weather in SA was great at that time.

Thanks for viewing and replying.

Regards Kit

April 9, 2022

Hi Fishraiders,

We were doing a road trip to South Australia in March, just as the Big Wet was happening on the East Coast. I had always wanted to catch blue swimmers by raking, ever since I heard about it from a friend and with this SA trip planned, I factored it into our trip. Our base was a caravan park at Ardrossan, for 3 nights. By the time we got there, it was late afternoon, so we went down to the jetty to observe the locals, who were using traps with baits.

Next morning, after buying fish heads for bait from the local hardware store, we went down to the jetty for 2 hours. The results were poor, as it was mostly undersized sand crabs and only one legal blue swimmer. The pots were free to loan from the caravan park.

Later that day, at low tide, we waded out at Tiddy Widdy beach, just 1 km north of Ardrossan, in our gumboots with the loan gear for raking from the caravan park. The equipment was a black tub with a blue carapace measure for the blue swimmers and 2 garden rakes. These were also free to loan from the caravan park. Within 2 hours, we had plenty of blue swimmers and threw back the smaller legal ones. The limit is 20 blue swimmers per day per person and no requirement for a fishing licence in SA for recreational fishos. Raking was fun and easy and my wife had a great time too, as it was her first time crabbing. The crabs cling onto the prongs of the rake and by flipping the rake so the crab is topside, they usually stay on long enough to flick into the tub

The caravan park provides an outdoor cooking area with free gas cooker and huge pot for the cooking of the crabs, so as to keep the cabins free of fish odour.

Fresh blue swimmers are delicious. Needless to say, we had crab for dinner, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Luckily no gout 😁

Regards Kit

September 7, 2016

When I was in Japan, I was treated to one of Kyoto's seasonal delicacies. It came out after a range of dishes, including sashimi, raw squid, etc etc etc. As it was being served in a warm 'lemon' I figured it was some kind of dessert type dish. Strange texture and not a terribly pleasant flavour, but rather than be rude, I ate it all. An English speaking waitress/server explained to me (after I had finished the dish) that it was the sperm sacs of cod. Well, that killed my appetite for anything else and I couldn't wait to get back to the room and rinse my mouth. Yeah, roe and sperm sacs are best eaten by ............. someone else.

Once upon a time, Calamari was only used for bait and now it is top tucker. You never never know sperm sac and fish roe might just catch on . In fact lots of sushi places serve salmon roe, so thats caught on already.

Regards Kit

Well Done Yowie

January 27, 2016

Well done Adam on the 80cm model. Yes Farvos, yakkas have been hard to come by this summer probably because a red "trawler" has been parked out the front of Cronulla near Shark Is and scooping up all the bait fish(yellow tails) for I guess commercial long liners. I normally easily get ~ a dozen in an hour in past summers but spent 4 hours of hard burleying on saturday 16/1 for a measley 2 yakkas. Tons of mados though.

Regards Kit

January 23, 2016

Well done boys! Groper was this just recently, didn't know you could score blue fin tuna in summer in Tassie. Also off Sydney we get blue eye at ~400m, in Tassie what depths are the blue eyes at. Many thanks for the post , what a great country we live in.

Regards Kit

December 4, 2015

I was once on a mate's boat and pulled up an ocy which was lightly hooked. As I tried to dehooked it with my mate's new pair of heavy duty polished stainless steel pliers, the occy grabs the pliers and proceeds to head towards my hand which instinctively lets go of the pliers and all(Occy/pliers) drops into the water. Expensive lesson learnt that day, cut the line next time.

Regards Kit

July 31, 2015

Headed out this morning at 7 to fish the run out tide for some sashimi to cut up for dinner. Rugged up and arrived on location and began burleying up. Since the water is cooler and the fish are more timid, I just fished 4lb today to give me the best chance possible.

