wise one

Had our annual trip to Port Stephens last week targeting the longtails and kings. On our second day fishing The Little Gibber managed this 120cm / 20+ KG longtail (a new PB for me). Caught on a live yacka on 10KG mono.

Fished out past the 12 Mile and south on board SGFC Hoodlum (35 Carribean) for 1 dollie (8KG) and 4-2-0 on marlin (proved hard to stay pinned on lures and too rough to realistically switch bait or deep drop bait schools). A tough day, but with a little more luck we could have had a blinder! They are definitely out there to be caught!

Thanks Reef Magic Great info - will certainly give it a try (when the howling winds, rain and seas abate!)

When you jig for albacore - Where do you do it? What depth? Do you see them on the sounder or are you just "blind jigging" whilst cubing? What depth do you drop the jigs to? Sorry to ask so many questions, but I've done lots of trolling, cubing and livebaiting for tuna but never jigging and would like to give it a try next time I'm out wide. Thanks in advance

Fishing wide of Browns on Sunday onboard "Hoodlum" (35 Carribean) we managed a couple of nice fin: They went 35KG and 44KG and were caught cubing at approx 2pm Earlier we had tried a few drifts on the mountain for Blue Eye but only managed 2 Gemfish on one drop. We had a Blue Shark hook up on the cubes but bit through the trace without wire All in all a great day out

Leatherjackets???? If you get tiny bits of bait (even the smell of bait) or algae or anything on the line and there are leatherjackets around - then they will have a go and they can cut cleaning through just about any line (even wire!!!) Last weekend at Port Stephens we were struggling to bring livebaits up to the boat without them getting attacked and mutilated by the leatheries!!!

20 degrees (depending upon state of tide / current etc.) The close offshore water is 19-20 degrees so on high tide this is what you should get too. If you get a nice sheltered, shallow bay with little current the sun will probably warm the top couple of metres of water to 21-22 degrees.

Straight out of The Heads in 40-50m will see you get flatties. Basically anywhere with sand / gravel in depths of 40-50 (sometimes even to 60m) should see a few flatties grace the decks...

Pelican - that may be a fair comment for many boaters (although I haven't seen first hand too much abuse). For me, after launching I wash my brakes and disks using a hand spray with a salt de-activation chemical mixed with water. I hope this prevents some commencement of corrosion whilst I am out fishing. I like to wash trailer, brakes, springs straight after retrieval as otherwise the wind and heat build up on the way home "sets" the salt and makes it harder to wash off later. As far as flushing the motor and the comment about fishing at anchor with the motor off - its a fair point but not 100% addressing the issue. Flushing a motor is definitely best when the motor is hot and hence before salt crystals form. This can be achieved by running the motor at home but you need to run it for a fair length of time to get it hot. When you return to the boatramp the motor is obviously already hot regardless of whether you fished at anchor during the trip as you had to run the boat back to the ramp. Many (all?) modern motors are able to be flushed without running them - for these there is no noise. Its a shame that the good citizen boaters have their lives made harder by a few idiots don't care about the "neighbours" to the boat ramp. I'll continue to use my 90L inboard freshwater tank to flush the motor and my 12volt "Car Cube" washdown bottle for the trailer and engine. Like most sensible boaters I use the salt-water deck wash during the trip but prefer to wash as much salt off as soon as I return. Just on this point: "Car and boat parking spaces are pretty expensive landscaping and the price of a ramp and pontoon lighting etc ain't cheap to maintain. Vandalism as it is open and empty all week . Only in the last few years have they got any help in funding from other sources via grants. Same space with 10 BBQ and kids playground would be far more profitable and less hassle for them I would guess." Not so sure about that, most of the landscaping relates to the area where there used to be a nice stone cottage (built at considerable expense, never used then demolished - great waste of money!) As for the playground generating more money, well they have that upstream of the road bridge and from what I can see there are more people paying to park and launch boats than families having a picnic in the park. Personally I think they would be better served with a more wholistic approach to the ramp. Charge $10-15 rather than $7. Have a security guard attend the site regularly, should have used the stone cottage for a cafe / kiosk / tackle shop / bait shop rather than demolish it. Build a better pontoon which can handle more than 2 boats at a time (given its a 4 lane ramp!). Allow flushing of motors / washing trailers with a time limit and no running of engines. If anything more people would use the ramp and they would make more money. They could go one better and build a rack and stack facility here - that would pull in the money!

