whiskey299

I have a hobie mirage drive 180 v2 and the sprocket has finally sheared all the teeth after many years of use. Before I go down the path of buying a new spine assembly just wanted to check if anyone has one lying around or is willing to sell the sprocket parts? Hobie don’t sell the sprocket as a spare part unfortunately and they will only sell you the spine assembly which is pretty expensive.

No donut 🍩 day is a great day! First fish for 2024. Chasing #hairtail and #blueswimmercrab at the Hawkesbury River. Perfect conditions in the morning and as predicted the wind would pickup around midday and it sure did. All Hairtail caught using #roundherring caught from Sydney Harbour. 3 for me and 3 for my dad. With a broken mirage drive sprocket I had no choice but to use only the electric motor today and I’m very happy that I had 42% battery left. Included a photo fail, the downside of trying to do this solo. My favourite way to eat crab is mixed with mayo and sriracha on toast 🍞 Gear used: Rod: Daiwa TD Black V2 Mangrove Masher 642MFS Reel: Daiwa 21 Caldia MQ LT3000 Line: #Tasline Elite PE1 (15lb) Leader: Sunline FC Rock 20lb Hook: double trebles with flexible wire Bait: Round Herrings

Cracker session Bob

What a haul of flathead well done. I've tried for inshore flathead on the yak and I can managed is millions of undersized ones. I'll move about 10-20m and then immediately get smashed by more small flatheads. They seem to be everywhere, I guess I just need to figure out where the bigger units are. Wondering does everyone here know how much flathead fillets cost in the shops, cause I can tell you they're not cheap. But I guess fishing is more expensive!

Nice silver and red! A general question to the wider community how do you like to cook trags? This is also used to chase groper so don't throw these away!

Grey mowies yes I agree they are not the best eating. But my dad's is in town and he eats fish everyday if not every couple of days. I can't seem to supply him with enough fish lol. So if I'm catching fish for family and friends I'll take a few as I personally wouldn't touch them. But the red mowie it's a different story, I think it's a fantastic eating fish. How can 2 related fish be so different in taste and texture! Thanks Guys I think it's an under rated fish honestly but everyone has different preferences. Thanks Chris, I actually gave the larger ones away and kept one small snapper as they have better texture steaming. The larger models are better for frying and I want to make sure we aren't always eating fried fish and there is a balance. I love circle hooks as well, rodney rod holder and circles make an excellent combo! This leaves my hands free to use another rod with J hooks so I can strike and not get bored watching the rod tip lol. Thanks

Full moon fishing and I’m grateful that I didn’t donut 🍩. Conditions were perfect today so I took the opportunity to fish the inshore reefs and explore some new areas. The plan was to target trag and some reef species for the #fishdistributionsystem. I always have family that want fish so I’m more than happy to share it around and keep a few to eat. Couldn’t find any trags but I found a few good sized snapper, largest one measured 48cm and one of my favourite pigfish. I would take pigfish any day over trag. From the photos you can see the j hook was barely pinned on the lip. That’s why I like using circle hooks as you get a good hookup rate and it’s great for releasing fish. Plus you can just leave the rod in the rod holder and let it do all the hard work. Tried that thing I see people do where they hold the rod and fish and struggled to take the shot and had lots of blooper photos. Managed to finally land a fish on the palms jigaro super slide 60g. I’ve had this lure for over 2 years now and it’s never seen a fish, primarily used to target kingfish but today I hook a big ass scorpion fish. Can’t complain as they are great on the plate. I think this will be my last session for 2023. Looking forward to trying some new styles next year. If you’re reading this far, congrats 👏. I wish you have a happy new year and lots of fishing and catching! Gear used: Rod: Daiwa TD Black V2 Mangrove Masher 642MFS Reel: Daiwa 21 Caldia MQ LT3000 Line: Tasline Elite PE1 (15lb) Leader: Sunline FC Rock 20lb Hook: gamakatsu 1/0 circles and 2/0 j Bait: Yakka strips

Well done Max and epic catch in the harbour

Well done Bob

Go to Bunnings and get yourself one or two of these to line the car. Ultimate Flooring PVC BBQ Mat, it's only $16. I have 2 in my car, my wife's car has one, mother in law has one. You get the idea. When you're done fishing take them out and give them a quick rinse.

