Anti-Carp

It looks like ISO fishing gear. Pretty much a Japanese finesse rock fishing style using ultra light tackle. Probably the best way to describe ISO fishing is extreme coarse fishing

I've only started fishing with blades on the last few weeks and have found them dynamite while fishing deeper water. I"m still on my L plates on them but I'm having a great time learning. The one's I've been using are Koolabung X Ray Prawns Strike Pro Vibes TT To date my favourite is the copper/transparent koolabung x ray prawn. The way I'm fishing them is letting them sink with my rod at 7 o'clock tightening up the slack and slowly bringing the rod to 12 o'clock letting them sink and doing the same thing again. You'll notice as you bring the rod tip to the vertical the pulse of the lure working. Another thing that has worked for me in shallower water is letting them sink and a very slow roll.

I've given up on my gulp obsession. Had enough of small fish butchering them, dodgy tails, scent everywhere, bent lures etc. They are a good lure but you never know what you're going to get when you buy a packet, it's almost as if each pack has its own personallity. Lately i've been fishing blades and i'm finding them a lot better. They cast better and you can use a faster retrieve and cover more water. I have also been catching alot more fish on them

Mullet gut in my opinion is the best. It's the worse smelling bait but the bream love it. The next best bait is bread, berley up and get them feeding off the surface.

Thanks guy's, The silvers have been in the river but we don't catch them on a regular basis but we do get a few every now and then, we also get eel tailed catfish from there but I've lucked out on bass and EP's which people tell me are there but haven't had any joy in this particular spot (but there are others where they occasionally haunt). On the carp you're right Glen we get them this time on bread they were a lot more finicky. There are a few fish there not as many as in the spot you shared with us, but there's enough to have a great session with them. Bait wise bread, corn work well for the carp but when they are fussy, worms and beef heart (hair-rigged) come into there own.

Went for a fish this afternoon but tooo lazy to drive to spots x y z. So walked down to end of the road and fished for carp. Ended up with a nice bag of carp which were donated to another fisho as well as this little perch which went back.

Thanks for the responses, that makes sense I'll try them with a uni knot rather then a snell.

After hearing that circle hooks reduce gut hooking of fish, I decided to buy some KL Black Magic hooks to try them out. While trying them out I've gut hooked a flattie, couple of bream and a rat kingie and have only lip hooked one bream ) 4 out of 5 fish gut hooked). I have had numerous takes and the hook up conversion rate seems alot poorer in comparison to a single suicide hook that I fish on another rig. The way i'm fishing is 10 lb braid main line with a 2 metre 10 lb flurocarbon trace with a little split shot to a single 1/0 KL hook baited with a finger strip squid, mullet or pilchard. I fish the reel with the bail arm closed and drag set to a kilo. What am I doing wrong here? Just to add also I'm snelling the hook and i'm letting the fish hook themselves up so i'm not striking at all.

This is a good topic, but the legal lengths are for possession and whether or not you are using undersized fish for bait or keeping them for any other purpose it is definitely illegal. There are other good substitutes outside the normal bait species including hardy heads, herring, silver biddies and sweep that don't have size limits. They all catch good fish and you may be surprised with what you get on them

Think there's mistaken identify here. The eel tailed catfish (Tandanus Tandanus) is a freshwater species and you do not get em in the salt water. They have a bag limit of 2. More likely or not the fish that's been caught is the saltwater species that plagues the Hawkesbury. I've seen some big sea kittens taken at the Entrance, I'm not sure about eating them as we usually release em they don't have a size or bag limit.

G'day I'd like to get the expert opinions on which fused line do you think would be better in the 2lb line class for fishing finesse plastics. Currently I fish crystal in the 4lb line classes and it has served me well on every thing from bream to decent sized school jewies and thumper carp while using plastics but some of claims on the Stren Microfuse box of being invisible under water and glowing under sun and black light is making the switch tempting. I'll be fishing 2lb and will be using a 15 sized Okuma V System reel and will be mainly flicking light plastics. Appreciate in advance any insights or opinions on this. Thanks

