VBCB

The silvery is quite noticeable man ! Very nice fish it would have been a nice fight 1st fish = happy moment ??? Hope that doesn't mean the GF is at human beings what happy moments are at fishes ! hahahahaha joking. Sounds like a nice sesh indeed

Very nice report indeed ! We can feel the enchantment and it would have been exhilarating for sure to get that beast on UL gear, well done. A bit different from the 3kg red reports too

I'd be happy with that kind of by-catch

good reading there, at first I really thought you scored a couple of barra in the harbour I was hallucinated

Wow ! flat like a lake, crystal clear water, a bit of fish, all this looks awesome

Top effort ! Cracking a jewie off the beach is a really good thing, I'm yet to get my first one in Sydney

Thanks for the nice comments boys, we both ended up getting a cold in the story too ...

I owned the exact same reel, it is the "American" Luvias, same parts, if something goes wrong with it, you can order the Ozzie luvias equivalent part. The only difference is in the weight of the body, slightly lighter thanks to magnesium, as far as I'm concerned, that reel is even lighter than the CI4 series compare to their line capacity. Anyway, good little machine, I kept it 4 years and ended up acting silly chasing drummers and bonies on light gear, no good ! One season has been fatal ! You'll have great fun on light estuary species, the drag is the only crappy thing on that reel, as most of the drags were on that generation of daiwa. That said, until 800 / 1 kg drag pressure, the thing is more than acceptable. Have fun!

Went down a local ledge in the hunt of pigs with Sal, a.k.a Extremeterror We were using raw prawns and fairly light outfits, Sal was on a 20 lb fluoro tippet and I was on a 14 lb regular mono. Fishes were on the bite from the very beginning of that quick 1.5 hour session we pulled 4 x 35 cm+ pigs among a fair bit of mix bag. Sal pulled a 41 cm new PB pig out, he was stoked as one can imagine, a fat compact fish around the kilo and half mark. I ended up getting that nice 47 cm specimen, went 2.3 kg. Well, we ended that session being two happy fishos who spent a nice moment on the stones, plenty of action as we like, a good dinner on the top of that

Beautiful beginner's luck ! Uhh talent I mean It's way over 1 cm bigger than my PB . Well done boy

Very nice little report ! Good pictures indeed

Wow ! That is a horse a blackfish mate ! looks prehistoric

Interesting things raised here, to come back to the first one, trout should be considered as a pest, even though its impact is not as important. That said, trout looks good and tastes good, carp looks shit and tastes shit ! haha Pulling your leg ... I'm coming from a country where carp saved the fishing industry and his from far the biggest economic market full stop, we cannot take that away from that fish. Besides, carp has been the trigger for a massive momentum of catch and release too, and this eventually inspired other fishermen. I personally hate and always hated fishing for them, most of my friends love it big time, let's say it is a "game fish" for inland people, they are tough buggers especially when then crack the 10 kg, so you can imagine when they are 25 ???? I would not contribute in their invasion and if I was to catch one, I'd leave it to the rats and foxes, also introduced ! Haha Bloody Europeans !

Materials and tools you might need: First rig, the coarse one: Nothing will be concealed in that rig, the stinger trace will be outside the lure and visible, I found it not to be a problem, and if I know the area is rich in flatheads or choppers, I use this one as it takes less than 1 minute to be done. A bit of nylon (usually 10+ lb), tie a uni knot that you will attach to your jig head eye (around the eye base, like a collar). Then, you'll choose a length adequate to the lure you are using, I personally tie a blood knot to the little treble, as I can know exactly where it is gonna seat on the lure. Pinch one hook of the treble in the tail, that is it ! If little toothy fishes are destroying it, do again, you don't need to remove the lure, tie your uni knot, lure is going through the loop then pull the nylon around the eye, bla bla bla. Second rig, the finesse one: That one takes a bit more time to do, I usually prepare them before the session, as they might be a pain if your hands are wet, there is wind and so on... Same process though, except you start by concealing the trace inside the lure with a needle, then you tie your uni knot. This requires a bit of sacrificial trace to work comfortably, that lure is a 4" and I take 25 cm of trace to be comfortable. Your jig head hook is gonna follow the needle hole naturally, therefore be lined up with your trace. the trace should pop out the lure "ass hole" approximately, and if you tie a beautiful little blood knot you should only have a centimetre or less of trace outside the lure, making the thing nearly entirely concealed. As I said, if you know your lure is gonna be smashed by a 20 cm chopper within the first minutes, I wouldn't bother doing that one. These things can be applied to all sort of plastics, and for jewfish particularly. I found it to be useless for pelagics, especially kingies when I'm fishing the stones, keep it simple, when they go for it they will slam it anyway. The 2 hooks presented on the pictures are just here to show you have choice, if you know you are fishing a spot with touchy whitings the small one is better, if you know you are likely to hook horses breams, the reinforced big one might be better. Don't go too big as the rig becomes gross and the stinger might kill the lure's swim. Don't get too close from the tail neither, except if the lure still behaves normally, they usually don't really like it though. Once again, hope it will help, don't hesitate to say if something is not clear or doesn't make sense. Forgot to mention, very glad to see the site is not a simple bragging board and some people are actually curious and want to know more about this kind of things. That is cool. Thanks.