Can you believe it?. National Parks charge you to get into the park, they spent a fortune on landscaping for non-boaters, still havent upgraded the pontoon and left us without water for maybe 2 years. Now they have finally connected (only 2) taps but have set up machines that need to be fed $2 to allow you 5 minutes of water! The machines also only work during daylight hours so if you return in the evening you won't be able to wash your boat / trailer or flush your engine even if you are prepared to pay $2

Hookup was about 9am. Second strike (which didn't kook up) was at 2pm.

Took my Scout 205 centre console out for its first "true" gamefishing trip yesterday. After the sensational flat seas for the 3 previous says, it was a bit dissappointing to be confronted with a fair bit of chop coming in from the SE. Whilst we were making mid teens knots, it wasn't the quick cruise out to Browns we had expected. As we approached the 12 mile, a squall hit us and chopped the sea up further, so rather than fight our way through it we decided to set the lures and troll at 8-9knots out past the 12 mile and onto Browns. Water temp was hot (at one point in time we registered 28C!!!) but there was no bait or birds anywhere. But then, out of the blue, midway between the 12 mile and the shelf the lumo cockroach on the long rigger was hit and a nice big striped marlin (well over 100kg) put the afterburners on. We cleared the decks and commenced fighting the fish in the pouring rain (so no photos of it jumping) then it went deep and became a slug fest for the next 2 1/2 hours dispite numerous attempts to drive off the fish and plane it to the surface. Eventually with judicious increase in drag and thumb pressure on the spool and the use of the low gear on the TLD50 we managed to get the tired fish to the boat before unhooking it and swimming it for 5-10 minutes before release. A great fish and an exhausted and wet crew! As you can see from the pics, the weather had settled down and the seas smoothed out during the fight as the squall had passed over us. We then continued to head out to Browns, having heard reports of some good YFT taken wide of Browns. Unfortunately all we managed was a very greedy 63cm dollie grabbing our 10" marlin lure! Still - that was a feed for supper! On the way back in the purple cockroach on the short rigger was hit but did not hook up, on inspection the leader was badly chafed - obviously a striped marlin swatting the lure. We continued trolling but only managed a couple of tiny striped tuna. After that, with storms brewing out at Browns, we pulled the lures in and high tailed it back to the Harbour where we received a thorough drenching!!! Still a great day, a nice big marlin and a first for the boat (which now has some battle scars to prove the catch!)

The MROVCP is a National Qualification and so is valid. The Australian Boating College is a reputable organisation, so I would be happy going with the online course. Having said that I took my test at a tuition centre at the Syndey Fish Markets which was a full days course (face to face) with the test in the afternoon. I took the MROCP test which is VHF and HF radios (bascially the same course but a sligghtly longer test). I can't remember the name of the organisation, but it was a great training session and taking the test immediately after 5-6 hours of face to face tuition certainly made passing it easy! The instructors focussed on the areas that always appear in the tests and skimmed the rest of the course book.

Out with a mate in his BW 26 yesterday (Sunday 22nd March). We trolled from 12 mile to Browns then worked an area 3-5 miles north east of Browns. Patchy bait early then big schools later in the day. Tagged a nice 80-90KG black (need to check the photo's - called it for a black as I was fighting it and it jumped all over the ocean, but was pretty "stripy" as we unhooked it boatside. Still think it had "stiff" pectorals but I could be wrong!) taken on a lumo sprocket on the long corner. That fish jumped on mid-morning and put up a huge fight (40 minutes on 24KG!) Then, mid afternoon on the way back in and a mile or two outside the shelf and North of Browns, had a screaming run on the long rigger losing 500m+ of line in the blink of an eye (definitely a sizeable blue although we didn't see it jump). After clearing the other gear we gave chase and started winning back some line only for the line to go slack. When we reeled it in it appears the line had broken well above the double - either faulty line, some damage from the outrigger clip or perhaps another fish hitting the line So we finished up 2-2-1 and had a great day.

