PaddyT

Mate I hope you are right but watch- they will sneak the announcments through over Xmas when its quiet. I got a "reply" from Speakman the other day to a letter asking why there was no representation from Rec Fishing groups on the current PArk review - and the reply was "we are consulting widely" complete BS. I am not optimistic about this at all. Labour wont be our friends on this either

Run out tide concentrates the bait and predators together in the deeper gutters- its worth fishing through the start of the runup as fish like whiting and bream race to get up on the flats . Best tide on the beach in my opinion

Most outboards run 50:1 once they are run in so that would help- but using a synthetic oil will also reduce fumes but cost more for the oil-

What are you targeting and where?

I have a rule on my boat- the only mackeral or wahoo that come on board are dead ones. A couple of hard whacks on the head calm them down very quickly. Dollies just get madder when you whack them so i usually swing them on board and jam their heads in bucket and hold onto their tail until they calm down. Sharks dont come on board at all.

All fish taste better when killed properly. Brain spiking is quick and "humane". What I do is I have 4-5 old soft drink bottles that I filled with salt water and keep in the freezer at home. I keep those in my ice box on the boat with a bag of ice- when the first fish comes over i break open the ice bag and tip in a few litres of salt water to form a slurry. With "bloody" fish like kings, dollies I keep a 20 lt bucket on deck with about 5 lts of water in it. I kill the fish as they come on board and bleed them out in the bucket . After 10-15 minutes of bleeding I pop the gills and guts out via the gill cover and drop them flat in the slurry. The slurry is so cold that you can barely stand putting your hand in! With smaller fish like flatties/snapper I will gut them on the way home and I fillet at home not at the cleaning tables (yet to see a clean enough one of them)

I'd watch that - braid will cut through if you are not careful

It will slip- albright is fast and easy, FG is really good but takes a fair while to tie, in a hot bit I know what i go to!

Ok ive never asked an Inspector but they way Ive interpreted this rule is- you can have 20 small mullet in your possesion if they are alive and kicking in a tank or bucket . If you have dead mullet in your possesion then they need to be over 30cm.

Hi Jon , there are a few options around JB- Murrays is my pick , 30 seconds to the squid grounds and 5 minutes from the ocean- if you are fishing outside the Tourny

No worries- ask away, the only silly question is the one you dont ask

There are some people who shouldnt go to sea in an ocean liner and there are some who could circumnavigate Tasmania in a 4.5 M boat. These days the radio coverage and the weather forecasting is pretty solid. I go to the shelf in a 5,4 M centre console all the time BUT if you havent been to sea before I would suggest starting a bit more modestly -A 5.6 M boat is fine but does everything work as it should, do you have back ups- eg 2 radios, 2 batteries, 2 bilge pumps, (I trust manual ones much more than autos) EPIRB etc. Go for a run up to Long Reef - its 10 k's up the coast from the harbour . Bowriders can hold a lot of water up front if you cop a wave but in theory are probably no more dangerous than a centre console. The FADS are not that far but again there are plenty of fish closer in . The psychology of seeing the land dissappear when you are in a small boat is also there. Go to sea with someone who knows what they are doing the first few times.

Fuel is the least of your costs when running a boat especially if its a new tech motor. Im just going to be a bit blunt here and ask you a few questions that you should be asking yourself 1. What is the main use of the boat going to be? Ive seen too many blokes buy boats with all sorts of crap they dont need "because the wife wants it" trouble is the wife comes out 1-2 times a year max and the canopy, the porta pottie , the bimini , the clears all just get in the way. So think about that. 2. Is this a fishing boat or a social boat? See question 1-minimise the crap if its a fishing boat. i saw your first post about Browns- go there in a big boat and see just how far it is- a long way to say the least and not the place for small boats driven by inexperienced drivers (and all the guys who go their in their 4m tinnies feel free to shoot at me!). Power- never buy a boat with minimum HP for any sort of offshore work- you can never have enough power (and its not for going fast!). With the Webster boats- be aware that there were Made in Oz and MAde in China versions- look carefully before choosing. Finally good luck - be cautious and youll be fine

