dirvin21

start with soft plastics the articles have some excellent info and target areas you now are loaded with flathead

first of all NEVER put WD40 on a fishing reel, it's a solvant that basically strips away the oil that lubricates the reel, hence the reel being stiff and rough wash your reel with a sray bottle and use a light mist of freshwater over the entire reel rather than hose it as a solid stream of water will just force salt and sand in deeper you can either get it serviced by a pro most tacle shops either service reels or no someone that does or you can strip and oil it yourself just use youtube thats how I learned but get proper reel oil and use it sparingly unfortunetly the reel may be cactus and you could be up for a new one ust depends if the bearings have worn because of the wd40 stripping the oil

they become a bit of a pest because they get their sites set on small bait giving them a taste for bream lures and of course the more expensive the more they like them and on par with red satan they don't like returning them when they're finished

got out for a decent landbased session yesterday fishing the usual haunts, started off spinning the fallen trees which were a bit slow but with some persistance finally had a take probably the smallest big-eye I've ever caught.... hopefully the trevs will start to appear soon changed locations to a bit of footpath/roadside the water was crystal clear and loaded with bait monster bream everywhere looks like its going to be a good spawn year everything was very spooky..... out of nowhere some pilles start scattering not 3m from me..... instinctive cast and hook up immediately to a solid fish first thoughts were king but to my surprise a big tailor surfaced with my lure hanging from his mouth a bit nervous of his teeth with 8lb leader baced the drag off and let him tire down he seemed to be swimming with a bunch of kingies and a massive cod came out to try and the poor tailor after a good 10 minute fight he finally came ashore a qulity mid 40's tailor haven't caught a decent tailor in years a surprise for the river. It was nice to play a fish for a change rather than the white nucle stuff I've been doing lately then the pike turned up some were around 50cm mark.... not a desirable species but still fun.... I often stic with pie rahter than move on because bream will often get competative and lose a few inhibitions. moving onto the breakwall geting the usual funny looks for casting up along the side of the rocks but within a few casts a reasonable bream came out a couple of smaller fish came after including some small moses perch not a bad little session ended up catching and releasing over a dozen fish of 5 different species cheers for reading Dave

sleep in.... let the day warm up a bit before you start fishing and focus more on fishing the arvo session bream bite just as well in winter ust slow things down a little I use more slow and subtle twitches with hardbodies and crab style lures are also very effective cast up against pylons in the winter

practice practice and more practice

just bought a stradic FK recently havn't been able to fault it.... light as a feather

the only time I've seen scales used is in gamefishing when specific drag pressures are used you should set your drag according to the situation you're fishing..... fishing sandflats with no snags I'll usually go fairly light and on the flip side casting oyster racks I'll basically lock it up

first of all if you suspect you've hooked a flathead back off your drag so the fish can run yes you risk hitting a rock but flathead don't generally bury you intentionally....... all the time I see people afraid to let a fish run in open water especially flathead next mistake is they go to hard... take your time the aim is to tire the fish, slow gentle lifts and winds eventually you'll start anticipating the fish lungeing and you'll be able to drop the rod a bit to absorb the force don't let it's head break the water once their head is on the surface thye start shaking and thus is when leaders really shred hope this helps Dave

they have a liking to eating a lure and nose diving back into cover before you can even feact I'm assuming big jacks must have a trophy wall in their snag of all the lures they've stolen

you should head up this way soon Rick with the bit of rain we've had hopefully the fish will fire up

I was thinking the same thing when I was out there not much would be off the menu for a metery

I did $64 in 3 casts one night on them....... on lures the score rests at Dave: 2 Red Satan: 14 I should also add those 14 average about $16 each

no 1 is a handfish gets its name from the small hand like fins in front pectoral fins my guess is "Australian Spotted Handfish, Brachionichthys australis" happy to be corrected Dave

I used to fish Pindari with my Uncle when I was young thats where most of my yellowbelly have come from, the area I've been fishing is downstream from Ashford it's certainly no well guarded secret being in national park, the next time I'm out there I'm gonna take some bait and have a crack a yella

