TAZ

Yep, I remember Dick Lewers. He was a legend mate. 👍

Ah, twice through the eye of the hook when line is first passed through it. Interesting. The Improved Locked Blood Knot then. 👍

Uni is great too. Use a back to back uni to tie my leaders to the main all the time. Great method. Tried the one I use on hooks to join the main and leader and it broke consistently under line rating at the join, way under. Was lousy. The hook or jig knot, in my Picasso, same knot, had/has no effect on line strength used to connect the line to a hook, but used to join lines to lines is a failure and I'd never ever recommend it. For hooks and jigs, 100%, line to line never.

Yes guys. The tip goes through the bottom loop and through the top loop, two loops. Awesome knot. Tried the one years ago where it just goes through the one bottom one and under extreme pressure it would pull undone and you'd see a wiggly pig tail end bit that pulled through it all. Never ever had the awesome pictured, 😁, one pull through ever. And under mad pressure on heavy line I've had hooks straighten and often line break above the knot or perhaps should say in just random places. That as far as I'm concerned shows its a good qaulity knot to use and why I've stuck with it. Yep, had it on occasion break at it but thats in the very low % of times, often nowhere near it. Very, very confident in its use. 👍 Cool, locked Blood Knot it is.

To stop me from drawing more weird knot pictures? Just wait till one day I do one of my fish ones! 😋

The wind knots I was told were wind knots, the ones on spinning reels, nearly always resulted for me with overloaded spools. Line coming off too freely, just virtually peeling off itself when the cast hold was released. Im pretty new to bait casters, had overheads and Abu in the past but not the newer type till recent times. I wasn't happy with the casting performance I was getting from my Daiwa Fuego, practiced and practiced, bit better but getting over runs and no great distance to write home about. Then a bloke said to me one day "mate you have too much line on it" Im thinking no there's not its just full and not over done. He then told me to look from the front where the line comes through the reels line guide and is the line coming through unhindered around the bottom two thirds to half area of the guide? Could I see the top of the line level on the spool in that area? My line level was right up the top of eye, it may have even just been coming through the top 1 /5 or 1/4 part of it. He said there was too much friction not enough free movement. Was like the eye was smaller than it really is in use. So I dropped the backing line right off so when I looked the line level was easy in the middle part of the eye. Wow, my casting improved from being less than my spin reel to matching and at times beating it easy. I now can easily cast a softy on a 1/4 ounce jig head further than I was getting on a 1/2 and my overruns greatly reduced. Again my issues were an over full spool. My spool on the Fuego may now look like its a bit under done line wise but it casts now great.

It's all good fun catching anything I reckon. 👍

I dont even know the name of the knot I use but it holds extremely well. My Dad taught it to me as a kid. Line through the eye, hold the tag end and line, twist the hook six,seven times min then put the end through the line loop near the eye, now bring it up and through the line loop up the top, wet with some spit and pull tight. Never undoes, high knot strength too. Used it all my fishing life and never let me down. Anyone know the name of it? Feel free to laugh at my artwork, I'm no Picasso. 😁

Haha, reminds me of when I was a kid fishing at a place called Wildwood in Vic. Hooked a nice trout using a small bubble float with a grasshopper suspended a foot below it (killer rig) fish took it but didn't notice the broken guide. Line caught on it and broke. So I see a float bob bob bob away out into the pool in the river/creek (upper reaches of the maribyrnong) Am I gonna watch it go away? No way, I dive in, grab the float and line and with each pull or lunge of the trout I stretch my arm out to take the shock. Few minutes later I land a 3 lb brown, good fish for that place and have this story to tell to this day. Getting wet for a fish is always worth it. Nobody saw me but I'll never forget that fish.

Hi mate. Know nothing about that place but is that temperature you mention the temp at the deepest where fish would go in the hot times or surface temp? Because in most lakes when it heats up they head for deeper cooler waters and often shut down.

Yeah mate, the worst was not having the car picture really. I stopped mid road to get a quick picture as there was nowhere to pull over properly, saw a ute a bit back, took the pic, planted the foot, turbo kicks and im off. All good. Get home, go to show the misses and the fish pic and Subaru growing out of a stump are not there! But I saw them and heard the click. Dirty as on not having the car one. Looked so funny. But it may be worse. Just yesterday went past a bush speed camera in a bishi on the roadside. No worries, my dashcam is on, shows my speed as 100k spot on. Hit the save, no worries. Get home and check it and the sd card has crapped itself and not recorded anything. Just hope the mongrel didn't falsely ping me as I have now no evidence.

I had an Alpha a number of years ago and caught plenty of trout on it. The fish dont know what rod and reel you use. And I have been seriously considering getting another for the back of the car just recently myself.

Ok, so I lost my picture of the actual fish when I caught it, 5lb brown, along with a crashed stolen car mounted on a tree stump. Got deleted somehow that days pictures. But all not lost, just add the tail section which was eaten baked, and head, binned, and use your imagination. 😁 Just now smoked with some Tasmanian oak chips and about to be eaten. Caught on a 3" green gulp minnow grub and 1/8 jig head.

Top effort and feed mate.

Hot damn, that things not far of being a Rhino! Awesome fish!

Good one, if I get a feed to me its mission accomplished. That is mission accomplished. 👍

Over the past few years I've heard of just about everything getting caught in Vic waters. Times are changing. https://vfa.vic.gov.au/education/featured/teachers-resource/climate-change-fishing-change

Think every reddie fisherman has caught them this size.

Gee mate, hope your family & friends all escape unharmed.

They're hero's that's for sure. Still grim too. My mate in Qld just told me his daughter and kids were just evacuated as a massive fire front was approaching their home. The footage from some of these fires are terrifying. Hope no more lives get lost and anyone here near or in them is safe.

Good stuff.

Gee, that petrol bits the worst I reckon. Heard of someone not long back filling their car that just has a 40 litre thereabouts tank and the pump read 60.

Hi mate, yeah we have it ok here at the moment. Never seen so many native plants in flower in the same year as I have this year. Haven't been out fishing for a few weeks but a drive around the areas the other day to take the misses out and most waters looked really good from Ballarat to Bridgewater. Everything's been against me fishing in the past month but by hook or by crook im going next week.

Keep seeing on the tv how grim it is in other states. Here's hoping you guys get the rain you need. 👍

I liked that. 👍