JonD

90kg black marlin for us today from 27'c water down here off Narooma.

Great variety of species, awesome session.

I have my youngest daughter and her partner down from the NT picking up a 4x4 to take back up north. Keen for a fish we headed up the beach just before dark for a quick flick. A few instant fresh tailer gave us a bit of confidence to lob out a bait outfit which resulted in a nice little jew first cast. Plenty of salmon followed and a few rays, pretty action packed for an hour on the beach. Makes up for the last couple of fishes trips. Time to try and get him a marlin in the boat next.

Ive been looking into fuels and various outboard requirements etc a fair bit just lately and found some quite surprising facts about it. Rather then go on about it myself I will post this video which covers fuel, engine requirements, additives and true octane ratings and how quickly those ratings can drop. The info from JB mechanical will be the most useful in regards to fuels.

I use a canon st10 with a swivel mount and easy to remove rod holder mount. I switched the wire over to braid to reduce the hum which sometimes attracts sharks. My model has an extendable arm and metric counter, which helps with accurately allows me to drop baits at depths I can see fish on the sounder. In saying that I can easily see the down rigger weight and bait on my sounder as well as fish checking out the bait etc. I will often use a wire homemade baskets with concrete in the base filled with old fish frames to get burley directly under the boat at anchor. Ive also made these baskets to accomodate Gopro cameras.

I bought him one of those mic stand attachments but can't get him to use it, he has a fair few notes on changes etc he makes to each song.

They really played on the forgetful storyline, he was actually told to take his music folder on stage by them playing on the fact he can be forgetful. They also put several cuts in his song which made it seem like he had forgotten bits. When he plays gigs he has over 200 songs he has notes with in his folder but a fair amount of them he can do without his folder. Recorded on my phone by the lake at our house.

Yes these are Risso's dolphins, not that common.

A little dolphin action from a recent trip.

Thanks Donna, he will be on next Monday.

This is the shallow sandbank which many trailer boats are now hitting at low tide. If you hit it on a day when the bar has swell it could end badly and is the reason boats are heading into the the rougher north side of the bar. Personally with my small more agile boat, I cross tight to the southern side just missing the rocks off the wall which clears me of the fast running pressure waves. Of course in these shots its pretty flat. Just Just

She has been offered tug boat work as well as personal carrier vessels. Her younger sister is working at the mines in WA doing what she loves too, she removes and releases wildlife from the trenches around the mines, plenty of king browns.

She did her masters 5 too, apparently she was told also she was the youngest to of done it!!!!....18 at the time, she's now 22. Before even leaving school she had offers to work with offshore mining skippering various boats. Id like her to do something else but she won't budge from what's she's doing. She's at the boat at 4am and not home until around 10pm most days. Doing the night tours with the bar like it is gives me great concern.

Yes especially dealing with them 7 days per week doing three trips per day. Even Xmas day my daughter was working all daylight hours. It's an extremely hard call as that was the second trip heading out for the day for her. Driving from the flybridge they have a clear view even before they reach the bend in the bar. In the start of the video you will notice a set of large waves had just finished, which my daughter was observing as she approached the entrance, hence why it seemed like she just went straight for it. I've been out twice in the last three months, both times the bar was extremely bad and both times I had wished for more than 90hp on my 15ft boat to help me get through it. Its been so long since Ive been out due to the conditions that Ive lost a fair amount of my confidence crossing the bar now, wish I still had the zodiac.

Its been like it for weeks, to add to this there's a very shallow sandbar on the southern side forcing boats to have to take on the bigger sea's on the northern side. Two people were thrown from another charter boat in bigger conditions than this a few weeks before. The swell was at 1.8m on the day, so copping a big set like this was very unfortunate for my daughter, Yes it was my daughter who skippers that vessel and my other young fishing buddy as the decky. The passengers had been asked to remain in their seats but when one decided to get out of his seat to take a look, it related a domino effect with other passengers sliding into his gap. The following day my daughter copped abuse from clients after canceling her trips due the the swell reading over 2m.

Hey plastic bananas don't count, that one looks fake!!!!!!! Great action up there, no kings for us yet, though I did get stretched on beach sharks for the first day of the year.

