PaddyT

Super glue will work but the water resistance of cyanoacrylate is pretty poor so will eventually fail. Epoxy will not work and neither will liquid nails (no adhesion to non polar surfaces suck as the plastic in your transducer). Other issue with trying to glue will be vibration will work through the glue line, cyanoacrylate has great sheer strength (straight pull) but very poor peel strength (side to side/vibration flex etc), phone Loctite and see if they have a modified cyanoacrylate available in their engineering range- standard over the counter Bunnings stuff wont be up to it

Simple- buy the biggest, most expensive unit you can afford- go to a boat show and drive a few of the units in demo mode and work out what you like best - cant go wrong with any of the big name brands really

Gees forgotten that one- some of the gear we used to use was pure c!@# compared to what we can get now. I learnt to spin with a 2nd hand Seascape which was the casting equivalent of herding cats- Jigmaster was even harder to throw with- not to mention having to replace the drags with split chrome leather soaked in oil every season (if not more), amazing we even caught a fish

I would suggest for your first trip to Tomma- walk in and watch what the regulars do, LBG fishing can get pretty complex-but if you spend half a day there observing what goes on it helps- I dont know that reel but looks pretty similar to the old Penn Jigmaster- i caught my first LT on one of those - 31 lbs on 20lb mono- first run took about 300 M and the drag faded really badly during the fight, a modern star drag that holds about 500M of 20 lb will handle most LT's - if the sharks dont get them . LAst LBG reel i bought was a Diawa Sealine something or other for throwing big poppers at LT's and Spannies off the rocks, these days I use it for snapper fishing in the boat. For live baiting a TLD 25 is a great starting point reel for most Nth Coast fishing

Current- no run no fun! it just doesnt hit Avoca often enough to make it a top notch spot for bigger pelagics, another factor is the proximity of the Hawkesbury/Broken Bay a big rain event can shut down Avoca for weeks , having said that its a pretty reliable spot for bonito and small stuff- footwear is pretty important on the front ledge it gets black slime buildup that turns it into an ice rink

Cool story Jon- mind you I always start getting nervous at this time of the year as the whales start moving North- there are just so many of them now they are impossible to avoid

yeah- Southerly swell tends to "walk" past the platform, NE/E is the killer

Avoca is still an OK spot but its pretty heavily affected by crowds, what the guys said before about it being dangerous in a swell is very true, I was lucky enough to fish it growing up in the 80's but by the time I got my drivers licence I looked further afield. Longtails (still call them Nthn Blues) can be caught there but its very hit and miss. The Avoca platform will only get decent current a few days a year which is why its dominated by smaller pelagics, the other issue you face is the crowding- hook a decent fish and the pilchard tossers will make it pretty hard to land it , not to mention its a hard spot to get decent Longtail bait (ie slimies) , I spent as much time as I could fishing Avoca between about 1983 and 1986 and I saw about 6 longtails caught. I then found out about the platforms further north and saw and caught a hell of a lot more. Can I suggest that you start your search at Port Stephens (Tomaree) and move further north. A few places worth exploring are Charlotte Head, Muttonbird Island, Hat Head and just about any platform that holds bait. If you can get time to go now- go-its a pretty good time of the year for them right now especially considering we have nice warm water still on the coast

Dont crimp single strand wire- it will slip every time- look up the haywire twist- much better

On a serious note, I would imagine that their would be carp- I am mates with Aaron Horne from Windsor B&T and he does some pretty amazing fishing for bass in tiny little creeks all over the Hawkesbury catchment (upstream as far as Quakers Hill and Box Hill)and he also sight fishes carp in some amazingly skinny water in the Parra River catchment (and other places). He has a ball doing it so have a look at some of his Youtube vids or go and visit him- he is always willing to share information

yep, ive caught them off Box before- but in the middle of summer

And you gotta use eels as a skipbait- although the jewies will eat a live platypus

Yeah Oct 2015 I went 4-3-1 on stripes including a double hookup in 70Fthm off Sydney, left the bite at 2pm to do school pickup and saw another 3 freeswimmers on the way home- stripes can certainly be year round if the conditions are right

Couple of stripes caught last weekend wide of the shelf, but it is normally the time of the year when it has slowed right down- mind you it has been a slow season off Sydney for me anyway- only 1 black

estuary ribbon weed flats 1.8's , harbour kelp beds- 2.5's , offshore deep squid 3.5's

Pink- dusk and dawn

First of all I will assume you have rockfished before, can swim and have appropriate footwear for Sydney ledges. So- from the North to the South- Barranjoey (decent walk in , can only be fished in a small swell) North Whale- small platform , gets crowded quickly The Ovens- needs ropes to get in North Curly- small swell only North Head/ Bluefish- some parts of the climb can be dangerous, some parts of the ledge are dangerous , go with someone who knows it Julieannes- nasty little ledge in certain conditions , very slippery- ive only fished it once over 25 years ago so someone elses advice would be needed Curracarrang- Royal National Park- not fished much these days, long walk in Good luck

30-60 minutes drive from where in Sydney?

Doubt you are going to solve too many probs with a new prop-your boat is underpowered pure and simple , especially if you load it up with fuel /four people and all their gear , call a Caribbean dealer and have a chat with them- there is a mob in Sydney who've been selling those boats for over 30 years and they would be familiar with your model I would imagine

Biggest king i ever saw was at Winnie Bay- ate a 10lb mack tuna that a mate of mine spun up like it was a jelly bean- I know the mack tuna was 10 lb because we had a double hook up and I got mine in- there are plenty of big kings around where you are Luke-use one of those bonnies as a livie and see how you go.

If you are after kings longie fires best when the current is running north-south, it can be very dead when its the other way around. Quite often the kings will be stacked up well off the reef to the north (usually away from the crowds) , only issue is that in a yak thats probably a fair old paddle. Snapper can be anywhere but again concentrate on the gravel edges , the hard parts of the reef hold lots of rubbish fish, start early in the morning in the shallow parts and move deeper as the sun rises higher.

Yeah had a look on the Australian museum site , more likely to be pilot fish out wide, the black markings are fairly similar but the pilot fish seems to be a "longer shape" cool, thanks for that

Seen these guys a fair bit out really wide hanging around flotsam/wider home made fads, saw a couple off Sydney 2 weeks ago under a floating drum (that had 25ft of rope hanging off it that i nearly ended up getting in the prop!) in about 100 fathoms, never seen or caught them in close though

classic king marks- the intesity of the readout will chage depending on how much they are moving around and where they are sitting in the sonar beam- dont forget the beam is a cone so if they are slightly off to one side they will come up as less intense than if they are sitting in the middle of the beam

Good news, a few members have pointed out that a lot of fishing forums are dying off and I think that a small membership fee is more than reasonable. I was a pretty long time member of Sydney Angler and like Fishraider there was a lot of archived information on that site . When a site shuts down all that archived info is gone - forever-and for the cost of a small fee access to that info is more than reasonable. I will be joining. Social media is ok - I am in a few groups - but accessing older info is difficult (or impossible) and the amount of vitriol and C$%^ is ridiculous. I would suggest to Stew and Donna that 2 levels of membership be allowed- free which accesses a limited amount of stuff (say last weeks posts) and paid which gets all info, just a thought anyway. Anyway, good news.