Definitely agree with both the snagging and the gut hooking issue. Snagging can be limited when you know your spot, I found the gut hooking to be a modest problem on the most finicky species that are often going to take the lures from the tip of the lips (whitings, breams, trev), but for undersized flatheads and choppers it undoubtedly makes some damage. Then, you can always sacrifice your hook and leave in in the throat, they survive quite well most of the time, I'm using some eagle claws stingers that are rusting as soon as you look at them ! lol (seriously then often start to rust during the time of a session). From a personal experience, I hooked so many good size fishes thanks to stingers that my mind is made, the ethical issue is not much of a prob as 90% of my estuary fishes are chucked back, if one happens to be badly injured every now and then it is bad luck, either keep it or if undersized, it will be food for crabs and prawns, my footprint remains quite small overall

Sorry it is a bit of a personal message but I cannot manage to send Hercz a picture by PM (not a computer legend Mate this is the importance of a stinger hook on "long" plastics, some finicky fishes will swallow the tail of your lure either because they are not really hungry, shy or whatever reason really, it doesn't matter. Both these fishes have been caught in Watsons bay on 5.5" lures, the area is quite heavily fished and fishes are smart asses, you MUST use this kind of tricks among others if you want to increase your results. You' will basically tie with a uni knot a bit of (whatever) 10 lb from the eye of your jig head to the tail of your lure, and attach a little "stinger" treble hook size (whatever depending on the size of your lure or the fishes you're hunting) #14 that will be pinched near the tail of your lure, not too close from it neither as it might alter its swimming. If you have the time, as I said, stuff that extra bit of line through the plastic body as it will make it even more subtle looking and increase your hook up chances, but you'll be spewing when a shitty little lizard destroys the rig in 3 seconds when you spent 10 minutes to make it Ok hope it all makes sense now, if you follow these advices as well as the one given in the PM I'm sure you'll score lots of fishes locally by the end of next summer ! I hope anyway. If anything still isn't clear, PM and we'll try to clarify. I'm keen to help people as I would have loved to be helped when I was beginning all this shit , it would have saved time in the learning process !

Thanks for your comments guys, appreciated. I don't want to sound like a guy who's chasing good fishes on light leader, It happened that I was looking for whiting on surface lures a few minutes before (on sunset) and couldn't be bothered tying a new leader for the last minutes of the sesh',it would have just been a big fluke

Hi everyone, Went down the Harbour tonight to flick a few lures, see if there were breams around. Didn't get no bream as a matter of fact, I landed a nice trev caught on a blade around 5 pm, the fish put on a nice fight and went 35 cm, I was quite happy to land it on 2 lb leader material (and 2 lb braid). Then things started to move a bit, long story short, I was hooking chopper after chopper on a TD shiner, nothing big, on my very last cast as it was fully dark and the things had slowed down, hook on what I thought to be a large chopper... After an EPIC fight on 2 lb, being snagged 10 times in the dirtiest environment (oysters, large weeds) and having to drag the fish for more than 150 meters to find an "OK" place to land it, it was out ! 51 cm of a horse ! Not my PB but certainly my biggest on 2 lb ! Absolutely stoked. Sorry for pics they're horrible but I forgot my camera, spewing ! Only had my phone and it was raining I couldn't do better than that. Fish went back unharmed, I would bet a lot of money that I cannot do the same thing again, for those who know how hard these thing go, you will understand

Yeah that first fish is a horse, I don't think they grow much bigger, people who never held them don't realize how dense they are, their head feels like a bowling ball, every time I lift one I'm like : "wtf" ????

Nice one ! Seems like there are nice snappers out there atm, wish it was the same land based, still haven't pulled a legal this season so far

They put on a sort of fight every now and then ! These ones are fat and I found the fat one are more nervous than slim ones, still surprised you lived any "fight" at all, where you using very light leader material ? It seems like it was good fun anyway ! Good job

Oath ! Good report full of enthusiasm !

Awesome, jewie will be there next time don't worry !

Good one ! they put on a good fight and taste beautiful... Well done

All this is very interesting ! Catchin Jack I've done a bit of aquaculture myself and never seen any appealing prawn farm honestly, neither I have seen any type of appealing fish farms to be honest. But that virus thing is a serious think I hadn't thought about, just hope it is not one of these bullshit talked by the local lobbies and backed up by gvt to protect local industry, I'll personally not use these stuff until I see they are proven to be safe ! Thanks for the info