wazatherfisherman

Heddon "Crazy Crawler"- (I know these are still a big seller), bottom right is a Heddon "Baby Lucky 13"

These ones are "Hula Poppers" on top then next 3 all single hook surface poppers for Bass- rubber legs are starting to perish from heat

Got the following lures out of a big Plano box that probably has only been opened once in about last 20 years- some of them undoubtedly still available today. Top ones are 'swimming frogs' with rear half that spins on retrieve, then frog variations and 2 bottom left are Rebel 'Ant'

Sorry made a mistake with the location! It was Port Campbell that I thought was beautiful spot

Best of luck fishing down there- Port Fairy is one of the nicest towns on the G/O Road, didn't have a fish while I was there, and the wharf looked like squid fishers paradise to me also

Hi kingie chaser By all means get an almanac, but even better is keeping your own logbook, which is "location-specific" for where you go. Doesn't need to be too complex, just basic info like tides, moon, weather, gear, bait/lures etc, and of course results and a couple of lines to what you think happened and why. A "picture/pattern" develops over time and is your own personal reference book. 15 or so minutes to fill in a pre set-up logbook gives you your own almanac and something you can use for reference in years to come. Mrs Swordie suggested also that many folk use Fishraider in the same way Regards Waza

I have had Casio "Fishing Time" watches for years, am on 3rd one. You need to change the Lat/Long coordinates when you venture away from your "home area" to keep the data in "real-time", but they are a great fishing "tool" and my old group all used them. The best feature of it in my opinion is, by simply pushing a few buttons on the watch, you can check tide phase, moon phase and "best fishing time" up to a year in advance- pretty handy when planning future trips while with your mates away from charts, calendars etc. It's like a multi-purpose chart on your wrist, regardless of "Best fishing time" graph feature Always a 'matter-of-opinion" whether any of these type of things work, but we have used it for trip-planning for many years. The watches are hard to find now by the way, but the "Fishing Time" has served us well as a planner. The boys always ask "What does the watch say?" whenever we were planning a trip.

Cool! Bet we know what you're going to do next 25th of May!

Hi Oz, although Cowan Creek has long been regarded as the "home of the Hairtail", they often turn up in different places as well. During the late 70's there was a run of exceptionally large ones, with a great mass of them schooled up in the bay at Port Botany, where the water is really deep. They were being caught there during daylight hours. In 1976, 77, 78 there was a big run of them in Sydney Harbour, with really large masses of fish taking up 'residence' in the big trench (known as the "hole") out from Clifton Gardens. Again, these fish were biting really well in daylight hours. In fact, once night fell, they seemed to leave the hole en-mass and roam throughout the lower Harbour. Those years, we caught them at about a dozen different spots while searching for the big Tailor schools that are active in the Harbour at night during April, May and June. The next few years, they still turned up in the Harbour, albeit not in the numbers of previous years. Again Clifton Gardens was the 'pulse' spot, but they were also in fair numbers at North Harbour, Watsons Bay(deep hole) and also in the deep water on the eastern side of Shark Island (Rose Bay). We actually caught quite a few fishing from the base of the cliffs at Dover Heights and the cliff-top fishers were getting them using bobby corks at "The Block" at Diamond Bay- quite an unexpected catch fishing the Eastern Suburbs rocks of a night. During all those years, Cowan still produced heaps of Hairtail. Next few years they became prolific in Newcastle Harbour, with huge numbers also caught from Stockton Wall- both river and beach sides of the wall. Then Coffs Harbour was 'inundated' with them, and they stayed around for a couple of months. Again Cowan produced plenty. In the north, Cairns Harbour is another regular haunt for them, so their Australian distribution is quite wide, I guess it depends a lot on seasonal climatic variances, such as water salinity (they seem to prefer 'clean' clearer water to take up 'residence') and also water temperature. There is evidence this season, that the band of 'warmer' water has stayed along the coast for much longer than usual, creating a "barrier" (for want of a better word) of warm water that has kept them coast-bound and not encouraged them to enter the estuaries on their 'normal' spawning run. Nevertheless, as their spawning cycle period is due, undoubtedly, they will still turn up in numbers- in exactly which estuary/s is anyone's guess, but Cowan rarely fails to produce at least some, during July and August. Last time I fished for them was in April 2017- we caught quite a few in Waratah Bay (Cowan Creek)- what was significant that trip, was we were in shorts and T-shirts after dark- "unheard of" clothing for Hairtail fishing, usually you can't get enough clothes on because it's freezing! It was not a planned Hairtail trip, but they were there in decent numbers. As FrankS said,(and he's caught heaps of them) some years they just don't show up at all. As for eating, they are great any way you cook them, personally, I cut them into 6-8 inch sections and then fillet the sections, which is easy and leaves you with great boneless fillets and absolutely minimal waste

