Marlin01

PAGARUS PROPELLERLESS It looks very healthy otherwise. Marlin

I have run a stainless pickup mounted to the bottom of my external live bait pump for 20yrs and it works great. . I don't get how the scoop is a hazard if the pump fails. Won't the water just flow into the live bait tank and overflow out the external overflow? I also run a tee piece and a set of valves before the live bait tank and I use the other leg to feed a low pressure deck hose, certainly comes in handy for keeping the boat tidy and much less baked on smuck when washing at he ramp! Cheers Marlin

Sounds like a good day, Swansea is fishing better than ever!

Years ago my mate and I were in the local Ansa club and fishing the Newcastle/ Port Stephens convention at Fingal. Day 1 my mate Nicho caught a monster pig on 2kg of 3kgs, an awesome capture from the area we came o know as The Bay of Pigs. I managed a couple of poultry pigs upto 1.3kg on 1kg line. Back we go for day 2 and late in the arvo I fight a pig on 1kg for 20 plus minutes, after burying me a couple of times and some blistering runs I worked him up to the net and on board he comes. He looks a fair lump and we call him for 2.5+ kgs. Back at the weigh in and he comes in at 3.2kgs on 1kg. Something I'll never forget. Later that night he was converted to pig burgers with a bit of aoli and cooked onion along with a few cold ales and company of good freinds. He was good enough to win that section and a few others and is certainly a capture I'll never forget. Marlin

The Mackeral were spotties no Spanish around as of our arrival, current picked up to the north so the water should get better especially with a day of southerly breeze so bait might improve. Caught a few mullet thisarvo interested to see ho they go on the spotties. Stand by :-) Marlin

Krispy, I'm up there at the moment so I can say there are a few Mackeral around (we got ten today) along with cobia and good bottom fishing. Live bait is extremely hard to find but every slimy you catch will get you a mackeral bite. Grassy middle ground appears to be where the majority of fish are ( mackeral ). This is a general area of reef in 30-35m east of grassy head. Off the jail is a reef in 11 fathoms which has had a few cobes on it. Fish rock had a few wahoo and yellowfin for the trollers. Good luck. Marli 01

No pics Saving all the photo opportunities for SWR next week (I hope). Marlin

Fished off Norah Head on Sunday cause the weather was looking ordinary on the shelf. Slow start saw a snapper every 20 minutes along with a few bonitos to 4.5 kgs then hit a good patch of nice trag which topped the box up nicely. Moved out to the flatty drift for a pretty good bite but fairly small flatties, scraped a good bag of legals together to finish the day nicely . Finished with 10 reds, 10 trag and 20 flatsculls so should feed the family ok. ( they CAN eat some fish). Cheers Marlin01

Top Mackeral, nice to hear of a few spotties as well. How was the bait situation up there? Marlin

Just to weigh in as it were, we have tried rinsing fish in both salt and fresh water and noticed very little difference in the finished product. I will point out that both rinses were chilled with fresh water ice. The is the point I would make clear is that we process (fillet skin and bone) each fish one at a time to prevent temp rise. We have definitively noticed a drop in fillet quality when certain fish (especially soft fleshed fish like Mackeral and dollies) are kept in an salt water fresh ice slurry. We vacuum pack all our fish we intend to freeze and this is awesome in ensuring fish quality up to 12 mths after capture. I clean and eat a lot of fish and have never noticed an offensive odur from any fresh fish, all of which have been kept well chilled on lots of ice (I bought a 150kg a day ice machine). It certainly is incredible how many fish you see kept with little or no ice especially when holidaying on the North coast (SWR). All the money these anglers spend on boats, tackle and fuel and won't splurge $20 for a few bags of ice. I certainly find it almost humorous especially the blokes with big dollies or marlin laying on the deck with no cooling applied at all, not even a wet towel and then they say the flesh is all grey and mushy, SURPRISE. Anyhow like beer, fish need ice and lots of it IMHO. Cheers Marlin

That's the sort of ugly you can luv! Congrats Marlin

I would say no more than 6m behind the boat making the assumption you are talking about a witch doctor type teaser. Make sure you set a lure just behind and to the side of the teaser. Good luck Marlin

Soft spots in the transom, normally i.d. with simply tapping the transom, springy floor can be floor alone but is normally a sign of springer rot, very nasty. Re the nautiglass in particular I suggest taking for a ride in a bit of slop and you'll soon know if it's heavy or not. Failing that chase up some support when having a look at a prospective boat. I'm happy to help with anything around Newcastle. Cheers Marlin

Stiffy, Nautiglass were a reasonable shaped boat that seemed to have some inconsistencies with production qualities. I had a mate that fished hard for marlin out of his 4.5M nautiglass in some very ordinary weather. We spent a lot of time grassing up splits and stress cracks in that hull but it never had any catastrophic failures despite being used well beyond its intended design. That particular boat was very thin in glass thickness, in fact when washing the boat you could see the hand of the person washing the boat outside from the inside which earned it the nicknames "nastyglass" and "noglass". Another family freind had a later model 4.5 and it was a much better built boat being much heavier, saying that he now has a 16R Haines which rides much better but is a little tender at rest. So I would suggest that the boat be inspected by someone who knows a bit about boats ensuring you get the most boat for your boat. Cheers Marlin

The best spot to catch Yakkas would be just outside Swansea Heads, directly East of the coastal patrol on top of the headland, very hard to secure regularly otherwise. Mullet are a good option that can be caught in most of the mouths of the shallow creeks in the area by either a bait trap or line fishing. If line fishing you could also consider catching garfish as they also are an excellent live bait although less hardy. Berley with a mesh bag of bread and float fish in your berley. Belmont bay near the baths is a good area for gars along with the cold tea creek channel. Most of the wrecks or reefs you will fish with your live baits will also hold some bait, yakkas, tailor (legal length of coarse) and herring which can all be used for live baits also. Cheers Marlin