What a great summary report! well done

Great report Bob. You didn’t miss much at the fad. It was just rats taking slow jigs. That’s a nice snapper you got

My friend's catch so I can only ask to see if he can get a photo of the tail section.

Caught in Sydney Harbour

Congrats on the new PB, fish that size are just in a different class. Hopefully we will see more of them around.

Help needed with this fish to make it look a tad bigger!

Yea these fish aren't for everyone but my parents love them fried. I love the red rock cod, it's great steamed and adding a touch of sesame oil to the sauce just enhances the taste.

Thanks guys, yes it was challenging without a sounder and gps. I've been checking the wiring and it looks like the sounder is dead. From what I have read online lowrance won't repair units which is going to be expensive at it's going to cost me around $1400 for a new unit! But I will give them a call and confirm before I pull out the credit card.

#fishdistributionsystem working overtime to share these with neighbour, uncle, in laws and parents. Plan A: Head offshore in the yak to see how far I can go and how long it takes to reach some really deep spots 70-100m Plan B: Fish the heads for table species Got to the ramp nice and early launched at first light and what do you know. The damn sounder won't turn on! I disconnect and reconnect the power connector many times but it still won't turn on. I'm devastated as I really wanted to fish offshore. So it looks like plan B and I'll be fishing blind! I motor out to where I think the wreck is, drop the sabiki and to my pleasant surprise I've caught a yakka. After about 15mins I consider myself very fortunate that I've managed to almost fill my livewell without the aid of the sounder. The morning started real slow without the sounder and my gps marks it's a guess work where there might be fish or structure. By 8am a school of rat kings make their appearance. It's the first time exploring this far and it doesn't help that I have no downscan or gps. Throughout the day I just have to guess where the fish are and I'm constantly moving spots until I get some decent nibbles. It's not until about 1pm when the action really starts the pickup, wrasse, snapper, scorpion fish one after the other. I even managed to hook an Eastern Blue Devil Fish (protected species) which is a first for me. Such a pretty fish I didn't really get a chance to admire it as I wanted to return it back to the water asap. Eventually the bite wears off at dead low tide. While moving around looking for fish I snagged multiple times and then hooked a freight train that ran straight into the rocks. I suspect this was a decent king as most sharks would head out towards the sea, not into the rocks. Today I lost all my sinker and rigs that I had brought, primarily due to snags and having no gps on the sounder. The scorpionfish is the biggest I've seen and caught and a PB for me 36cm. When they get to this size they are reasonably weighty.

Thanks all. Chris post has been updated hopefully this helps. there might be other ways to rig but this works for me. you could try gangs instead as I believe that’s what more people use.

I caught them earlier this year in the middle of the day back in April this year and my PB 1.6m Back then I wasn’t as prepared and still finding what technique worked for me. Everyone has different ways to rig, some ppl use gangs I prefer trebles. they certainly are! Lucky they don’t trash around like other species. Even with their mouth closed there are still two expose teeth that’s very sharp. So when bagging them in plastic bags I have to wrap a cloth around the head.

