LEELEE

Why fly to QLD when you can go to Coffs Harbour and experience great offshore game fishing, sportfishing and some of the best estuary fishing 6 hours from Sydney. Cheers Lee

I have never owned one and would never own the stradic 1000 after many issues i have heard with this specific reel. I'm not putting down a fine product publicly so if you know any hardcore breamers that use them with braid then ask them of their opinons. If you pm me then i will let you know. I think the reel is to small for the rod. You can either get a smaller rod or get a bigger reel. let us know the line rating for each of the sticks. then it will make it a little easier to try and figure out a combo for you. Cheers Lee

I never worry about prawns becuase I very rarely use them and when i do they are fresh hawksbury prawns. I beleive that foreign prawns, squids or any other potential bait items that were meant for human consuption but are used as bait, has the potential to wipe out eco systems if used. Its always better to spend the extra money to ensure fresh bait that is contaminent free. Who knows what some of the imported prawns have in them. If you catch a keeper on one you have no idea how quickly a disease can overrun a host and the damage it could possibly do to yourselfs once you consume the fish, especially if you keep buying the prawns ans eating keepers. It may take time but it may be harful in the end. Just food for thought. Cheers Lee

Well done mate. So what do you think of the blackies fight? Do you think they are tuffer then thier equivelant yellowfin bream cousins ? ( pound for pound of course) You got to start taking the digital camera and getting some snaps. Cheers Lee

Mate get the Val going. Just do a couple of thiings like put in a efi 440 , powerglide ............. Just think one day you can have a ball tearing val pulling the fishing boat. But seriously i would finish off the car then get the boat. Cheers Lee

Have a look at these - http://www.tackletour.com/reviewyamamotokreature.html Cheers Lee

Great Fish. Poor mans Marlin Angry mongrels aren't they. I had a 35-40cm one launch out the water and bite down on my brand new Sic Stick pro ( at the time it was new ). Thank god i have never caught one that big, damm thing would bite me in half with the set of dentures it has. Cheers lee

I have a couple of favourite combos 1. My Heartland Z 4-8lb with a Quantum Energy PTI 10 2. Ugly Stick - Shimano 3500 baitrunner 3. Custom Shearwater 15kg Spin stick with 6500z Saltiga Plus I have heaps of small overheads etc. Actually they are all my favourites and I need more favourites Cheers Lee

Congrats Pukk and Rich. All those spots look very familiar to me as im a Richmond boy. Well done. There seem to be alot about at the moment with heaps more to come. They are just starting to move up in big numbers. If either of you guys are keen and don't want to bring your boat up to the hawks and want to go bassin, then let me know as I am always happy to put in my boat as it takes me 10 mins to get to the ramp. Cheers Lee

I would definatly take the capricorn over the stradic. I have seem to many stradics call line twist with braid that eventuallt turns into massive winds knots. I simply beleive that the capricorn is a far better reel. Good choice. Cheers Lee

I have never personally used them. They look like a similar sp to the Gary Yamamoto Kreatures. http://www.tackletour.com/reviewyamamotokreature.html Cheers Lee

Hazza, Yep no weir at all. Just when the tide comes in it comes in very very quickly. Very tired and suffered for it the next day, but it was a great experience and will probably do it again soon and get some pics of the fresh action this time! Cheers Lee