It's any ones guess why fish go into these negative feeding modes and i'm sure there are host of variables such as barometric pressure, fishing pressure, water temperature, sun, shadows over the water that probably effect whether or not fish feed. With carp they seem to go through 3 different moods. 1) Negative >> fish is on the surface dormant not moving. 2) Cruising/Neutral >> fish is slowly cruising its a 50/50 chance that you can get them into taking a bait and with some berley in the water you've got a good chance of getting them to bite. 3) Postive/Heads down tails up>> at this stage the fish will feed and are suckers not only for bait but for small soft plastics and flies. Usually when fish are in this mood you will see clouds of muds in the water or even see the tail of the carp breaking the surface of the water. From what i've seen the most consistant time to get carp is about an hour before sunset on a sunny day but different places have different fish and every spot is different. Carp are a challenging fish and seem to wise up to fishing fairly quickly, as a challenge I enjoy fishing for them as they are an intelligent adversary.

When carp are on the surface and are stationary they are in a negative feeding mood and nothing you do will get them to feed. You might want to try fishing latter on in the day or earlier in the morning as at some point these fish will need to eat. In hard fished water fish become very shy of any kind of braid and even the slight resistence of braid in the water causes carp to drop the bait immediately. I would suggest you fish ultra light flurocarbon straight and you might want to try 2 or 3 different baits. One bait that has worked well for me in recent times has been a chunk of beef heart rigged unweighed via a hair rig, but a word of warning it attracts eels and eels and light line and eel combination does not mix. Keep in mind another thing you need to take into account with carp in hard to fish waters is that if they see you they won't feed.

Live garfish.... enough said =)

Yep a mono, they are a nuisance when trying to catch livies. I hear though they are good eating

You'd be suprised Glenn, I've caught quite a few koi and gold fish while fishing for carp. You will also get carp that have bred with koi (technically a koi is just a colored carp). How these koi/goldfish get in our waterways can be any one's guess.

From the sounds of things, looks like there's either a setting in your sound card drivers that have changed. To help you out do you know what sound card you have? If you're not sure "Right Click" on "My Computer" click on "Properties" then click on "Hardware" then click on "Device Manager" and check to see what you have in "Sound Video and Game Controllers" If you can find out I may be able to point you in the right direction or point to a place where you can perhaps download the latest driver (this may set your driver settings to default settings which will likely fix your problem) Feel free to PM me, if you want to take this offline for help

Why not head out to some of the creeks and lakes in the Hills and Parra area and chase some carp. They grow big and go hard and will give ya kids some practice before they land there first rats and hoodlums. All you need is some bread or corn, and some bream gear with small hooks and ya set. And best of all it won't set ya back more then a couple of dollars. If you're after a challenge your self while the kids are having fun on the carp, try chasing them on fly or plastics. Most small scented soft plastics should do the trick and if your after them on fly berley some bread in the water and use a small deer hair bread fly. Shoot us a PM if you want some spots to try.

Great stuff Jim!!

Besides the occasional stocking of bass in Manly Dam and Lake Parramatta, does any one know of any fisheries stockings of native fish in the Sydney catchment area? The reason why I'm asking is we've caught some weird native stuff like bass, silver perch and catfish in some very unlikely places in the Hills and Parramatta area while chasing carp. I'd like to think this is a natural recovery as we've removed alot of carp out of these areas but I'm sure there is a more rational explanation for this as there are still a lot of mud puppies out there.

You can get your license throught National Parks Wild Life Service http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/wildlife...persLicence.htm I'll shoot you a PM of a contact who may be able to help you

Figtree

During summer/autumm when the mullet congregate up near the weir it's a good spot for jewies and they and i'm sure you'll be able to get them on large plastics. If you are fishing bait be prepared to loose a few hooks as noahs are a pest.

I think you may want to reconsider your rod a 6 to 7 kilo stick is a bit heavy for bream. Ideally if your fishing plastics you may want to consider a light graphite rod rated at 2 to 4 kilo's between to 6 to 7 feet in length. Bream on plastics are a bit tricky to start off i'd suggest you first target flatties first. When I target flatties on 3 inch gulp minnows I'd use a 1/16 to 1/32 ounce size 2 jighead with a 4 foot 8lb flurocarbon trace The retrieve I use is a i cast out let it sink to the bottom with the rod tip down, lift the rod up about a metre wine inthe slack and then when the line is tight drop it again and let the plastic hit the bottom again and follow this pattern till the lure is back at your fit. I hope this helps and keep at it, once you get your first fish on plastics u'll become a junkie.

It's definitely an EP, very very very nice =)