First time chasing hairtail in summer in the Hawkesbury River and I’m very happy I didn’t come home empty handed. I took annual leave from work as the conditions were ideal today, a small tide change and little to no wind forecasted for the morning. Got to Parsley Bay Boat Ramp nice and early, rigged up and launched at first light. Water temp was a nice 24-25C. Biggest hairtail caught today was 1.5m. Spent probably almost an hour getting to the spot and setting up the crab pots and dropping them at various locations. In a boat this would have only take 15mins but on a yak my speed is limited. Fishing was very slow to start off with, I didn't catch anything until 9am when I hooked a small jewfish. After that I spotted something different on the sounder and before I knew it, the drag was screaming! Finally got it boatside and the hook pulled I'm devastated as this one was a good fish, would have easily been over the 1.5m mark. Rigged up another bait and another pulled hook! Decided to use half a herring instead of whole and I didn’t loose anymore fish after that. With each drop I would continue to hookup until the tide hit the lowest point and the fish disappeared. So I focused on checking the crabs traps which were all empty! But I decided to wait it out for the run in tide to kick in and luckily I did as all the crabs were all caught in a small 1 hour window! By then the wind was raging as forecasted, so I packed up and headed back in. While I was fishing I actually got checked by fisheries. They were impressed by my hairtail catch and said to hide it from other fishos lol. They visually checked my crabs and told me to stay safe and don’t get blown away (wind was really picking up by now, white caps everywhere). It’s the second time I’ve ever been checked and it’s good to see them about. Even managed to score some freebies! 2 x crab rulers and a sticker. Gear used: Rod: Daiwa TD Black V2 Mangrove Masher 642MFS Reel: Daiwa 21 Caldia MQ LT3000 Line: #Tasline Elite PE1 (15lb) Leader: Sunline FC Rock 20lb Bait: whole/half frozen herring Hook: Double treble with 20lb multi core wire UPDATE I’m just using a 3 oz sinker, about a 1m of leader attached to a snap swivel. Attached to the snap swivel is 2 trebles using multi core flexible wire. I do it this way as they can swallow the hooks, so I unclip the trebles and dispatch the fish. Once dispatched you can bleed it on the side of the yak, gut and recover the hooks. Up to you how heavy you want the sinker to be but I find the 3 oz works well with the wind/current to keep the line almost vertical. With the 1m leader I used to use FC leader, but now switched to using multi core flexible wire, because I’ve lost too many rigs from big hairtail swallowing or cutting the entire rig including the sinker! Optional is a flashing light attached where the sinker is. When I first discovered hairtail in the area I was targeting jewfish and wasn’t using lights so I know you don’t need it but I think it helps attract them. When attaching the bait is use the elastic bait thread to secure the trebles. I find using a light rod setup works best as you need to watch the tip for subtle bites.

Nice catch Chris! Hats off to you sir for persisting and nailing a good size. At this rate you'll need a bigger brag mat and kitchen benchtop. I've also got reports that the current has been pretty strong recently

Well done Bob! What a cracker size, did any of them have any gamakatsu 2/0 hooks in them by any chance? If they did it can I have them back lol. Glad to see Mr Banana and being proudly on display. The sharks there are annoying but that’s the price we have to pay. Not likely as I would be fishing in a blue kayak.

As requested by some members here is my wife’s kingfish ceviche recipe that’s she has refined over time. We love this sauce and it’s our favourite. Honestly I’m not sure why but I can’t handle wasabi and soy anymore, maybe because my pallet has been spoiled! Anyway it seems like a lot of ingredients but worth a try. This recipe goes well with Kingfish, Australian Salmon and Trevally. 2 tablespoons grapeseed oil 1 teaspoon soy sauce 1 teaspoon yuzu/lemon juice 1 clove garlic puree 20g black pepper 1.5 teaspoons white miso 1.5 tablespoons mirin 1.5 tablespoons sake Some sugar to taste if too salty Add diced red onion and spring onion There are various toppings you can add to this which we have tried and they all work out well. You can drizzle the sauce on lightly but we prefer to drown it in the sauce as it’s so good you could drink it! Photo 1: Is kingfish ceviche but we added some chilli oil to spice things up a tad Photo 2: Is kingfish ceviche without chilli oil Photo 3: Is Australian Salmon with additional toppings of pomegranate and some fried shallots for texture. The green leaves are shiso leaves, optional topping up to your taste. We normally dice the leaves and dress it ontop. Purple or green shiso leaves both work. Photo 4 & 5: If you’re in the mood for some extra texture then you just add the fish onto some fried sesame rice crackers for some crunch.