From the Salt to the Fresh After several phones calls during the previous week, both myself and Ben ( Co - Owner of Windsor Bait and Tackle ) teamed up to hit the water early on Saturday morning. We had both decided that our plan of attack for the day would be to launch and fish Berowra, do some reconnaissance work down at Spencer, then later hit the racks in Mullet Creek, before a land based session later in the evening for Bass and Estuary Perch. It was looking like being a very big day! The Salt So as we launched the boat at 6:40am at Berowra we were met with a steady down pour of rain. Not to be deterred, we broke out the wet weather gear and headed off in search of some Bream. I was keen to test out my new Quantum Energy PTI 10 on my 4-8 lb Heartland Z and was casting at boats and rock walls in search of a Bream It only took 20 minutes and a pearl blue Bass Minnow, till I had the first Bream of the day into the Livewell. He was good sized fish that went 32cms and was very bronze in colour. Due to the lack of Bream in the area we decided to move up to some of the racks in Berowra. This idea was short lived as the wind had other ideas and made fishing the racks all but impossible. So we now thought this time was as good as any to move up to Spencer to do some recon work. We decided to hit some pontoons and old boats on the way to Spencer but there was no action so we pulled in the lures and headed upstream to Spencer. Upon arrival at Spencer we spotted a nice little creek that had a considerable amount of water passing out from it due to the change of tide. So we motored up the mangrove lined creek and began a drift back down the small creek towards Spencer. Due to the water being the best part of 1 – 1.5 metres in depth, the idea of big Flathead lying in wait to ambush prey seemed feasible. Flicking lures into the mangroves, shadows and the middle, revealed that although the creek seemed fishy, none would be taken from the creek by us today. So once again we moved on to another creek around the Spencer area hoping we might entice some of the legendary Bream and Flathead that Spencer is known for. Many casts later revealed that either there were no fish in the area or they did not like the looks of our lures. So with the lack of action and the recon work done at Spencer, we decided that mullet creek was out next stop off. As we rounded Bar Point I was surprised to see absolutely no boats anchored in the area fishing. I was beginning to wonder why there was a lack of boats on the water today and why was there no boats at the renowned Bar Point. What did they know that we didn’t? I was hoping that it was the simple fact that the early morning rain had discouraged anglers. We arrived at the racks in Mullet Creek to find that the water level was very low but the water colour was fantastic. After not to long Ben pulled a stubborn Bream out from under the racks and at 27cms he joined the earlier catch in the livewell. It was a good feeling to have 2 fish on board as it was a very slow day when it came to Breaming. Choppers on the other hand seemed as though they have taken over the entire Hawkesbury system. They were simply either following us around or possibly there numbers have increased dramatically. We had landed at least 20 choppers and had been mauled by at least the same numbers and the time was around 1pm. We fished the rockwalls of Mullet Creek and had some good hits but no solid hook-ups. Also the choppers were in greater numbers here than in any of the previous places we had fished earlier on in the day. So with some nasty looking clouds rolling in from the south, we packed up and headed back down to a nice bay in Berowra for our final effort for the day. We fished some very good rockwall structure and it was only a matter of time before we got some hits. Ben landed a nice 32cm fish which I graciously netted and then I fired another cast exactly from where he extracted his Bream from. Whack, another Bream of around 26cms into the livewell. So after getting more choppers and the daylight was starting to fade we took some pictures of the 4 Bream and released them successfully to fight another day. Considering it was a very slow day we put the boat on the trailer and headed off for some fresh water action. The Fresh We dropped off the boat and gathered what we needed to have a flick in the fresh water. I took my Heartland Z to have some light weight action, but Ben advised I should take my Sic Stick Pro. Since I was intending on having some fun I stuck with the Heartland Z. We stopped off for a quick dinner, ( Pies and hotdogs ) then we headed down to a favourite spot in search of some Bass and Ep’s. With the reports of some Bass nudging the 40cm mark in this area, our hopes of landing good sized fish increased when we saw that there were only 2 other anglers fishing the same spot. It didn’t take Ben long to land a nice Bass of around 26cms. The incoming tide was bringing in a horrendous amount of water and it seemed as though the tide would be rather high. I successfully managed to land a Bass. At around 28cms he was a good fish and had engulfed my lure. After receiving a nice spike from the Bass he was returned to the water. With my hand feeling rather sore and numb from the previous spike and busting off several times, I decided to take a break. Ben on the other hand decided to keep catching fish. He landed 6 fish, a mix of Ep’s and Bass before I started to fish again. It was at this time I wish I had listened to Ben and bought the Sic Stick Pro down. I was suffering due to the Heartland Z being to short and I was not able fish the structure as I would have liked. Many casts later I retired for the evening. We could see some huge Bass decreasing the local prawn population as they were herding them up to the surface and then smashing them to pieces. Prawns and Bass were jumping across the surface everywhere at times. It was a great sight to behold, to see a prawn fleeing for its life, jumping across the surface with a big Bass chasing and closing in. Ben pulled another 4 fish taking his total for the fresh to 10. They were all a good mix of EP’s and Bass but most were not over the 30cm mark. Since no monsters were landed we did not take any photos of the captures. With the tide rushing in at a furious pace and seeing that 15 hours had passed since we first left for Berowra earlier on in the day, we decided to pull the pin and head off after a very successful day. So looking back on the day, it was a quite successful adventure. Fishing both the salt waters of the Hawkesbury during the day and then the fresh waters at night was a great way to relax, explore and spend a day. After a very long and exhaustive day I was looking forward to meeting my pillow and catching up on some much needed sleep.

