DaveBM

Me too (if cooking it of course!). My great uncle was a pro fisho, and used to leave snapper, mulloway, big trevs etc for his own table for a couple of days in the fridge. As a matter of course.

Sure is, and kiddo makes this look like an all-tackle record halibut!

Not surprising I guess... also pretty firm flesh and tough skin. Strip baits would stay on the hook and present pretty well.

Not just "seen as" a pest, they're a serious ecological problem. I hope you killed it. Fun to catch though!

I had a cat who went bananas for the offcuts (red bits, belly flap etc). Like, jump to swipe them out of my hand. Kinda ambivalent about most other fish. She's sadly gone and the two who took her place won't touch fresh fish or meat of any kind with a bargepole. Kids, eh?

what kinda herring is that?

People fishing for food?!?!? For shame.

Unless there's some weird camera angle stuff going on, I'd say 35cm+ You do know they're great eating, don't you?

Definitely don't leave them on the bone. Bleed on capture, then fillet, skin and cut out the dark bits as Saltrix says. Plenty of flavour, so I like to do a curry or a cheesy mornay.

Nice work! The fishing, the report and the pics. I'm glad the icecream didn't make it onto the plate. There's such a thing as too avant-garde in the kitchen.

That's a corker of a jacket! Also pretty awesome on the plate.

"be careful of those teeth on the tailor they are sharp as a surgeons knife" Hence the name.

I'll join you in trying to evangelise Kawai. Give it an extra i at the end and means cuteness in Japanese too! As for cat salmon - cats really do dig them hey... But so do I, so mine can get in line until I've got a surplus. Mornay with a good strong cheddar in the white sauce is excellent, if they're bled and you remove the dark meat down the middle of the fillet.

Looks like a cross between a catfish and a flathead. I hereby dub it cathead.

To be fair, no-fish reports don't usually make very interesting reading. If you want more, I can certainly supply them! 6-boat, 12-angler no-fish reports are a tad more newsworthy though. That sounds like a pretty crappy night.

Nice work (fishing and cooking) Sounds like a recipe for tarator, but with water instead of yoghurt.

I believe there are at least two different outings being described.

Don't know the area, but Ive been smoked by big sea mullet on weed. Still, they tend to seek structure or jump, so maybe not helpful.

Thanks! I'll keep you posted with any successes/abject failures too!

Until Sunday, I'd only ever caught one keeper bream. This was a big improvement. Pretty new to the area... what would your best landbased tips be around Wollongong?

Sorry, no pics, but I got 5 nice whiting in about half an hour yesterday, at the start of the runout tide on the sand banks east of the bridge from the northern shore. Was using pipis from a for-humans seafood shop (about $3 for a double handful!). Fished the last of the rising tide for no result, and was starting to think of home when suddenly every cast was bites ahoy. Largest went 38cm, which was a bit of a struggle with the ultra-light gear - krappy Kmart rod with a 2500 and 2kg line. Eating notes: I've always liked really fresh sand whiting (I'm from WA, so the almost totally white ones) as sashimi. But when I did that with the smallest of these yellowfins for entree, it was a little too al dente for my wife's taste. I could see what she meant, it was kinda chewy, but the 3yo daughter wolfed it down so good signs there. Obviously the panko crumbed fillets from the rest were superb, so no big drama.

In my experience mullet basically don't eat anything that moves. Unless it's yellow eye mullet, which will take a tiny lure occasionally. For the rest, even huge ones, completely burying a tiny hook in bread or dough is all that's ever worked for me. But this was mostly in the clean water of the Swan River estuary in Perth, so maybe not applicable here. Those guys get up to 60-70cm and are a frickin' handful to land.

¿Porque no los dos?

Yum.

I was (mostly) just joshing too. I'm a huge fan of quick and humane killing - I could go on for ages about my brand of fishing ethics, but would probably bore some and enrage others. And breach the forum rules. But the diameter of those holes suggests a cylindrical punch, not just a spike. Like a smaller scale, sharper version of an apple corer. Is that what you're using? Great idea if so, cos I'm always on the lookout for ways to maximise the chances of a quick and relatively painless death.