The usual nuisance fish turned up stealing baits but managed to pick off 4 bream in quick time ranging between 25-29 which were all released as I was after sashimi.

After ALOT of burl eying I finally started getting the distinctive Trev bites. A few baits later the line went tight and the drag was buzzing. Dodged around a couple of pylons and shortly after a nice Trev going 36 cm was in the esky.

The next trevally got me by surprise, I was curbing up some baits when the drag screamed off and I turned to see my rod off the ground and balanced on the railing. Ran over and it was another Trev going 36cm as well.

The Pickers were doing there thing and I was contemplating leaving when the line went tight again and another Trev came in going 34cm.

With the sashimi in the bag I burleyed up a lot of pillys and left 2 more to finish the session. On the very last cube, I casted it out and it Began sinking slowly when the line started flying off the reel. Closed the bail and at first I thought it was just another Trev, but then it really took off and my mind shifted to either salmon or king. I went very lightly on it to put minimal pressure on the 4lb leader and was trying to guide the fish, 5 minutes in to the fight I was pretty sure I was onto a king as it didn't come up in the water column once and kept going on blistering runs down deep. I was following it all over the place trying to keep it away from structure but eventually the leader gave way somehow.....would have been nice to get a look but that's fishing. Left right after that with 3 nice trevs for some sashimi later tonight.

image.jpg

Trevally sashimi is one of my favorite . Well done Krispy .

Regards Kit

July 19, 2014

We were out north of heatons in 500 Fa on Thursday.

Heard marine rescue talking to some sailboat that said the wind was going to blow up in the late afternoon. The thing is when we checked the forcast in the morning on willy and seabreeze the forcast was for 15-20Konts which is quite fishable in our boat.

To cut a long story short it was very quite with only one yellow fin caught near us and a very wet and rough ride home.

One of the crew has damaged his ribs and five of us were pretty sore wet and sorry when we got back to pittwater .

Hi GH1952,

Glad to hear you were in a 36 blackwatch when you are in a 20 knot wind coming in from north of Heatons. Seabreeze and Willy weather forecast is really only good for inshore fishing and even then it is not always reliable. For Blue water fishing use the BOM marine wind forecast for offshore marine wind forecast as it is more reliable, this is the address

http://www.bom.gov.au/marine/wind.shtml?unit=p0&location=nsw-syd&tz=AEDT

Regards Kit

March 14, 2014

Also saw a small turtle cruising the shallows, less than half a metre across the shell.

Dave.

Hi Dave,

That's probably the turtle that is usually resident in Burraneer Bay. I have seen it several occasions last 2 years.

Regards Kit

June 14, 2013

Gotta love those Rapalas, they are consistently awesome performers. I have caught quite a few with them.

Congrats on a successful weekend in difficult conditions.

That is a healthy brown you have there also, what did it come in at?

Hi Jewstalker,

That brown was caught by Pat. I am uncertain what that fish measured at. The fast and dirty water caused by the rain meant the trout were holding on the edges of the river, so our strategy was to cast into the middle of the river and then let the the rapalas work its way to the edge and once it was there, we did a very slow spin of the reel. The water was so dirty that some fish were caught only a metre or two away from us.

Regards Kit

June 12, 2013

That' a superb fish on fly.Well done.

Regards Kit

Ps nice balancing act with the fly rod

June 12, 2013

Hi all,

I went down to Jindabyne on Friday 31st May till Sunday 2nd June. Fished the Threbdo and Lake Jindabyne. It rained everyday I was there but the rain was light during the day and heavy at night. The river was flowing very fast and the water too dirty to flyfish. On the Sat, the river level was threatening to overflow the banks but it receded very quickly. All fishing was with spin reel and rapalla lures. I managed 3 browns and 1 rainbow.

My mate, Pat(Dragemout), was also fishing the river and at this one spot managed 3 fish with 6 casts. This was the biggest of the 3. .

He's the guru of the Thredbo river.

Regards Kit

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