New Signing

No shame in giving it a miss if you aren't confident mate. Maybe try a couple of easier bar crossings before you attack SWR again

I should clarify that i am not for one minute suggesting turning and running on a bar is a good idea. My point was simply that it is an option available to smaller boats like tiller steers that can turn on a dime when trying to punch through a curler simply isnt an option. In bigger boats once committed that's really it, just have to get your timing right and if for some lapse of judgement you get it wrong, do your best to ride through it as well as you can and not panic. As Jon said above there have been many a big boat lose windows, clears and even flybridges. If i knew how to post pictures id grab the one of the cruiser getting crunched on i think merimbula

Moruya isnt a hell of a lot better i can tell you. Narrow channel

In some cases when it comes to bar crossings smaller boats can handle it better than bigger boats given their ability to turn and run. You will see it a lot with the noosa bar with little tiller steer boats just zooming around in the lull between waves until they find their gap and away they go. Narooma doesn't have the room for that option though from my understanding. John may be able to elaborate further. My great uncle turned two over on narooma over the years

Find pretty much any eastern flowing river or creek and you will find eels

No worries. When using the weight estimate charts the fish measurement is taken from the bottom jaw to the middle of the tail 👍 Your mates fish might have been a striped if the bill was longer and the fish skinnier

I wasn't talking about you releasing it mate. In some cultures they like to release fish into waterways in areas they inhabit. A Chinese company purchased the old mental hospital grounds here. The thought they were doing the right thing by releasing cod and silver perch into the Wollondilly. While no one here is complaining about it they aren't actually native to this waterway as it is eastern flowing. I haven't actually heard of anyone catching the cod but have heard of plenty floating dead. They should survive here given the amount of food and cover though

Go to carpeted bunks and a ladder roller up the centre. Life is sweet then

Probably still have a use if you are fishing with traditional suicide hooks or similar where you are looking for the fish to swallow it and you want to hook them yourself

Is that a bottom jaw measurement bud? Only reason i ask is if i was to call that black id call it around the 60kg mark just looking at it

When drifting baits down unweighted or only slightly weighted i tend to leave the reel in gear using circles hooks. I find snapper which are the primary target for this style tend to engulf a floating or slightly weighted bait rather than pick at it and turn their heads effectively setting the circle hook themselves

Really need to get control over the culture of releasing fish into waterways and ensure those doing it understand it should only be done using fish native to the area

Made a day trip to Culburra to chase oversize garfish on saturday as the bite has been pretty hot down that way. Left home at 4am and headed coastal. Had the boat in the water just after 6 at Crookhaven heads and headed straight for the mud to try and jig bait. Bait was a little bit patchy and when we would find it we couldn't get them to climb onto the jigs. The decision was made to stick a couple of smaller lures out in the hope of finding a little stripey or bonito to send back out while we made our way to the shallows to look for thicker bait. We managed two kings at 64cm trolling before losing another larger fish by pulling the hook. Once at the shallows we were marking plenty of kings but they weren't the target for the day and the bait there also wouldn't play the game. We set a spread of bigger lures and pushed towards the block and fad. Just south west of the fad we had a patch of sauries take flight and moments later pulled a 5.5kg stripey. He was a little bit large for what we wanted even though he had evidence of being hit near the tail by a marlin beak was we were bringing him to the boat. We continued on our merry way not managing to find anything near the fad we pushed south to the drum canyon along the 60 fathom line. We marked very little bait until we got to the drum canyon. Once there we spent about an hour trying to get bait while boats hooked up around us left right and centre. When we finally did manage baits we sent them back out while walking around looking for patches of bait to pull up on. We did managed one bite for the day. Unfortunately it appears as though the hook was caught by the very tip of the barb in the beak resulting in a straightened hook as soon as the fish started jumping. Unfortunately this was the only bite for us for the day and we rolled back into the yard at 10:30 saturday night....

there's the best part of $6k hanging off the back there in those Talica outfits

I haven't but you have certainly just given me an idea

At certain times of the year we have found flathead feeding straight in behind the breakers on the beach. Can be a little bit sketchy drifting in there with a boat but everytime we have found them like this they have been full of the ghost crabs

Personally i've never had success using crabs but one old timer in particular that i've known since childhood swears by the little black crabs for bream and still uses them to this day. He catches some thumping bream. From what i can tell one of the beauties of using the crabs as opposed to say nippers or worms is that you avoid the pickers. I've tried soldier crabs more times than i care to remember due to how easy they are to come across as a bait source but ive never once caught a fish on them. They do however make excellent burley

Jewies are much like any other large fish, find bait and you will find them in river and estuary systems. Jewies will feed on anything from worms to salmon so matching the hatch is handy. I look for deep drop offs. I have a little tributary to the shoalhaven which has an awesome 9m drop off at the mouth of the tributary. The tributary holds heaps of mullet, blackfish, bream etc and is only about 5m wide and 2ms deep. On the run out these fish all get flushed out and tend to hold in the deep hole looking to get back into the creek. That's like ringing a dinenr bell for jews. Jew's tend to be lazy and will sit out of the current so eddies behind rock walls etc can be productive when the tide is running hard

The simplest way i find is to not put used hooks and swivels back into your tackle box. Unless we're talking about pakula dojo hooks and ball bearing swivels these items are cheap and can be discarded after each trip. With my rigging gear and game hooks that haven't yet been rigged i tend to just spray the inside of the box with WD40 every now and then which keeps everything in good nick. With my trolling lures they tend to get washed in fresh water and allowed to dry before going back into their lure wraps. At the end of the season they all get a good wash and try followed by a spray with unscented silicone spray as per Peter Pakula's recommendation. Hard bodies and jigs get the fresh water wash and WD40 spray.

That's shit mate. It's a shame you had already handed over the cash

As someone who has lost all his marks due to an unsecured battery many years ago frying the GPS it is good practice to get yourself a diary and every now and again scribble your marks down in it

That second pic definitely makes it look more like a bronzie or dusky

Generally you start your drift up current of the fad, switch you motor off and drift down past it. Once your drift is complete you take a wide berth around the other boats and fad and head back up past the boat at the top of the drift to start yours again. If everyone does it this way everybody gets a go at them before they get lock jaw. Generally if you're trolling lures you should maintain a wide berth around all the boats and not cut through the drift. I've often found the bigger dollies to be found further away from the fad anyway

Ive actually changed the way mine is set up after snapping one off in heavy seas recently. I now have two sewer rings which slip over the back bollards. The rope is then spliced into a 'Y' shape as we fish directly out the back of my boat. The main reason for that is it allows us to have two rods on the bottom midship and then a floater on each corner which has really shown great results on the reds in recent times

I actually dont even know if its possible to keep pilchard alive............