Headed down the beach to flick some lures and find a decent gutter for an after dark session targeting gummy sharks. First salmon was a chunky little fella which I kept for bait before heading home to prove a point to a young lad I had with me on how dam good wrasse are to eat. New Years eave I had done very well on flathead and a few wrasse from the boat, with the young lads constantly taking the pee that I eat them!!!!!! Now I don't go out of my to target wrasse but the fact they rarely seem to survive release form water much more than 12m means I keep them. Anyway crumbed and fried the young lad recons they are the best fish he's now ever eaten!!!!!!! Back to the beach later in the day with the salmon, where first cast resulted in a bycatch grey nurse. These people who claim them to be in low numbers really don't have a clue as they are the most common shark we keep catching on all the beaches down this way. Three GN sharks hooked and released. one wobby and one port jackson. Last trip much the same with three GN sharks caught and released from a different beach. This is from sandy shallow beaches, pretty much anywhere we find salmon, which are everywhere. Not sure what the feelings are on here with posting pic's of GN sharks!!!!.....and not sure how to avoid them when I can't seem to head to a beach that doesn't have them.

Grab a copy of the fish finder magazine, there are hundreds of detailed maps (charts) for both land based, boat and impoundment fishing around the country. https://fishfinderbooks.com/fishfindershop/ They have them in BCF if you struggle finding one.

Im not understanding this post, are you trying to fit one piece rods in the vehicle ? I can get any of my rods in a Toyota Yaris or in my space cab ute. This is beach rods and one piece boat rods.

Must admit Im getting a bit fed up of many of the junk fishing pliers and tools on the market. Pliers in the $100 bracket should in my opinion be able to handle hook removal without bending. A recent pair of Gerber long nose bent completely out of shape simply from unhooking a small maori wrasse. Before that the shorter nosed black magic and so on. Just added a pair of what look like cheap stainless pliers from jigstar, only these were $70. The ones that seem to do best are the cheap stainless $20 range which look much the same as the jigstar ones Ive just bought.

The bass must have had a few good years as they seem to be in great numbers this year. My daughter released 46 yesterday over a 6hr paddle in her yak. The fish seemed to be mixed in size, where normally large fish would group with the large and small the same but yesterday would see fish of all sizes grouped in some very unlikely looking spots. South coast NSW.

Also consider what the accommodation situation is around the Uni you may be considering. My middle daughter started in Townsville but had a terrible time constantly moving around trying to get somewhere to live and also stressing about the car thefts and violence in some areas there. She ended up moving to Darwin, continued with her studies there and also picked up a pretty decent part time job, wildlife related with the mines.

I think 98kh would be perfect, any slower would be boring and any faster would be scary!!!!! Seriously though there are a huge amount of variables to the question. The further offshore you plan to head then the faster the boat is can be a huge advantage. Firstly getting there and having time left in the day to fish. Putting the throttle down to beat bad weather home is also a good thing. Crossing any bar in a slow boat is down right dangerous. You need power on tap both heading out through swell conditions and coming back in. Ive had days coming in through bars where Ive had to run some of my boats full throttle trying to stay with swell. Ive also had occasions where running at 30kts in a 30kt southery from the seamounts in 5m boats has been quite comfortable, where Ive left far bigger heavier boats in my wake. Things change dramatically if I get caught in a westerly though as I run pretty much head into it to get home and I soon wish I was in a far bigger boat. Little boats as described as pocket game boats can be extremely good fun in big seas as you drive them more like a mountain or motocross bikes etc, steering and throttling your way in and out of swells and breaking waves. They respond quickly and you become in a zone of fast steering, feeling like the boat becomes part of you and not just something you are heading towards port.

I have two that were special for me, firstly the yellowfin caught on my first cast from the boat on a new grappler three piece travel rod. Second was this 2.4m shovel nose ray, caught on a 4 piece travel rod (Bone voyage) and a 4000 stradic. This was caught fishing at anchor in strong current around a river entrance. There have been some other good memories over the year and some decent sized shore species but these two were special due to the company and the whole day that went with each fish.

Thats not always the case. The guy I fish with owns many properties, boats and lives an extremely exciting lifestyle of fishing and hunting etc, going where ever he feels like going. His family also do these trips and can go from beautiful hotels to roughing it in swags and surviving on what's caught and loving it all. He is also extremely generous, not only to his friends and family but strangers too. His life is about family, his business has been built to provide security for them and spends much time with all of them, more than most people could believe possible. Schooling is private so that he can take them out of school easier in the knowledge they will catch up after trips away. His boys always thank me at the end of any fishing trip whether its beach, my boat or their boat. Some people are simply jerks, with or without money.