Hooch

about bloody time too

Thanks for the head up Shane. Not much clarification needed if you fish a bait more than 200gm or a hook larger than 8\0 on stocko its a fine up to $22 000 for ya. Is it stupidity, or some kind of mental depravity? I don't know. Get the lead out fellahs! The more letters (angry and illegible or thoughtful and well constructed, however you feel) the honourable twit gets the better.

Yeah mate I did, but I rekcon you've hooked yourself a red herring with this research thing, it's sportfishing and its not good for a fishes health, we all know it, we all do it, but no ones doing a protected species a great favour by skulldragging it in with a hook in its guts and whacking a tag in it. There has gotta be better ways of tagging a protected species. But of course this isn't about tagging whites. I bet experienced fishos like these blokes don't think it is either, the journo just threw it in as a nice little feelgood. You'll also notice fisheries didn't have anything in particular to say about this, there's no study accompanying this, it's just a couple of blokes with BRASS BALLS catching some sharks some of which are great whites, well you can't help that can you, and they're associated so they do the right thing and stick a tag in em. Sorry if I seem like I'm trying to rev you up mate, I'm not really, I just think if you take a close look at it research is a peripheral issue at best.

They're fishing for fun, not research, I couldn't care less the sharks are already there and feeding anyway, and there'll be a cold day in hell before I paddle out on a surfboard with a bleeding half-salmon in my hand.

Hi if I'm free I'll come up for a spin.

I flicked some plastics around there last year. There's some decent structure along the shore which hold bream and a few places where you can fish the drop-offs and probably get into some flatties. There are some nice flats you can reach from the sure as well. It might be a bit tough at this time of year, but if you get up at sparrows fart and get your feet wet when you're on the flats you should get into some fish. I can't help with directions its been too long but keep your eyes peeled for this big arse nipper bed, i think at the south side of the main bridge that pretty much divides NSW and QLD, to the east of that its there, a wharf to the left and the nipper bed to the right of the wharf. You have to walk through a shallow trench about 5m wide and about waist\chest deep and then you can get onto the bed and fish the drop-offs. Pump some of them up i could think of worse whiting spots. I got jack of it and got out the beach rod when I was up. They sell fresh beach worms up there too. Renting a kayak would be a top idea for some peaceful days on the water i reckon, up around the upper tributaries and some good fish. Might get smoked by some jacks, that's be tops. Good luck.

yep I berley. thats what id expect to, at least a few pigs. i've fished these spots successfully a number of times before. i fish central coast. strange really, perhaps they go off the bite a bit in spring

Not the past couple of weeks but over about a month before that I went on a number of pig missions for one little piglet. Being a stubborn bastard I kept trying different tides and times to see if the bite would change. I eventually had an awesome sesh pulling boot after boot, watching them nail a bait in clear mid-water, and then gave up. Things I didn't change that might've helped was line class (8kg) and bait (ab gut and bread). Granted conditions weren't the best they could've been with some pretty flat swell some days, but one piglet out of 8 or so sessions?! What's the story? I've heard rumours that they bite on cabbage in the spring... what say you...

I trust you're aware of the proposed Manning Shelf MPA? You might want to get involved with the campaign against it once you're up there. This is probably a good place to start. http://s8.invisionfree.com/Sportfish_Extre...hp?showforum=32

Squid. If you don't catch anything take it home and eat it. Reminds me of the lady who saw me with a bucket full of nippers and asked if I was going to cook them in pasta!

A good bream mate.

Getting ready to crack a big jewie in summer hey. I spose you catch a ceph off the rocks or in the estuary and head off to the beach yeah?

Sounds like a blast Dave. If I can swag Saturday off I'll probably be down the rocks having a spin. Here's hoping the weather co-operates.

hmm round half-tide rocks way on the box head side yeah? Nice spots.

Yeah I live and fish here. A big stingray like that would've gone gangbusters. Pretty Beach is the bay with the nipper bed right? Is lobster beach another name for it?

A lot of them use it and I've heard of special rod setups to stop 'wind knots' and this sort of thing, but if you're just going for a spin bugger it use mono, that's what I'm doing, braid is to exxy to be birds nesting and wrapping around cunjie. 400m or so aint cheap and mono does the job so why bother. Also some serious spinners dont use because of how it lays on the reel or some such thing, Glen Beers posted about it under his nick 'beersy' on fishnet, you can search it and see.

Gday Lawrie, nice write ups you've been doing, thanks. About this one, are you actually fishing right on top of the sandbar (so real shallow water) or are you doing the usual beach thing and fishing the edge of the gutter up against the sandbar? Those sandbars are chockas with worms I reckon.

Don't worry about it mate, I've been out on the rocks a few times for zilch as well, but the days are starting to get longer and warmer...

Is Jackos Bay the one that joins up to South Avoca headland? I hate those bloody kelpies too. Better than skull dragging a great big dirty boot onto the rocks tho. I'm not convinced god was a fisho..

Just put the next one in the open eye of the next gang hook, and slide the swivel down the shank to the bend of the hook. wallah. One thing on this, I find 3 gang hooks with swivels equates to one big arse pilchard. Don't you find the middle hook, using about 4\0 say, just gets buried in the flesh?

The way most fish smack a bait in the wash I don't reckon a visible hook shank would turn them off the bait, but you're going to want that bait on pretty solid so after threading the hook through and in and out and half hitching the ab gut or whatever the shanks going to be well covered anyway and theres nothing wrong with a big bait for a big pig. I don't reckon there's anything to gain by putting bread on the tip only, it'll probably make it wash off the hook quicker, just mould the bread around the length of the hook. You don't have to worry about the hook point being exposed either it seems, pig just slices through the soft bread and the strike comes up solid. If you haven't done any rock fishing before get a copy of Al Bellismios rock fishing sydney dvd, called something like fishing with Al, Pete and Louise. It's a good intro to bread and butter fishing and has sections on pigs, blackfish etc and will cover the right tackle, bait and safety.

Yeah I ran into a guy a while back at Box Head fly fishing for pigs.

She keeps a few fish for the table, I haven't seen that article buts she's just saying that there are 'yobbos' who kill and grill every damn thing or close to it that they pull out of the water. Fair enough point really. It's probably true that a lot of fly fishos put back more than the average old prawn on a blunt hook angler, but that'd just be because by the time you're fly fishing you're generally a comitted sport fisho anyway and aren't out there for a feed everytime you go out, not because of the genetic superiority of fly fishos or anything

Good luck mate, if the seas aren't too bad this week I'll hobble out to an easy to get to ledge somewhere.

Seeing as I bloody sprained my ankle there today I won't be going back anytime in the next few days, so might as well let you know after a crap few weeks with the rain and the gods and whatever the pigs have been on the past couple of days, don't reckon you'll be dissapointed if you go down.