I decided to take my uncle out for some fishing down Berowra way. Started off very quite early on in the morning (we started at 9 am, as my boat was frozen solid after the minus degrees that hit Richmond last night, and my uncle did not get out of bed early). We hit this nice little bay and I started getting heaps of choppers and managed a couple over 30cms. I then decided to move along to the rock walls and it immediately paid off. After a long fight on the heartland Z with 4 lb I managed this 39cm to the fork bream, which tipped the scales a fraction under 1.5kg. I then managed to coax another small bream of 26cms. More choppers later on in the day and not much else. We hit what was left of the racks in Berowra and did mot even managed a flathead or bream. Actually we did no even manage a flattie all day even on the flats. Very quite day but over the moon with the big bream. Both where released and happily swum away. Cheers Lee

My 2 cents worth. Both Aussie and USA boats have thier merits. Most USA boats are made to cover vast distances in the shorest time possible on lakes and man made dams etc. The Yanks have been doing this a hell of a lot longer than we aussies have. Most Aussie builders now are offering much more advanced setups than what they were previously offering 12 months ago. It will take some time but soon the yanks will soon be importing our boats like they import our cars, our food, our produce and if they can't import them they will just buy out the company and its designs like they do with most of our stuff. We will get their eventually. If I had to do it over again I know where I would be spending my money, and thats on an Aussie built boat, built by an Aussie, for Aussie conditions and built totally to my specs. Just look at Ross's boat. Its a peice of work that cuts it with the best and best of all its an aussie made rig. It is the best tournament boat I have seen, EVER! I would love to see an Aussie made glass or plate boat take on an equivelant USA made unit on the harbour, chop and all, in peak hour in the morning. Say a race from circular quay to manly. Bet the aussie boat wins

We fished the trailer boat this year and and 8 days prior to the comp for no beakies. Swoff and Byron went up to Port with Ross Hunter and boated 6 or 7 ( i think ) in 2 days and 5 on the first day. This is where a captain that is very very experienced in these waters helps. Port has always been home of the slimey so fishing live baits or even skipping dead baits will almost always outfish skirts. Morale of the story, if you want, bonnies, strippies and dollies then use skirts and xmas trees. You want Beakies or long tail tunas then use slimies. Find the bait balls and work them. And as for the bream in the marina, I fished for them during and prior to the comp and got nothing. Dropped a 50cm fish, but all the small pinkies in thier ruin the chances of a good fish. they are just to quick. Cheers Lee

Well me and Mitch decided to catch up for a fish i middle harbour. I had never fised these waters before so it was going to be a new experience for me. My hopes were high as I need to get this monkey off my back for bream on sp's. Well we fished everywhere from roseville down to the spit for nothing. We saw about 200 bream ( i kid you not ) all hiding under the boats and would follow the sp down but would not hook up. AT one stage we saw a school of 6 big bream head out from under a boat but again not interested. SO we headed off to Manly. Same story. Bream under boats but none in the livewell. Back to middle harbour and some pontoons. Mitch hooked up on one of the biggest bream I have ever seen. Easily a 45cm fish and then that would be underestimating, but he was to good and busted off. Mitch did land another 35cm fish that weighed in at a solid 1.2kgs. Well all I caught was a dam pike. I'm think of selling the boat if I can't boat any keepers soon. P.S For all you supersticious people out there, I have not named the boat and poured some champagne over the bow to christen it, technically the boats not broken in. Do you think this is the problem Cheers Lee

Sorry swoff but its the same for me as well. everyone that comes in my boat never catches much. For sale 1 trailcraft profish with everything $2 ono . Well i wont be fishing as I am picking up my VU II SS ute tomorrow ( i still can't beleive i bought a holden ) and then have a christening on Sunday which stops me fishing the social. Cheers Lee

Yeah I to own a noodle. It is a no fuss no special Abu garcia 6 foot muscle tip rod. Cost me $28 brand new in Perth. having said that it did manage to land some nice 38cm fat black bream on the flats on hb's and managed to hook up on several 42cm+ plus but they were to strong for the noodle. Cheers Lee

Plus i forgot to add that i also lost a 50+cm bream in the marina on the second day. he was close to a 2kg fish if not over. Cheers Lee

Al they were longtails. Been smashing everything in sight from the lighthouse, accross to the lbg and inside the bay near shoal bay. I did use the stick you built but unfortunatly nothing hooked up. Not through lack of trying. Cheers Lee

