Towlersbay boy

You can make a quick template for the front casting deck from a folded out cardboard box then cut plywood to shape. The front will need to fit in snug on the bow & use the front seat as the support. Screw 2 bits of wood the width of the front seat apart from each other on the bottom of the casting deck so it drops over and stops moving or just screw it to the seat & put hatches in so you can access storage. For the floor if you want a quick solution just cut a pallet to size drop it in & put plywood on top or just repeat the same process for the casting deck. You can buy marine ply for an insane price or just go nuts with lacker or varnish, few layers will be ok just watch corners that rub on boat. Used this technique for a 385 Explorer I had ages ago worked well. Hope this helps

Hey Mate the bait grounds on the southern side of the spit holds jews. Been getting a few smaller ones nail the bait jigs lately. Or you could try the drop off that is basically inline with the 4Knot sign on the northern shore, fish it at the end of a run in tide. Try and find bait on the sounder then work the area. If you have a GPS on your boat you can see the holes on the map (some times not accurate) or you can get Navionics charts on your smart phone. As mentioned above soft vibes are gun on jew but try change out the trebles to good solid single hooks as the ones that come with most of the vides bend out on a good fish plus kill pritty much all of your bye catch. Good luck

Depending on the size of your boat you can launch at back creek & drive out the shallow entrance to the ocean or at the caravan park at the break wall. You will need to watch the tide as both spots run out water at low tide. The bar is one of the worst I have seen & I have surfed it more than I have drove my boat through it. Good luck

Was out at 12 mile on Sunday. got a few kings but no monsters as they were a bit thin out there, fish sitting about 30m off the bottom. live bait will generally works better than jigs but some days they will smash anything. Good luck

Hi John Now is a good time as the snapper come in to feed in the shallows at high tide. You would want to get to the moth of the harbour at least to get some wash from the swell & be closer to the ocean. I have got heaps of legal snapper inshore fishing edges of sand flats 7 boat hulls while targeting bream on plastics. If using bait you will get thousands of undersize fish inshore though. Cheers

Yeah Cobia Just got back from fishing Coral Bay WA & the place is thick with them. The fish are units to like 30KG plus !

Some scents have a UV reflective value that is built in which I have tested on jigs & found it out fishes having no scent at all. Plastics with a high scent value such as gulps will get pecked at while sitting lifeless on the bottom while non scented plastics will need movement to entice a bite. Some plastics still have a strong petra chemical smell to them from manufacturing which I find fish terribly without scent being applied. For slow moving bottom dwelling fish that are in areas of low current where you have to present the plastic in the best way possible to get a bite I think it dose help. For pelagic species or areas that has a lot of water movement the action of the plastic is the key. Cheers

Go to your favourite supermarket find some cheap cat food (has to be pilchards or sardines. Remove contents from can in one lot as the jelly will hold it together & put it in zip lock bag then in the freezer. Once on the water put frozen cat food in a keeper bag or your wife's fish net stockings haha & hang over the side. This will give you a good steady stream of burley for about 45ms & just repeat once empty. You can tie the keeper bag to your anchor line if you have a fast current and want burley down deeper. Hope this helps. Cheers Sean

Depending on use maybe once a year. You will be able to see the salt mixing with the top of the grease which you can just scrap of with your finger. When you take the handle off and slide it out you will be able to see the exposed bearing, put the grease on that to completely seal it. On the drag front you can buy after market Carbon cortex drag washers that will give you betters sustained drag pressure under load. You can find them on ebay cheap. Also the saltist use plastic bushings in the line roller instead of a ball bearing system which can warp under extreme pressure stopping the line roller from spinning properly. this will put more pressure on the braid running through it. Again ebay has an upgrade kit cheap. Cheers

Saltist Nero 4000 probably wont give you 10Kg of drag, not smooth anyway & unless you are doing a perfect FG or Bimini twist to a Yucatan knot with at least 40lb Leader things are gonna pop at 7kg of drag with 30lb string anyway. FYI I had to write a report on the saltist Nero and it has a issue of letting in water where the handle meets the body of the reel. There is a 2mm gap that exposes one of the main bearings. You need to fill it with grease or salt water will get in and kill the reel. Besides that it is a solid reel for kings. Hope this helps.

I Feel ya. Fishing the change of season can be a hit & miss affair. Hopefully the larger snapper should become more available in the coming months. Cheers

Hi Donna There is a plastic water bottle in the back ground of this photo . That's the best I can do unfortunately. Thanks Sean

Personally I am all about the technique used and tackle fished with. Kings pull like trucks so if you can get a meter one up on 30lb or less gear you will have your heart in your throat for the who fight. If you can pin a jew on plastics with light gear you will get the same buzz but if you are just soaking baits fishing 80lb & get a few small runs then scull drag it in the only exciting time is when you see the fish. If meter jews were as common as meter kings I know which one I would be targeting.