There are few really nice beaches on the western shore of Pittwater that are great for a swim /take the kids etc, have a look around there , be aware of the weather and you will be fine

Hi Mate, saw your post- I wouldnt be trying Wattamolla until you have a lot of experience- that beach is exposed to ocean swells and your anchoring would need to be spot on over the sand bottom thats there- big anchor, lots of chain and lots of rode out

I think you will find that witches hats or traps are fine to use anywhere in the Hawkesbury except Brisbane Waters- they are regarded as traps not nets in fisheries regulations

There is a heap of info out there. If you are fishing off Sydney blacks can be a bit hit and miss most of the marlin caught are Stripes. We dont get in general the bait aggregations that occur off Port Stephens or the South Coast so lures is a good way to cover ground. Lots of stuff you can ask but try to be specific.

you certainly arent going to get a new boat that matchs your needs at 40K , chances are it will be fairly old unless you hit the jackpot somehow- just a lot of looking and a lot of patience and you might find something but it will be a slog.

Luke, what youve done there with the swivel on the split ring works quite well but what I found over the years was that a solid brass ring is better- it allows the metal to swing more freely in the water and you can change lures with just a split ring plier. We used this system for spinning for spannies and longtails on the north coast worked very well. The ring took more of a bashing than a swivel and let the lure work more freely

Pelagics are generally hitting a particular size of bait so a snap adds to the size of your lure and can reduce the number of hits you get, cheap snaps are generally made of very low quality wire which rapidly fatigues and the most torsion is down at the lure when a thrashing fish is on the line. Even the expensive ones we use for marlin have a life span and we pay between 8 dollars plus per swivel depending on the line class for those. A well tied lefties loop knot is the way to go for 90% of lure casting and keeps everything simple

People are just pigs full stop- I dont think we should be looking just at the fishing community for this one, look at the vast amounts of plastic by the road. i run a small swim school in the Nth West of Sydney and over the years in the carpark I have watched mother dump used nappies, takeaway containers etc etc etc onto the ground out of their cars- and guess what sometimes its quite "well to do" types dropping this stuff out of their expensive cars- litter is just off the scale as far as Im concerned. What happened to the good old anti littering campaigns that used to be on the radio and TV when I was a kid. Back in my LBG days I used to take 2 shopping bags to my "home"platform and every trip would fill both with rubbish, watching people be pigs was one of the reasons a stopped fishing the stones.

No different to any other type of farmed animal eg chicken, the more salmon we eat the less pressure there is on wild fish stocks of all kinds- while there are a lot of issues with fishfarming in a country like Australia with lots of oversight I dont see a problem- Salmon is the only fish I buy , as for adding a bit of dye- its done in other areas of food production and is the same chemical that is in crustaceans that naturally makes the flesh turn red anyway. There are problems but this is an agricultural operation that has only been fired up in the last 50 years anywhere in the world- compare that to cattle/chooks/whatever, it takes time and efforrt ot sort the problems and what I saw was Australian companies trying to sort their problems- I would rather see that then more imports etc

Gunna disagree with all of the above- snaps break, they effect the action of the lure and they put fish off, learn to tie a lefties loop knot and you will never go wrong. It also means that everytime you change your lure you also check and retie your knot which is what you should be doing anyway. I only use heavy duty snaps when gamefishing and they are used to join windon to leader a few feet up the line where the direct stress on the snap is less then when it is down on the lure itself/ KISS is best

Just a couple of suggestions with squiding- if you dont get squid within 5 minutes-move- the harbour is packed with them but they are either biting or not- so keep moving till you find a patch that are hitting- also vary your depth. There are a lot of really good squid areas in 30-60 ft of water eg around the spit, nth head, etc- look at your sounder and find the kelp beds. Sometimes i get a lot more there than in the traditional shallows. For that sort of depth use a paternoster rig and bounce the sinker on the bottom and the jig about a meter off the sinker. The deeper areas work really well once the sun is up.

I reckon you can smell them when they are still 20 M under the boat- stinky , bony things- good mako bait though