djmac

The Pin Rig that magoo has shown works well. you can use a paper clip as the pin but what he has shown is the skipping gar pin rig. like warnie has said you need to get it weighted at the head for it to be a swim gar. what you can do on a pin rig is when you are feeding your tag end back through the crimp you can give it a bit of tail thread a ball sinker onto the tag end then another crimp to lock it in place. good hooks to use are the SL12s or Owner Long shanks for these rigs. dont use a stinger hook as it will make the bait spin out of control. makes a big difference in swimming them to break the backbone and give them a little squeeze so some of the flesh comes away from the bones too. Col

Hey Chris, the pros always hit that section pretty hard which would not help things. also see alot of heavy boat traffic around there on weekends.. have a look at the water quality too. for some reason box seems to cop tidal flow from brissy waters and from the hawkesbury. water is always green and nasty. on the edges of west head and the joey its crystal most of the time.. pittwater is very dead at the moment also with all the harbour pros being in there. p.s. box isnt always dead we had a good session a couple of weeks back after being out wide we came in across a bait ball jsut off the head. we then had some great fun on 2 and 4kg and caught and released (and got busted off a few times ) by about 8 bronzies up to about 20kgs. Col

interclub is always full on hey its all good fun though last year i fished we stayed in the car park area never again..... had 1 fish run over etc...was just a shit fight PFT will be good fun. i fished it last year in my old boat frenzy (seafarer viking 5.5m) nearly got run over by hatterascal on the way out one day, that was interesting... i was cruising out at 18 knots, they must have been on auto pilot and not seen us. i look behind us and tehy get closer closer closer shit i have to move... shell harbour should be a good one weather pending, hope its good for ya. seems to be a fair few fish down there at the moment. im pretty free until the interclub which is good. probably a couple of days fishing here and there but nothing too hectic. would have liked to do the PFT again but unfortunately had to sell the boat earlier this year and didnt know anyone else keen to do it. just hope all the mexicans arent there at the same time again with there portable freezers farming the car park as they do....bastards....

Gday Warnie, pretty frustrating weekend. saturday within 5mins of start fishing we had a livey crushed. thought we were in for a good one. started switching and raised one pretty quickly on the teasers . switched him onto a bait and we gave some time to get it down only to have him spit it. had a nice mahi up on the teaser short time after but it wouldnt switch. Sunday we found the same bait and after a few hours of everyone hooking up around us. and thinking what the hell are we doing different we finally pinned a stripe on a deep bait on 15 and realised it wasnt going to weigh (was about 70 i think)so it swam off 15mins later sporting a nice red piercing. started to head back to sydney and put a spread out and had a big stripe come up on the short rigger but it wouldnt eat (by then we didnt have any baits left to pitch either) that was pretty much it for the weekend. thats fishing though! was first time i had fished in a tournament on a capture boat so i learnt a fair bit which was good. bring on the interclub...

ill be there. fishing on a broken bay boat "true blue" 35ft bertie looking forward too it. lets hope the fish are still around! Col

badluck Dave. sounds like a good day out besides the weather. and the lost fish of course!! when you have alot of line out you need to back that drag off as water pressure increases on the line. this is why we fish strike at 1/3 drag as you have a bargaining point for some situations. the more line out the more pressure and the more bow in the line you will get. when you have out as much as you said you end up in a bit of a conumdrum. especially in rough weather. if you back off the line may not break but you may not be able to stop the brute. time to run a few 80s dave :) I normally start to reduce drag pressure if we have a fish more than say 250-300 out. ill drop it a bit away from strike (ive got marks on the reels for ppl to drop too) then the more out the more i drop it. could have definetly been a big blue. its not uncommon for fish not to jump at all. not uncommon for them to dog it out down deep too blues love to do that. normally if it is your double that has gone you will have some bent line. like you say the line could have had a weak point. unfortunately this is gamefishing. they will find your weak points everytime. this is i guess why we all spend countless hours checking and rechecking our gear and making sure its all ship shape. even when it is all solid sometimes things happen. we had one fish we lost what we think is due to the plait knot making a bubble trail, a wahoo came and tried to eat it. game over. i would honestly put it down to your drag being at strike still and possibly a weak point in the line. good to hear you guys saw a few though. warnie will have some better info to add im a bit sunstroked i think from a day of zzzeroessss Col

nice rig mate. it will serve you well. just watch as they like to dip their nose a little at troll speed. so make sure your clears are in good order or you get the occasional one in the lap. good to wake you up. few trips out and playing with the trim and you will have it sorted. unbelievable boat in a following sea though some days weve been out im glad i was in a seafarer! i just sold my viking miss it already! Col

Ross, thanks for the update mate. sounds like you guys are having some fun. i hope they stay around for the lake mac tourney next weekend Col

last years comp im pretty sure a 30ft blackwatch went over. can be a hectic place if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time.

warnie that doesnt sound good mate... so its basically stained the hull?? i wonder what would/could cause that? you would think it would have to be a pretty major chemical imbalance to do such a thing. wonder if something had got pumped into or flooded into the river or something? ive never heard anything like that before mate. let us know how you go with it hey. i hope it comes off eventually! did it stain the legs or prop also?