Hi Raiders Been hanging out around the 100M mark out of Broken Bay last 2 Sundays. Found some sizable kings to around 15KG on some small upwelling's at 105M north east of the fad last Sunday. As you all will probably know the water is terrible for dollies but they are there just sitting at 40M most of the time & not touching much. Found some good reds up to 4.5kg also kicking around the uphill slope near the fish traps just bottom bashing bits of squid and striped tuna. Kings were hitting squids and jigs with pink being the most productive colour. Gear used 4000 Catalina 30lb jbraid. Yesterday sucked as the current had changed from strait down hill to north east rendering a lot of the good upwelling's useless & to make matters worse the dirty jackets had moved in on a lot of the reef. Lost some gear to the little turds for only one panny snapper and a pig fish. Water was a bit warmer but still filthy with very little wind unlike the 15-20Knots forecast for offshore. I think the guys at the Bureau of meteorology are just throwing darts at a wall these days. Hope this water sorts itself soon. Cheers

Pack some heavy gear and trall Eaglewawk neck (out of the main harbour the turn left) Great Blue/yellow fin plus Albacore. Mind the seals though, They are thick down there. Water may not be up enough yet but its on the improve. Black bream fishing is good to. Good luck

Just tow a small unweighted fly behind the boat out wide then cut across the face of the school so the fly goes through the bust up. Had a 100% success rate so far. Cheers

Hi Raiders Been away overseas so for the last 6 weeks so was keen to get out on the water and try pin some snapper. Was on the water at 5.30 and strait out the harbour to a drop off in front of the sewage treatment plant. Only managed reefies and 2 just legal fish so moved onto some ground off Manly in about 40m. Was pretty slow so after 1 hour moved in closer with the incoming tide which paid off with a 60cm fish caught in 14m of water in front of Curl Curl beach. Didn't get much for a while after that until I pinned a 43cm fish sitting under a school of yakas. Went home after that. Sunday arvo went out with a mate and fished the grounds in front of Palm Beach & managed a few fish up to 45cm but no monsters. Go buzzed a few times by a small mako trying to grab the fish as we pulled them up. Couldn't get him to eat the Sergeant Bakers which was a pity.The northern sides of the reefs were by far the most productive & with the current running up hill it makes sense that they would be sitting in the gravel waiting for a feed to get pushed down to them. All fish caught on plastics on 10lb braid with 10-15lb leader depending on water depth. Cheers

If your applying pressure on the fish with a loaded rod & loosing the fish then I would say your pulling the hook. If you are loosing fish when dropping the rod when lifting and winding then you could be taking the pressure off the fish allowing the hook to fall out of the worn hole. I loose some good snapper to this when they shake their heads hard. cheers

If the water is under 22 degrees you could be pushing it. Water temp charts look like a mixed bag out there at the moment. I have pulled solid kings from jigging the fads at this time in past years though.

Hey Mate Sorry for late reply mainly check Fishraider when at work. Haha. Foul ground is more just a nautical name used on maps etc.I was out there yesterday for an arvo/dusk session, managed a few legal one but no monsters. Water was still 22 in places so the kings were hitting the plastics before the snapper. If you have a GPS try South 33 45.353 East 151 19.376 its some gravel ground between a bommie and a drop off in bout 15m. Anywhere west or south west of that is good to but it gets shallow so watch swell. Just sound around and look for bait turn ya engine off and drift and cast. You can also try the 30M line off long reef. I very rarely see any fish on the sounder but manage to get some big units in a few gravel patches there. Hope this helps.

Hey Mate You don't have to go wide in winter to get big snapper. The majority of 5+ kg fish I pin would be in would be in under 15m of water on a high tide over reefy ground. Try the area know as foul ground out the front of manly/curl curl & up to long reef beach. If the wind buggers off on Sunday head out then they will be frothing after the big south blow ! Soft plastics are my weapon of choice but unweighted or lightly weighted baits work well to. Good luck

The Snapper will be frothing !

We hit the same fad at about 12pm with only 1 other boat on it. Managed a few into the 70s on live bait and plastics. The fish were sitting at about 60m most of the time feeding on leather jackets. We couldn't find any fish traps to save ourselves ! those things are normally gold mines for bigger fish. Cheers

Don't give up on the close reefs around that area. I pull more big snapper from there then anywhere else on the northern beaches in the cooler months.

Hi Raiders Went out to Sydney north fad on Sunday to find every man and his Mini jig bobbing around a current less fad. Water was 23.2 degrees with nothing going on. We stayed about 1 min to see a single micro dollie get landed by the boat next to us. We decided to leave the carpark and head east to find a current line and hopefully some stronger current. Didn't take us long to locate a healthy current line with about 2 knots running NE and 24.4 degree water. Managed to pull a few just legals off a piece of old wood floating around and a stack off some of the fish traps about 2kms NE of the fad. Nothing over 85cm though and didn't see one bull all day. Had a decent marlin smash some baby dollies near us but couldn't get him to hit our live bait or skirts. Majority of the fish were caught on dolphin fish look alike soft plastics that we let sink to about 30m and crank back to the boat. Live baits went ok but most of the time the fish would just play with them and leave the livies dead in the water for the mutton birds which was awesome. Hopefully get some bigger units come in with the warmer water. Cheers