Linc

apparently some in rose bay is you're happy to zip across the harbour, haven't heard of any in middle harbour lately, but also haven't heard that they're not here.

Nice fish mate, I've got an Uncle who lives in Bendigo who sends a few pics of huge Loddon cod each year, obviously a very productive spot.

I'm sure I've caught hornsharks before and thought they were port jacksons. I've eaten one port jackson, the flesh is pretty much like any flake, same taste and texture, but there's just so much waste for a relatively small fillet so I wouldn't keep anymore unless I was extremely desperate for a feed.

Nice report, that thing does look a hell of a lot like a port jackson - which are not protected by the way. Any shark not listed below is fine to keep - but only 1. There's a lot of waste on port jacksons though so they're not great to eat anyway. Sharks and Rays Legal length: 91cm School Shark only. Bag limit: 5 in total*. Only 1 Tiger, Mako, Smooth Hammerhead# or Whaler/Blue Shark. 0 for Wobbegong, release only. # Only Smooth Hammerheads may be taken. Great and Scalloped Hammerheads are protected species in NSW and must be released immediately with minimal harm.

Very nice pic, the water was a different picture after lunch time with some serious chop!

Nice report mate, hope the bigger kings are amongst the rats. Both the maori and the crimson banded wrasse are edible, The crimson banded is very nice eating, the Maori tastes nice but has a very soft flesh so i don't like it as much unless it's going into fish cakes

Yeah good point, you don't want to be putting damaged braid onto your spool no matter where it is on the spool, always pays to check

It is a nice croc but what sort of record is that? Maybe a PB for him?

that all depends on size of reel and how mich braid you have. my general rule is not to use lighter mono backing than the mainline coz if a fish does manage to strip all your braid you don't want the mono to break.

Definitely take off all the braid and add whatever you want to backfill it. In the process I'd suggest reversing your braid as well so the nice new looking stuff from the bottom of the spool is what you're fishing with. An easy way to do this is to screw a bolt through the lid of a 1.25l bottle and stick that into a drill, then you can easily run all your line from the reel onto the bottle using the drill instead of your wrist, then if you do want to reverse the line before putting it back onto your reel, change to another 1.25l bottle (can use the same lid with bolt) and wind the line onto the 2nd bottle before back onto the reel. if this doesn't make sense i can take a pic of mine, I can't remember where I found this online, might have even been here?

Not quite a fish, but delicious on fish I reckon they might be Scotch Bonnet Peppers?

It upsets me to know these were discontinued, I found the small ones to be great on tailor when they were shut down, such a great action and easy to use. Perhaps they should have looked at dropping the RRP if they weren't selling enough, they were slightly pricey for what is essentially a glorified tassie devil

Great report mate, thanks for sharing. It's a good problem to have if the bust ups are too big to go around! Seems like the salmon arrived in numbers fairly late this year. Most of the bustups I've stumbled across in the harbour so far were smaller tailor.

If there is I know where my next trip is gonna be!

Of course you can use a Carbon fibre rod for bait, they generally market them towards soft plastics etc only because they are so light and you can hold them all day, but nothing to stop you using them for bait, as Blood Knot suggested, it's more up to the size, action and line rating of the rod than the material.

In Victoria you must have a life jacket at all times in a yak, no matter how far from shore you are, you can very quickly get blown or washed from 50M out to 150M out, I reckon the blanket rule is a smart one.

I have the green one (lightest in the range) and love it, it's so amazingly strong for it's weight and dimensions. It's slightly softer than what they normally market as a soft plastics rod (bends a bit more) but it's by no means a noodle, I use it for jigging, bait and plastics, biggest thing I've landed on it was a 3kg snapper in the month I've had mine and it handled it with ease, could definitely catch bigger fish with no issue, I used it for bottom bashing in 50M with 3oz lead and it was perfect. Just noticed you can see mine in the background of my profile pic

Definitely allowed, but you must have a life jacket and a white all round visible light - check on the RMS website if there are any other specific req's

yeah I reckon it mighta been a smooth too. lots of flake gone but happy to have the joy of catching it and letting it go

heres one more pic. couldn't decide between scalloped and smooth so let it go

caught just now at north head on a livie. just over a meter

very nice fish, they definitely don't feel like a flatty at that size, they have some pulling power, that's for sure Great to see she went back to make more babies for us too!

The topic threw me as down in Vic luderick are also called blackfish and black drummer are drummer. Nice catch though and yeah the sea carp (rock cale) tastes just as good as it's freshwater namesake! Yuck!

90m? You were a fair way out then, I tried bashing the bottom in 40-50m on Saturday and could only find undersize flatties and snapper, might have to venture further out next time.

That is a great catch and an even better photo, I'm sure you'd be able to sell it to one of the fishing magazines, you should inquire!