VBCB

It was more rigged for bonnies or rats to be frank, that fish took multiple wrong decisions I'd say ! hahaha Not gonna complain. for once the odds were with me

It's a Tackle house FEED POPPER 130mm, originally designed for tuna but good allrounder I would say

Work work more work, no days off, when the weather allowed me a bit of rest, and ultimately a bit of fishing, for the first time this year. Went down the local ledge yesterday in the middle of the arvo, a little bit of action here and there but nothing really interesting when a decent bust off happens in front of me. My popper was rigged, cast 15 m behind the school of garies, 1,2,3 pops bang ! Fish is on, puts on a hell of a fight as usual, 30 lb braid and 30 lb leader land based is always a bit tricky, but the odds were with me this time... 81 cm of a healthy little king, always a pleasure !

42 is a solid one for sure ! Would have been good fun

Sounds like a happy fisho, one of these mornings giving us tons of positive energy for the week

Nice couple of jewies ! If only I was getting one every 5 failed attempts I be stoked ! Well done

Haven't seen one for ages, I miss my bonie sashimi

You put the effort on the video well done ! The fight looks like a kingfish Good healthy lizard anyway, well played

That is a fantastic catch mate ! very well done

Also I read a few reports here and there where people recommend to use 15 or even 20 lb tippet ???? You can, then you are sure you won't get snipped off too often, I can assure you that fishing 15 lb+ in Sydney Harbour from the shore with a 1/8 or 1/16 oz is the best way to preserve the fishes stocks, you won't even be looked at except by suicidal juvenile lizards and choppers ... tinted water I'd say up to 8, clear water 4, I personally go down to 2 but it costs a few fishes and blades. The risk in using 2 or 4 is that you are guaranteed to lose a trophy lizard if the lure is swallowed, as they'll use their weight and you will have to put too much pressure on the leader to move them, first head shake and you are cooked ! Beware of canoes report, as I said the canoe /boat approach is A LOT different from the shore, once again don't take what they say for granted, best way to fail in rozelle or wherever you fish locally.

Blades are far more complex to work well than they seem, especially from the shore. To make short: The same species of fish will not react to the same animations all the time depending on the spots, the weather conditions, and the seasons. Different species of fishes react to different animations. All you have to do is try, try and try again and remember what worked well for you in what conditions, over the years you'll accumulate a knowledge, more or less conscious and might become a gun Let's say you are targeting estuary species, I can give you my personal advice (who's personal and your experience will be different I'm sure): Bream / flathead: long slow lift (you must barely feel the blade swinging, intermittently) keep a little margin for a strike cause flatheads will hit at the end of the lift near always. Bream will smash on the drop except if they are feeding actively, they will also grab it on the pause, I had blades "sucked" on a 5/10 sec pause (fully laid on the bottom). As weird as it sounds for such a dense lure, that is the way it is. Bream / flathead / whitings: aggressive little twitches very close to the bottom, making the blade "bounce" (couple of vibrations / drop) works well on feeding fish, whitings are very elusive and hunting them on blade where fishing pressure is fairly heavy is utopian. In late summer, I found lizards to react very well to a linear slow animation (no animation in fact) 50ish cm above the bottom (dumbest way of fishing ever), all you have to do is try to visualize your blade high enough in thewater column to be spotted by lizards around, they launch rocket attacks sometimes from very far away. Aggressive animation with blades (long powerful lifts) is imo forbidden except in places where fishes have never seen a lure, the vibrations are so unnatural and powerful that a blade can scare the shit of all the fishes in the 200 surrounding sqm ! lol You usually see novice fishos doing this as they are very happy to feel the lure working at the end of the line >>>>>>> NOPE NOPE NOPE ! Failure guaranteed As per tailors, you'll catch them "accidentaly" but also often at the end of a long lift, as they swim higher in the water column. Targetting them with blades can be deadly tho (for them and for your blades), you chuck the blades as far as you can and you retrieve as fast as possible just before the blades starts to swim on the side or spin because it cannot hold the pressure you put on it anymore. Doing this, you will catch tailor and tailor only, except if you fish a "salmon and kingie" place, a surprise may happen ! I haven't found any consistent pattern for trevors so far, I catch them "accidentally" on blades but it happen quite often, especially in autumn. All that bullshit is mine and I don't guarantee you success, however, I'm not talking crap I read in books and it is all the result of my experiences, so try to adapt it to your style and I'm sure you will pull your fair share of estuary fish ! As per snag you're right, do not use a VX35 if you are fishing an unknown spot, except if money is not a problem for you. buy some cheapies, they might catch the odd fish but are also a good way for you to figure a mental map of the bottom you are fishing at minor expense, some boxes of 10 blades for 25 bucks or equivalent can be found in local tackle stores, or on the net. Keep the good ones for the spot you know, you will then not lose them more than other lures. I know the site is pretty strict with the rules and I wouldn't name brands, however some brands and specific models don't work, or barely ever work when others are killing it ! the manufacturer of VX SX, PX and so on is highly recommended. The local brand double T is imo quite alright too, remember to match the colours of your blades to the environment they will evolve in (i.e colour of substrate, colour of water, etc) If fishes are feeding on baitfish, fish colours might then work regardless of the environment. Anything gold / bronze, brownish, greyish is a reliable value in general. Hope it will help. It is still a gross shortcut for a technique that requires hours of experience as I said, take what you want and make it your own way, you'll fail, you'll succeed, you'll fail, you'll succeed more often, blablabla, that is the way the cookie crumbles !

