andysinmexico

awesomme fish mate, a tangle with a big girl always leaves me shaking.

The current "powers that be" promised to only make scientifically backed decisions regarding size and bag limit changes, while i applaud there changes to mulloway which is commonly seen to be in decline there is no data (that i have seen) to suggest the cut backs on these new species are justified. Further to this it is not common (have never done it myself) to catch 20 bream but i do routinely go past 10 and this helps to make up for the outings where i score a doughnut. A lot of people will say that 10 bream is enough and yes it is enough for a single family but if we look at the cost of seafood in this country i know for a fact if i wasnt giving the elderly neighbours a feed of fish every time i am successfull then they would simply not be able to afford "fresh local" seafood due to the prohibitive cost. Cheers Andy

I get to go fishing at least once a week by myself, i generally try and take the little fella on a seperate trip once a week and the minister for war and finance and the little princess will come along about once a month. Having said that if the right fish are getting caught on the forums i.e. flathead then the wife will pester me almost daily about going to get her a feed. Cheers Andy

I usually give them a good swish in the net before bringing them in to encourage them to spit a few extra times.

Agree with the general theme of whats been said. Generally i do a lot of land/wharf based fishing generally at night, for this i prefer the last 2-3 hours of the rising through to the run out tide as i fish unweighted baits around structure and the run of the tide holds my baits nicely where the fish accumulate and take up the slack line sufficiently for me to detect takes and be ready for the strike. The wind is more of a critical factor factor when shore fishing unweighted baits as if you have an onshore wind you firstly cant cast where/as far as you would like, the wind shifts your bait in if it is hard enough and it makes an obscene belly in your line limiting you ability to detect takes by fish. If i am offshore fishing at anchor i dont particularly care if the tide is rising or going out so long as there is sufficient movement in the water to make the fish "bunch up" at the leading edge of the structure hence the old term "no run no fun". Cheers Andy

Yep he's on the money, this is a female eastern blue groper which is in the process of changing sex to be a male, groper and most other members of the wrasse family do this which is the opposite opposite of most other fish ie flatties which start off male or female and then all end up female after a certain size. Groper have a different tactic being that in an ideal situation you have one large male (blue) who will have a "hareem" of females (red/brown) to breed with, if the big fella dies/gets eaten then the dominant female will change sex and take charge of the clan.

Agree with whats been said no rig is worth a sting rays spine, catfish can be just as bad. I can still remember the agony of digging in the esky for a drink and finding a red rock cod that a mate had snuck in there without telling anyone. The dorsal spine went under the thumb nail and snapped off, i was seriously contemplating cutting said appendage off as i think it would have been less painfull, the only thing that offered relief from that was to soak in ice slurry until a little numb and then immerse the thumb and a finger that was room temp in a thermos of coffee we had on board and repeat the process. It is important to remember when doing this that you dont burn yourself and make it worse due to reduced/altered sensation. The pain still took a couple of days to subside once the spine was removed and led to the introduction of the "no spiky things in the esky rule", when the kids are on board this is altered to no spiky things in the boat and all said creatures are cut off or released using a home made fish dehooker rig so you dont have to touch them. Cheers Andy

G'day Dylrox, in a similar situation myself with 2 little ones about to turn 8 and 5 respectively. I usually fish once a week at a productive spot late at night (starting from 7pm and going through till 2-3am if favourable) for my own personal fishing session. If the little fella (5 yr old) wants to go for a fish through the week i.e. a school day i take him down to a wharf which is only about a 5 minute drive away just on sunset so that boat and foot traffic is minimal and so that if he loses interest its no biggy fuel and time wise. If the whole family wants to go for a fish it is fairly infrequent perhaps once or twice a month from shore and the way the weather has been when we have had time and no commitments about every 3 months on the boat. In all seriousness going without a few hours sleep one night a week is quite achievable and maintainable, failing that if the morning looks better just sneak off at 3am and be home by the time the little ones are having brekky. Cheers Andy

Awesome job getting the boss interested is half the battle.

Too many bones for the baker to be palatable, have heard people rave about them but not my cup of tea.

Mate beauty of a fish and great eating

Any size in the flatties ?

Nice one mate any photos ?

Great one mate, conditions looked perfect, did you invite that red home for dinner ?

Well done on the king mate they seem to be finicky at the moment.

Awesome stuff, just wait soon the little one will be acing you.

Well done mate a couple of really nice fish

Well done mate and congrats

Same same, NRMA put their prices up (around 33% !!!) and dropped both the level and what they cover, called them to see if they could be competitive and "unfortunately due to a policy pricing restructure" they were unable to help unless i moved my car and home insurance over. Club marine price was excellent and the items covered suited me to a T so i went with them after much research.

Benn getting a few keeper bream around Balmoral land based but the tailor are wreaking havoc on unweighted baits and light lines.

My favourite bucket at the moment is an old 20L commercial mayonaise one, excellent food grade plastic and heavy duty, so much better than the crap they sell at bunnings

What a horse, if thats not enough to get em hooked on fishing i dont know what is.

Depends on what your fishing for and the phase of the tide, if the tide is about to start running id definately hang out for a while but if its the top or bottom of the tide and nothing is happening with a good burley trail 20 mins is more than enough.

Great fish Houdini a very tasty catch, as a point of interest though Groper and other wrasse species are actually what are referred to as sexually dimorphic. This means that unlike flathead and other fish where females and males look the same phenotypically except for the sexual organs you can tell a gropers sex by its colour. Also many fish change sex to be all female after a certain size, the blue groper starts off as a female (brown or red colour) in a family group with a dominant male (blue), if the male gets eaten or caught the next most senior female will change colour as it becomes male. Cheers Andy

Hair tail are one of those amazing creatures that randomly come and go at the drop of a hat, i come across one at Balmoral off the jetty in January this year, another mate got one off Gladesville. They have apparently been on in Newcastle for the last month but according to a pro fisho mate the numbers are down on the last couple of seasons. Cheers Andy