Bob, cheers for that bit of history. certainly is very interesting! i love the idea of the percussion cap too, as you always have those spells where people are zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz haha that is so thoughtful of you warnie did you guys get anything at all up there? we usually head up around the same time. but chose not to go up this time. think im glad we gave it a miss. you must have been ready to strangle someone up there. i hope this weather clears up before the lake mac tournie...

thanks for clearing it up. with livebaiting, skipbaiting etc i used blacks clips on my riggers little less complicated these clips along with the ones you have shown are popular with baiters because it gives you a drop back system. obviously you want the fish to get the bait down instead of a strike on a lure being pretty much straight pressure (hence why we use tag lines). you want them to swim up take your bait and feel no restriction. otherwise they will spit it back out if its not right. you can also take off the reel how much line you want to give the fish to get it down. then set it in the clip so its tight. clip opens and you have that dropback of line for it take before its direct with the reel whether its in strike or freespool. its not uncommon to run these clips flat on the transom for y our flat lines using the clip to run a drop back system for y our live baits/skipbaits on your corners. they take the bait. the clip opens up, the reels in freespool count away and up the drag and let the circle find its mark. fish on! p.s. warnie did you bring the weather back from swr with you??? Col

they do look uhh interesting. my guess would be the small metal clip down the bottom is where you put the line through and springs out under tension and the nob between it sets the tension? then i would assume you would put the outrigger line through the hole at the top but then whats the round thing for!?!

nice fish mate. roddy told me you guys got a few. well done

well done mate. nice fish. looks very skinny though! with all that bait around it should be packin on the kgs! i was out in one of those 6m boats and it wasnt particulary comfy! i kept spilling my mango daquiri we went 1-1-0 after the short corner got eaten the fish decided to look at the long rigger and the lines touched and say goodbye. thats what we get for running 8kg i guess! hopefully theres alot more to come! Col

mate to be honest i wouldnt take the risk. where you use this protective layer is a high point of risk of chafe and or breakage. with gamefish they will find your weakpoints in your gear very very quickly. i know before every trip out i check and recheck and check my gear some more extremely thoroughly before i go. just to prevent it all going sour. i actually enjoy going through all the gear! but i wouldnt compromise a maybe once in a life time fish if it jumps on for the sake of saving a couple of bucks on an armour spring. as we all know gamefishing is at the expensive end of the fishing ladder, may as well spend that little extra for peace of mind Col

hey mate, theres been a fair few garries around. spots to try would be near the wharf ferry wharf at wagstaff or near the marina on the edge of the sandbar near pelican island. out at ladders(box head) the usual livey side usually has a bunch of garries theres been a fair few nice bream around i nailed one about 39cm to the fork on bread while fishing for mullet. was interesting fun on a handline.

welcome to gamefishing mate it took me 145 hours of trolling for my first marlin. mind you that was out of broken bay and i could have gone to places like port etc and probbaly cracked the duck first thing livebaiting. we were out every weekend back then and it sure did hurt the wallet but theres nothing better being out there. the fish are a bonus. the first one is always the hardest then it gets easier and you will start to realise what tactic you should employ when. hopefully your next trip will be the one! Col

as warnie has said pvc pipe makes great tubes. specially that you can make them portable. as we all know you tend to run out of space pretty quickly in a trailerboat. if you want to look the part go have a word to a local welder. i got a row of 2 slimey size and 2 tuna sized tubes made up for around $150. they were perfect and sat on the front of my engine well under my cutting board. no need to spend $700 on the reelax ones. hell thats another tiagra right there! Col

try a little less rope mate. the more rope you have out the more you will swing as you arent as direct on the anchor. basically drop the anchor and get enough rope to get to the bottom and secure your boat. then try 2 or 3 handfuls of rope extra. certain conditions will require more rope out etc. you will learn this over time with experience. just be careful sometimes on a short amount of rope you are more prone to pull anchor. so keep an eye out. Col

no bananas not even banana boat sunscreen!#!$!@ we do the coin on the way back though. saying thanks for letting us come home....maybe thats why we dont catch any fish, thinks we are tight arses. being hours between bites we go through a fair bit of music and have our routine. when drifting for sharks or cubing. the first cd that goes on everytime is dueling banjos, it then gets repeated until we cant bear it anymore. and out of the heads we usually have the star wars opening theme going trolling we always start with some heavy metal or full on techno. get some bass moving to raise some fish! whoever falls asleep first makes lunch!!! oh and if its your first time out on the boat. you have to taste test the livies. with a small amount filleted and prepped as sashimi (it actually tastes very nice) so we arent cruel but ive had a few ppl freak out before.

nice red mate. had heard theres a few threshers around. would be good to pin a big one of those. Col

i think you will see a few rat kings if that at this time of year.... best to wait a while!

congrats on the fin. good stuff. you will be in the clouds for the next couple of weeks then you will wanna sell your own family just to get another trip out for another shot at em! steve mate your riggers look a little bit too low angle in those pics? a higher point allows you to get the leader out of the water which will give them a bit better action. just an observation. still obviously worked tho eh Col

badluck mate but sounds like a good day out. doesnt sound particulary friendly of the other raider, would have been great if you went that way and got some quality fish. there have been some good fin and albies taken south so it wasnt all bad advice. when youve got a bill around like that. it pays to have a bridled yakka at the ready to pitch to him if hes not eating. or at least give the lure hes following a bit more action and sometimes they will bite. happens alot with striped marlin. fussy buggers Col