Severn river near Ashford

I had a short window to head out after murray cod again Dad decided to come with me to suss out the spot. I had a pre plan of being dropped upstream and kayaking down to the campsite about 2.2km of river I'd seen most of the bottom end on foot last time I was out there and had most of the rapids sussed as a nice easy run. Launched the kayak full of confidance water was looking good except I didn't realise the river had dropped atleast 1.2m since I was out there last. The first couple of holes didn't produce but they were a bit shallow with short portages at the end of each one, after an hour came to a decent portage with there being 20m of boulders with a tricle of water through them after a bit of teeth gritting the kaya was dragged into a beautiful looking pool Wasn't long before I hooked a fish only small he fell off beside the yak, now filled with some confidance kept hitting the snags with casts an eternity passes before a "hail mary" cast into a log gets smashed had to fight the fish hanging over the back of the kayak but managed to extract a beautiful little cod measuring up 50cm excuse the photography its hard to use auto timer and a tripod on a aya with an angry cod now full of confidance kept casting and casting reaching the end of the pool with no result then I saw a nasty looking portage through low branches and boulders still the fish kept me motivated. Onto the next pool again no fish and another nasty portage this was the case for the next couple of pools and finally I coud see the cliff opposite the campsite the portages were nearly over. That was the moment I realised the river was down and the nice easy rapids were a atleast 300m section of boulders with a trickle around them so what was meant to take 10 minutes took about 1.5 hours so after loads of lost skin a broken rod and falling in a freezing pool of water I finally reached the end and chanted a great HALLEF#*@KINGLEAYAH and turn to see a family who had been walking the riverside trail and apparently the kids had taken great amusement in watching me curse my way along the river. With every muscle aching it was food beer and sleep for the evening. Up early the next morning for another crack this time heading downstream luckily only one small portage to the pool I wanted to fish and it wasn't long before a cod charged the spinnerbait down he put on quite a fight for a small fish never get sick of these fish beside the kayak kept casting for a few miss hits and then spent about 20 minutes watching a platypus go about his business with basic pain from head to toe and a 5 hour drive home decided to call it quits. I have never worked so hard for 2 fish and despite the pain and frustration all I can think about is when can I get back out there and have another go cheers for reading Dave

couple of nice cod there Neil

nice work guys..... great read

cracker mate... I expect to see a 50cm model soon

nice mate!

frozen squid works fine, caught plenty of fish on it over the years just be cautious if you're going to use supermarket seafood as bait check the country of origin as alot of it comes from Asia, I'm not sure if you've heard about the outbreak of white spot disease in Queensland prawns but it's thought it came from the use of supermarket bought green prawns as bait

cracker of a fish mate

depends on the lures you intend to fish 90% of the lures I fish a swivel or snap would destroy the action even with bigger lures for cod spinning etc.... I use a loop knot I find swivels and snaps are just another thing than can fail

Last week we headed up to the Nymboida full of confidance that we were going to hit some fish. As soon as we pulled up I knew we were in trouble the river was up not by much but it only takes a 6 inch rise to make the Nymboida basically unfishable. After the mandatory swear words plan B was formed and a quic phone call and it was off to chase some trout. The trout creek was also up a bit, but atleast it was fishable It certainly is a magic looking spot The fishing started slow and I mean worryingly slow but after some persistance casting the runs a decent rainbow came from nowhere and smashed my lure I nice 30cm fish good sized for the creek with a bit more confidance kept working my way up the creek with some hits and dropped hookups and finally the hoos stayed in again for another rainbow apologies for the crappy picture quality I kept hooking fish but couldn't keep the hooks in the hits were far between so dropping the fish was frustrating, nearing the top of the property with only 2 fish on the board I pinned the hooks in something more solid the fish didn't flail around like a rainbow and sure enough out came a nice brown a prize capture in this creek measured up at 32cm a new pb and a quality brown for this area not a lot of fish landed and wored hard for them but avoided driving 2 hours for a doughnut and a new pb on a tough day always feels more satisfying cheers fro reading Dave