Poacher, I'm up there from the 12th to the 27th so might see you up there. The fish at Christmas were tha best size I have seen that time of year at 4kgs plus so hopefully they'll all be 6kg plus monsters. We have found that traces around 1/2 metre long work better than really short traces, I assume this means the swivel is not as distracting as on a real short trace hence a better bite rate. I would agree the Mackeral are as good as it gets in mid Nsw or nearly anyway. No giant red emporer or coral trout round these parts. A colleague at work has a holiday house at hat head and said today he spun up a couple of cobes and landed a heap of bream and snapper on bait last week fishing off the stones ( in the pouring rain) so a glimmer of hope already. Cheers Marlin

Hi Poacher, We tend to use single strand wire to the first hook and multi strand to the tailing hook. Heavier wire is great if you can get a bite but the lighter the wire, the more bites you will normally get so it winds up being a trade off between landing one or two Spanish or six or seven spotties. As said you will normally have to change rigs after each fish even with spotties. Earlier this year we caught a good bag of spotties but only after going back down to 27lb wire on one rod and 38lb on the other, the lighter rod got 8 of the 10 spotties and we started fishing with 57lb wire with no bites whilst marking fish regularly. The multi strand lets the bait swim a little better and also swing the loose hook into the fish regardless of the hook in the fishes mouth? We also swim garfish and pillies on ganged hooks with no wire when the fish are very shy, results in more hookups and very few bite offs. Most of our rigs are from 58lb down to 27lb wire and always have a heap pre produced, I am heading back in April and currently have 60 rigs prefabbed ready to go. I will be interested to see how the red tube goes. Can't quite see your twists properly but you need at least seven super tight twists to be safe. A haywire twist tool is invaluable for rigging and saves a heap of punctures and strains to your fingers and hands. All we need now is some clearer water. Cheers Marlin

Bluefin, I don't get arches so much but big fish like Mackeral and marlin are quite distinct soundings, sort of tapered each end with marlin tails sometimes showing up like tails on the end. You'll know them when you see them. Marlin01

Nice red Butch, payoff for an early start. Did you catch the trag in the same spot which I assume is fairly shallow (no lead). Cheers Marlin01

Great footage (especially for back then) and nice tackle test for the 8000. Cheers Marlin

Interesting topic and one I have a bit of first hand experience with as my family (including extended family ie.Mil and FIL ) love fish so I like to keep a fair amount of what I catch. I kryovak what we don't eat fresh and it is as good as fresh for months. Not to say I don't release some fish (which is treated by some as a near criminal offence) but I am certainly not adverse to keeping a good feed. Last week I fished with a mate on the mid north coast and we got a feed, (10) spotted Mackeral with four people on board. The fish were iki jimed, bled and placed on ice ASAP. Whilst cleaning the fish a do gooder related that we had an excessive amount of fish. Upon reflection I choose to inform him he was ill informed and unaware of the circumstances relating to the distribution of the fish which were to be split three ways. I had travelled several hours to fish this one day and my freind was going home the next day (after a two week stay) and had been fishing for billfish primarily as such was keen for a few fish to take home. The dogooder started ranting about how tourists were wrecking the place and how he used to be able to catch boxes of mackeral some years earlier (thereby shooting himself in the foot and voiding any credibility he may have had). Two weeks on and I've got 5 meal sized bags remaining which will be gone in a month at this rate. I used to fish with a guy who is a well known fishing show presenter who had a thing about releasing all marlin and would carry on like a goose if ha saw a beaky being butchered at the ramp. The same guy has probably done more harm to the east coast snapper fisheries by flogging the soft plastics wagon which, prior to him being shown, had been a well kept concept for many years. Bag limit catches of snapper at Port Stephens featuring several fish over the 3 or 4 kg mark and indeed all along the East coast have become fairly commonplace and present a real concern IMO to the long term health of this fishery. To my view this elitism and hypocracy is very prevelant especially with special regard to billfish. I have seen lots more billfish than five kilo snapper but bring the latter to a cleaning table and you'll hear praise, bring the former and you'll more than likely cop a slagging from some parrot nearby. I certainly am not endorsing the mass killing of billfish but if that's what you fish for knocking one on the head now and again is quite sustainable. Any way that's my rant, basically fish responsibly, and don't bag anyone for keeping a fish to eat. Cheers Marlin01

I tow two adults on a big ski tube (160kgs) with my old 60hp yammie four stroke and now a 70hp four stroke (445f Haines). A stainless prop made an amazing difference to the available torque especially with the 60. Lots of fun and good for browny points also. Marlin

OAF, I always attach mine to a stern cleat as most boats drift stern to the wind anyway. I have a 4 way bridle to each tow point on the anchor and a float attached to the rear of the sock to keep the 'chute as high in the water as possible to make it easier to both fish around and to retreive also. My main line has a couple of eyes in it to adjust the length dependent on the wind ie the windier the further back to help clear the fishing lines. Your anchor is relitively small for your boat so shouldnt cause any problems being attached at the rear. They are an invaluable asset when drift fishing in strong wind or current. Cheers Marlin

Using one Miya Epoch 900 series with 130lb (1200m) spiderwire and a 30m 130lb nylon shock leader and a little tanacom 750 with 80lb (600m) The Tanacom was bought second hand with a rod for $300 and does the job well. So far no probs with either set up. Had a set of bent butts rolled with long parobolic glass blanks (7ft) which are excellent for shock and wave absorbtion. Certainly earned their keep:-) Marlin

Yes electric reels, too old and unfit for winding Marlin