noelm

Blackfishing can be fun, and the bigger ones are great eating, but remember there are times when they are feeding on worms, and weed will be second best bait, and plenty are caught on Nippers and bread. Do you intend to fish lakes and rivers, or around the ocean rocks? Two very different places to fish.

If you live down Shellharbour way, and want to fish land based in the lake (not the ocean) then one of the best spots is the north west side of Windang bridge, outgoing tide, you will see the experts there regularly. Alvey reels (or any centre pin) are used because you can reverse the reel easy to allow a bit of line out when needed, but, spinning reels are OK for starters. A long soft rod has lots of advantages, easy to cast, less chance of pulling the hook (Blackfish have "soft" mouths) and less chance of breaking the light line used.

I have kept a few at a time, but now and then, you get a cranky one that tends to become the "boss" and attacks the others.

Are you sure it has power trim and not just some kind of gas assist? A picture would be nice.

Just to add, if everything is right, they will shed their shell and grow reasonably regularly. Also the biggest one might fight with the smaller ones.

They are easy to keep, a couple of tips, they will crawl out, even via an air line, they will find a way.....so make sure the lid is fitted. They seem to like a place to get out of the water, a piece of rock or wood leaning on the side will work. They also like a cave to sit in, rocks are good to make one. Just feed them a tiny bit of fish, do NOT over feed them, make sure you have a good filter system and air stone.

I have heard of small Sharks caught off Moffat beach at night.

Now we're getting a bit specific, Sharks and Jewfish are pretty specialised, you need to live bait the beaches at night, or the deeper parts of the Passage.

A lot depends on your skill level and your intended species, just giving you a spot for (say) Bream will be useless if you are after Tailor. I don't live there, but have fished the Passage lots of times, decent Flathead are easy enough around the Golden Beach area, caught plenty of Whiting on the sand flats using Nippers for bait, Blackfishing is popular along the Boardwalk in the right season.

Starting to get late now, but in general, most have fished OK, even some bigger fish caught this year. I think the weather has played a big part, lots of rain, wind, big swell, it all adds up to less boats fishing.

I will just bite my tongue in regards to light bars and headlights on boats.....

If big schools of bait fish are around, and you see predators feeding, it's time to catch one of the baitfish and put it out live, the "wounded" bait will be taken first!

Don't hold much faith in the moon business for ocean fishing, just like some say fishing is no good in a westerly wind, or it's better when it's raining, some things might change fishes behaviour or likely places they will be, but in the main, they eat when they are hungry, or an opportunity arises, they don't just starve to death in a westerly or during a full moon! That said, certain species seem to be much more active during a full moon, Pike and Tailor come to mind, most nights, fish catch rates drop off as it gets dark, once it properly dark, only the toothy predators seem to be really active, during a full moon, they seem ten times more active. I have done hundreds of overnight trips, and fishing gets boringly slow after dark, then picks up just around dawn again.

Do those last few posts prove my point? 😁

I have had moderate success simply freezing it, put in an airtight bag or vacuum seal if you have one, it's not like just collected, but sometimes when the fish are on, there's no weed, so it's better than none at all. If you only want to keep it a short while, just keeping it cool and moist will be OK, old timers lay it out between wet newspaper and it's good for a few days.

I got into IT quite late in life (which is pretty unusual) but I had been in electronics (and outboard repairs..strange combination) and at the time I was doing component level repairs on boards considered just swap outs. From there I just naturally progressed into software development and support, worked with some "kids" that astounded me with their skills, still great friends with a few that I managed and have gone on to their own huge businesses, employing dozens of people. That said some "olden days" stuff still gives me a chuckle and some stories about work and boating make laugh to myself at times.

I guess (putting the GOM aside for a second) people born from about 1950 to 60 would have seen some remarkable changes, man on the moon, from simple calculators to modern laptops, wireless technology, cars and boats with EFI that start instantly, flat screen TVs, mobile communications, things all taken for granted, but all huge steps in their own right.

Yep, I have an old VHS video here somewhere with Ross, myself and a couple of friends fishing out of Sydney.

I had to walk to school, through ten feet of snow, uphill both ways........just joking, but I did walk to school, along the beach to Shellharbour Primary School, most times I was late because I found something along the way and had to stop to fool around. It's kind of funny, along the back of the beach was a track through the scrub, during summer snakes were there every day, no one was ever bitten (that I know of) that's why most walked along the beach. These days there would be all sorts of shady people lurking in the bush, no one would let their kids walk to school, but to us, that's just how it was! The track is now a road, most of the bush is gone, except a strip along the beach to prevent erosion, which strangely enough was never a problem until "we" started building houses and roads....go figure. What we called bush or scrub, is now a "fragile dune environment"

Yep, I can remember sitting around the old black and white 17" "Astor" TV, that had long spindly legs like a spider....with only a couple of channels, channel 9 and the ABC were first on the air. Having been in the TV repair game for a very long time, I fairly recently help restore an old HMV set. Now we whinge because with the dozen Chanel's, plus Foxtel, plus Stan, Netflix and god knows what else "there's nothing on" GOM syndrome right there!!

Yep agree, how a fish is dispatched and cared for after capture makes a big difference to eating quality and flesh texture. For fish like Flathead and Bream, I personally don't bleed them, to me, they don't have "fishy" blood. Kingfish, Tuna, Dollies and Salmon, yes, bleed them every time. Having caught literally hundreds of big Kingfish, I think size for them makes no difference to taste, Dusky Flathead are not so good when bigger, same goes for Snapper for me, Jewfish on the other hand are the reverse, small ones are soft and useless, it's all about personal taste.

Yep, a fresh Salmon, filleted, skinned and all the blood meat cut away is good eating, but, left uncleaned, or a few days old they are not so flash. Some fish benefit from leaving the skin on, Bream, Whiting and Snapper but others are only OK is skinned and the blood lines cut out, Kingfish, Mahi Mahi and Blackfish being common ones. But when it is all said and done, good fresh, well looked after fish is way better than something left in a bucket all day, or even in an esky/kill tank with no ice.

I guess like most things, it's all about personal taste, I eat lots of fish, and almost all species, including Kingfish, and this will get me flamed big time, but (in my opinion) Kingfish are very similar to Australian Salmon in taste, and I eat Salmon reasonably regularly. The best way to cook fish for me, is just simply rolled in flour and fried in hot clean oil, that way the fish flavour is not masked by a dozen different spices/sauces, some fish is not the best done in flour and needs crumbs or a decent light batter, Kingfish is one of those. Dolphin Fish is a very "fishy" taste, once again, in my opinion! but I eat lots of them, especially around the 5-6KG size.

I didn't have that, I worked in IT, I only had a double floppy drive and 500k memory at home, with a dot matrix printer and tractor feed paper! But I do consider myself extremely lucky to remember a milkman, a baker that sold half loaves of bread, a real butcher and a vegetable man that used to come around in an old truck, but we mostly grew our own Veges. Not to mention a phone box that took coins and you had to press button A to allow a call, and B to get your coin back, plus a number you called to get the time.

I am pretty lucky, my kids and grandkids live quite close by, but, they still FaceTime at least once a day. I guess my GOM comes from being lucky to have experienced the "old days" yet still know technological advancements, when I started in IT, a 40MB drive and 4MB of ram was a big deal, I remember our first "car phone" it was just a standard home phone in a box that required a big aerial on the car. I just fear that the rate society is going we are going to be just zombies, forever reliant on iPads, iPhones, remote controls for every gizmo we own, the simple life skills are just vanishing with each year.