I just look at the tail, both fish sometimes have the yellow inside their mouths. Haven't caught a Trag for years

Hi Frank you have a great eye! Waratah Bay it is! Houseboat fishing Regards Waza

Tail ID is most reliable way as sometimes the colouration is minimal

Yes but more pronounced in some areas. Easy way to remember Jew/Trag is Jew have convex tail "E" in jew and convex, Trag have Concave tail "A" in Trag and concave

Just got this out from under the house- it's the head of a 16.5 kg Kingy I caught jigging at the Peak over 30 years ago, my first biggish one. Tackle used was a Butterworth "Jig King Deluxe" $45 off the shelf, Penn 113H Senator Special (star drag and about 3.5:1 ratio) too heavy a reel for jigging really, 15 kg Tortue mono tied straight onto the jig- a "Speed King Swivel Hip" identical to the one in the picture. Fight time was about 7-8 minutes

Not too bad on the Trout either, stupidly lost a couple throwing at Tailor schools over the years

Hi Noel here is something sort of similar- had a handle on the back making it like holding a rod without guides- 'drag' was your palm!

Got an occi while fishing Sow and Pigs one night and it got hold of the side of the boat, had just started 'trialling' Mustad 34007 Stainless gangs (expensive at the time) and not wanting to lose them to the occi, boat mate Kenny said "cut your line off and wrap it around the rod holder- it'll get the hooks out itself and you won't lose 'em'- good idea Kenny, except continued catching fish for another hour or two, forgetting about occi completely. Left the 'Pigs' and planed the boat back to Rose Bay ramp in the wee hours. Lined the boat up on the trailer and cranked the winch until boat about 2/3 on the trailer, before realising the 'thing' between boat and roller was actually the occi. Let boat back off enough for occi to be free and it fell onto the ramp, still had ganged hook firmly grasped by a leg- it was no longer hooked but 'clung' onto the hooks until free and just started crawling for the water. We'd just basically driven the boat a few km's on it, then wound up the heavy boat with it stuck between boat and roller and it simply crawled away, seemingly unscathed- tough buggers eh

Last one for today- they don't look like much, but most of these are 60+years old- the red and yellow and green and yellow ones in the centre are roughly 50 years old- I used to "spin" for Long Toms with them and a bait trailing about 18 inches behind- float attracted the 'Tom's' like a popper and they'd grab the bait. Great fun when I was a kid!

Iconic Alvey advertising from yesteryear, framed to protect the picture, as an Alvey lover myself, this picture "high" on my list of memorabilia!

It took literally about 5-7 days to produce split cane rods (per rod by small batch at a time) and builders were genuine crafts-person's to do the number of different processes involved, which also included turning/shaping foregrips, butts etc. Some builders 'signature mark' was actually the stylishly turned grip. No soft grips on most, until cork started to become utilised. Pre cork, heavy duty rods like game rods were leather bound for grips

Back of spool shot showing why these "Nottingham style" reels were known as "Star-backs", probably thousands of these reels, from many,many makers, all over the world. Certainly heaps of different varieties made here in Aust. Used from Trout in freshwater to even deep sea game fishing (which usually had leather palm "brake-pad") - plenty of star-backs were home made

More old interesting threadlines- designs evolving

4 x 'Diamond's" sorry don't know much history of these

Couple of Columbia's and a Cresta

Few more old style spinning reels, notice all have 'internal' spools rather than modern day external