That is a crazy double ! You don't have too many days like this in a fisherman lifetime !

Interesting, the EAC / global warming side effects probably. It is not so surprising I reckon, heaps of fishes are following the warm currents and as long as they find food they are happy. Last year I swam with a turtle in the harbour, caught 2 thick lip trevallies and a long spined emperor on plastic, the year before, an estuary cod. Every year seems to deliver its new lot of surprises. Well done anyway, there is always something exhilarating about catching a "new" species of fish, that red thing looks tasty as btw

Hahaha that one is awesome ! But sadly the GF is not likely to go on fish raider at all (if she does a little hobbie mirage .... lol) No as I say I'm very happy, even when I catch undersize fishes to be frank, but I genuinely went out 10 /12 times (near 40 hours), gave my best and could not pull a single solid fish (i.e. bream 40+, lizard 65+ or whiting 35 +, not even good tailors or trevallies which is quite unusual). A bit frustrating I reckon especially because I haven't even hooked / lost one of these, I just haven't seen them. But it will come soon I guess, it is all about persistence that game !

Hi fellas, haven't been posting for a while as I haven't really caught anything really noticeable, despite a lot of sessions during which I got my fare share of fishes. I dedicated my time to light game in estuary and could not pull anything sizeable whether it was flathead, bream or whiting. Where are the big fishes ??? Still lot of fun and a few session with 7 to 12 legal fishes in less than 3 hours mostly in Sydney Harbour, on lure, here are a few random samples. Different types of lures here, the last bream demonstrates you can get fishes on cheapies ! (7$ popper, none of them has the same action, but they manage to work for me and catch fish somehow ) I must say that slow sinking stick baits have done the damage overall, and blades strangely didn't work so well ... 100 % of these guys went back after a quick snap as usual...

Beast ! Good work

Nice ! Pretty fat too, well done

dream by-catch

Brilliant ! Good looking healthy fishes

Very well done on the whitings mate ! that would have been tons of fun

Beware of these berkley stuff I bought a couple in the past and ended up thinking it was 15 $ too much. Never caught anything but toadies on this scum dog **** IMO sand flat fishing is really not risky and it is the one technique where you can buy 25 $ ones, you'll never lose your stuff pretty much, except if the odd flatty / chopper smashes the lure but it is still quite rare on the super shallow sand flats. get a good Sugar Pen you will not regret it. I found these gekkabijin stickbaits to work a treat as well. As per scum dog, bought it because I found it was close to Sammy and very good looking (not because of its low price), put all my faith in it to end up drawing this conclusion: it is the most ineffective mini stick bait I ever used, so are those relatively cheap BIG EYE blades ... All this looks good, appears to swim good, doesn't catch fish, why ? Mystery... I caught my PB flathead on this big eye crap, but when I catch one with it I would have already caught 10 with a SX40, when I caught 1 fish with a scum dog, I already caught 20 with a sugar pen, you get my point ?

Good one ! Seems you've seen that one coming with his "pylon" trick good one you well done

Nice ! EP's are a "by-catch" I'm still dreaming about ! Jealous

That reports shows great enjoyment ! Nice to read

looks like a bit of action there !