Well I decided to take 2 weeks off and head up to Port Stephens for a relaxing holiday and fishing. So we hooked up the boat and headed off at 4:30am on the 9th of March for an epic holiday. I had images of previous fishing at Port set firmly set in my mind and some recent stories ( 2 days before we left ) of a mate who got smashed on 15kg by a dolly and a marlin peeling off after having a serious look at a lure, only further reinforced my anticipation. Well on arrival at Port we set up our tent and emptied the car and basically dumped the boat in the water for its first offshore visit. First stop was slimies. Burlied up hard and I was catching fish by the dozen. Over 40 were caught, but the problem was they were all sweep and mato's. Could see the yakkas and slimies mixed in but the others were way to aggressive. So I decided to troll some halco deep divers around the headlands for no result, so we headed slowly over to a wreck and trolled the halco's to the paint fell off. No hits. So I threw out some small skirted lures and headed off from the lighthouse over to little island. No hits. The swell was getting bigger and it was already a 2+metre day so we headed in with a big fat zero for the day, as the last place I want to be is 3 miles off shore in a 455 bream boat. Well basically the horrific weather made its way to Port and boy did we suffer. The second night's stay had the tent leaking water through the bottom of the tent. Great . Next stop was a replacement tent from Big W in Raymond Terrace. Set the new tent up and it hardly leaked, a bit of water came in, but what can you expect when you received 33mm of water in a 24 hour period So I put the boat in after the weather had turned for the better and headed out in search of some slimies again. More sweep and mato's were the order of the day. Then a boat came right over to us and was burlying hard ( just like us ). As luck would happen we boated a big slimie. His boat was drifting to close so he moved. We got another slimie and again he moved cause the boats were to close. Once again the boats became to close so I thought I would move this time and circle in behind him. As my luck would have it the moment I moved he took off sending the slimies deep and I could not get them back to the surface. Put out the livies and not hits. Retuned back to base very dejected. Well as the wind blew harder, the rain came more often and the sea's became to choppy for my boat, we jumped aboard a mates boat and headed out for some action. We tried for some slimies and burlied up and what do you know. A huge school of slimies tuned up. I knew we where in for a good day if we landed the livies, but once again as my luck would have it a nice big long liner came in the school vanished, never to return. So we put out some big skirted lures and tried for a beakie along a current line. I left the teasers and witch doctor back at camp so it was going to make it harder. So out went the lures all 3 of them and I set up my 10kg baitcaster outfit with a sluggo rig I have been experimenting with. Well at 8knots it was hard to keep the sluggo under the water, but with a few adjustments it was swimming great. With the 10kg outfit in hand, my mate and me watched the spread of lures as the women stayed up the front and one was driving the boat. All of a sudden my baitcaster screamed into life and the sluggo was under water. The fish was peeling line and I yelled out " I'm on ", but the boat did not stop. Again I yelled out " I'm on ", but still we pushed a nice 8 knots along. I yelled out " I'm on " and my mate told his woman to stop the boat. As she did the fish spat the lure. I bought the sluggo back to the boat with a nice couple of slices taken out of the lure. The reason they could not hear me, was they had the radio on listening to music So we headed out again on another random day trying to dodge the horrific weather. We dropped down some baits and got waster on 6kg braid with 20lb leaders. Dam kingies. Up the gear and they vanished. Suffice to say that we boated more yakkas than I have ever seen before was putting a big smile on my face for a nice session at the FAD or live trolling for beakies. My girlfriend landed a huge wrasse and heaps of undersized pinkies before switching over to my rod to catch more yakkas. Well old Mother Nature decided that we would not be able to fish the fad as we had received high wind warnings. So I briddled up 2 live yakka's and we trolled them over some bait schools for no fish. Various other trips only resulted in small pinkies throughout the bay. Well the weather once again stuffed up more days fishing and before we knew it we were standing at the marina registering our boat and getting wet, for the trailer boat classic. Well over all my boat only saw about 2 hours of fishing time during the comp as the wind and rain put an end to any ideas we had. We spoke to a lady who got soaked by a feeding tuna as it smashed a bait school no more the 3 metres from shore, so we thought we would hit that area the next night. Well heaps of shovel noses and a couple of banjos and a 1.3 metre hammerhead made us retreat for the night, cold wet and very very dejected. So all in all Mother Nature ruined a very good holiday for us, but still we had fun and learned more about the mystery’s of Port. Even after this holiday, it still won't stop me returning to Port in another attempt to boat a beakie in my boat. As a little example of how bad the fishing was - No Trag were boated over the entire weekend. Only a handful of Kingy's were boated. A 25 kg tuna was landed behind the co -op and most of the locals were struggling to boat decent and legal fish. The heaviest bream of the comp actually outweighed the biggest cobia of the comp. Go figure I will return next year as the prizes and give aways for this comp are some of the best I have seen. Keep at look out on this link for some pics and the winners when they are posted up http://www.tbft.com.au/ How ever my next holiday will contain a plane flight, a hire car and some of the biggest spanish mackerel, cobes, gt's, tunas and jacks you have ever seen. Its in the planning now Cheers Lee

Cheers guys. I have checked the gps marks I have and compared them to my c - map and most of the marks are way out. Probably dodgy way points i'm gathering. Cheers to all that helped. Lee

No worries. I was not going to change it, but thought it might be an issue. Still not sure how to make sure that adding the zero on the end is the correct way. Cheers Lee

I have a navman 5500i and as far as i can see i can't change the settings from deg.m.mmm to deg.min.sec. the map datum is setup as WGS84. Does that need to be changed. Man i'm dumb. Cheers Lee