Live squid, live slimies, live yellowtail, fresh squid (not frozen) - these are your best bet for regularly catching kingies. In Pittwater, I would favour the deeper water around the back of Scotland Island or near the entrance to The Basin (towards the Eastern point). Also the point on the Southern side of Careel Bay. You also get a lot of kings around the outside of Barrenjoey. Best tactic is to either downrig (very slow troll) or anchor and fish the livebaits with bean sinkers above a 1m trace (double hooks for squid). Baits should be 2/3rds of the way to the bottom (eg fish about 20 feet deep in 30 feet of water). I would save your plastics for when either the kingies are busting bait on the surface (use sluggos) or when you have one boatside and its mate follows it up (put another bait or lure in the water and hoepfully convert to a double hookup). Good luck!

Its only one brake at a time - so it is in the calipers. I'll take a look at the "O" rings next time one ceases and I take it apart. Thanks guys!

I have a tandom axle trailer with electric over hydraulic brakes. The brakes work well, but I find that periodically the brake calipers do not "release" the brakes. The calipers are single piston style with twin brake pads. The piston seem relutant to release pressure. I always hose the trailer down after each use with "Salt-Away" mixed with the water and I only dunk the trailer to the level of the rear axle (trying to keep as much of the mechanics out of the salt as possible!) Yet the last brake to stick was actually one of the front wheels which stays out of the water when I launch the boat. I've tried cleaning the pistons, giving them a light spray of grease or lanolin and WD40 but I still get the periodic problem. When the problem occurs, quite often it will "fix" itself after launching the boat (the sudden reduction in tempartute freeing up the piston?) Any ideas / guidance would be appreciated. Thanks

Good news - the site is now back to "normal" with regularly updated images which now include current direction / strength arrows.

It is indeed back up and running, however the CSIRO have stopped putting the sealevel contours and current strength / direction arrows on the charts - shame really because these were useful for us fishos!

Looks like they may have just moved it (and unfortunately stopped putting the current indicators on the map). Now appears to be here: http://www.marine.csiro.au/remotesensing/o...Hob/latest.html

In the past, this website has had high quality and free sea surface temp / current charts: http://www.marine.csiro.au/remotesensing/o...weS/latest.html Unfortunately they have not updated the chart for over a wekk now. Just wondered if anyone had any insight into this. I've tried using the Sea Surface website, but I find that 90% of the time the cloud cover on the SE Coast makes the charts unusable. The CSIRO seem to have some algorithms for interpolating results and hence give good charts despite cloud cover.

With a large (2 tonne plus) BTM combo, I find it a pain trying to get it to a local servo as it really gets in the way of punters trying to buy petrol Would gladly pay extra for someone to come to the house and do the safety inspection. After all, they only do a visual inspection, test the lights, jack the wheels up to check for loose bearings and manually check the brakes (see if they can turn a wheel with the brakes activated). So the only equipment they need is a trolley jack It would certainly be a much more convenient way for me and avoid hassling the servo mechanics that don't really want to do trailer pink slips anyway. I live on the Northern Beaches.

Yep - thats where I experienced one earlier this year - it was great. BUT - they are now superceded by the E series - theoretically an improvement (but untested???) I could still buy an old 300 (still available from some retailers) but that's a bit like buying last years model car - you'd feel like you were missing out on something....... Now if someone was discounting the old stock then maybe it would be a deal too good to refuse.....

I'm in the market for a new baitcaster for a trip to NT in 2009. Last year I used the guides equipment which included Curado 300DVS baitcasters which I found easy to use and the guides complemented them on their reliability and salt-water corrosion resistance. So I figured I would buy one of these, but Shimano have replaced them with the "E" series. The new series look good and certainly have the technical specifications to do the job. Curaod E Series Now, looking around I've also read a bit about the new Daiwa Heartland 153 baitcaster which has even more impressive specifications than the Curado E (at least on paper). Daiwa Heartland XA So dilema, which to chose? Anyone have any comments on: 1. Ease of casting (is the centrefugal control in the Shimano better or worse than the magnetic in the Daiwa) 2. Corrosion resistance (the Daiwa talks about the "famous" corrosion resistance from the HRT baitcaster) 3. Drag (is the "7 disk hypertournament" Daiwa drag better than the Simano "dartanium" drag) Any thoughts / comments / experience would be appreciated!

I find it very reliable. What you have at the moment is strong westerly winds that flatten the seas in close. I'm sure if you go 3 or 4 miles offshore you will start to get a wind chop - the further out you go, the bigger the seas. Have a look at the horizon - you can usually see if it is flat or very wobbly indicating rough conditions offshore.