XD351

A few years back I was driving down King st in Newtown in my truck , half the road blocked off by cops and absolute traffic chaos. I pulled up in the traffic and looked to my left and standing in a side street was Sam Neil and Brian Brown -about 30m from me , fast forward a couple of years and I’m sitting at home watching this Aussie movie on tv with Sam and Brian in it . It didn’t click at the time until about 2/3 through the movie I see my truck pull up in shot ! Wish I had of chucked a brown eye but fitting my a#$e through the passenger window would have been defying the laws of Physics

Yes but that gives you an excuse to go fishing again coz he is just busting at the seams to use it

Great work mate ! Oh well the lure probably cost you about a third of what you would have paid for the flathead at a fish shop - they’re horrendously expensive per kilo right now ! Flatties should be stacking up around half tide rocks and in Broken bay around now .

For feeling bites you can’t go past braid , I usually fish fluorocarbon trace and braid main line . Can you take a photo of your rig and let us know what fish you are targeting and where ( beach , rock , estuary , boat or riverbank etc ) , you might have a bow in your line ( loose line between the rod and sinker ) and you won’t feel anything if you do and there are some fish species that are masters of removing your bait without you feeling a thing - leather jackets are one that comes to mind so special rigs are needed to catch them . Once we get a baseline of what you are using and the location you are fishing we can try to help you to fine tune things to improve your catch , the answer isn’t always to buy more gear but rather to learn to use the gear you have and fine tune it to do what you want - and it will save you a pile of money at the same time . It could also be the location you are fishing - not all places hold fish and some are a real desert for fishing - fish are in a place for a couple of reasons - food , shelter and breeding , find a place that ticks all 3 of these and you have found fishing nirvana ! we may be able to recommend a few places to try . I have seen people cast out onto a sandbank that had about 50mm of water on it and wonder why they catch nothing and I have also seen people cast out off a beach nearly to New Zealand but didn’t know the fish were right at their feet !

I have a mate who has a nephew that constantly asks questions - mostly about cars which we try to answer as best we can but this guy will then proceeded too Google it and tell us we are wrong . He is now banished from asking anything and was told quite sternly where I was going to make a new home for his phone and it was going to be painful - for him ! That is one of the things that separate Fishing from the rest - It can take you places you never dreamed existed , it can expand your skills , it can feed you and you will make friends - fishing covers it all !

I wanna take them shark fishing - always seem to run out of bait

I had trouble typing their names as spellcheck kept changing them - even my iPad doesn’t like them

Other than welding (4yrs of Tafe courses) and basic fishing ( Mum taught me this ) I am self taught in every thing else - machining / model engineering , electronics, 3D printing , mechanics , spray painting , panel beating etc etc . I either had to learn these things because I couldn’t afford to pay someone else to do it or it was something that interested me , I spent a lot of time with my head buried in a book which is great for the basic understanding of what you are doing but nothing beats practical experience - fishing is no different .

Good to see some support from the Government to promote fishing ! Should be getting played on every channel at least a dozen times a day imho! Why the sad face Donna ? I was only having a poke at them !

Never seen that ad before ! Should send a copy to Emma and Adam - i reckon they would spit their teeth across the room

What I have heard is that lifting the bottom size limit starts to tilt to more females being kept which can knock the balance out of whack - look at Queensland and the mud crab laws where only males can be kept . Do you really need 10 ? There are other fish you can catch to add to your freezer collection and a bit of variety too. There is nothing stopping you from trying for a different species once you have your bag limit or even keep fishing for Flathead as long as you let the rest go . I usually get a bit of by catch like bream and flounder and I can keep them if I choose so no shortage of fish to eat . In the long run it will mean more flathead being made which will mean it will be even easier to get that limit .

When the river floods the Bass come right up over the flooded areas looking for a feed , I was watching a YouTube channel I like ( Windsor bait and tackle ) last night and he was fishing an area that was usually part of a paddock and high and dry .

Buy a raincoat and soldier on ! Think about how the fresh will affect fish that were going up into the canals and sand flats and how it affects the food they eat . Look for drains ( man made and natural ) that drop into deeper water, channels and drop offs as the fresh will float over the top of the salt and predators will be sitting there in the drop off waiting for a feed . I can handle rain but I hate strong wind , a breeze that puts a ripple on the water can be your best friend especially if you can get it at your Back or as a straight headwind ( for casting etc ) as it can make the fish less timid in shallow water - cross winds just make life difficult as they cause a bow in your line but can still be fished if you are dedicated enough or smart enough to use it to your advantage . One of course has to be more wary heading out to sea in these conditions as the open sea is a totally different animal to the estuary and things can go from good to real bad very quickly .

If the occasional fish that is outside the slot dies and has to go back it at least provides a feed for the rest of the eco system. There are things we can do to minimise this like : Up size your lures , hooks and bait - Flathead are not usually a finicky fish so no need for finesse tactics. Up size your tackle to minimise fight time,I know some like to brag about catching a big fish on 2kg line but research has shown that minimising the length of the fight and the time a fish is out of the water greatly increases its survival rate. I fish for flathead for food and my personal slot limit is even tighter than what is being proposed and my bag limit was 5 or 6 anyway . While I don’t like to see any fish wasted and in a perfect world where you could trust everyone to do the right thing we could have an addendum in there for fish that die during capture to be kept but as we don’t live in a perfect world and some would use that reason to be able to keep fish outside the slot limit so we have little choice but to implement these laws . On a brighter note the creation of oyster reefs is a massive positive and although it will take many years to get the full benefits of this Al least we are going in the right direction !

I think I know more about the dark side of the moon than I do AFL 🤣

I got 9/10 on fish species quiz but only around 5 or 6 for fishing in Victoria or South Australia but I was expecting that as when I get a question about AFL in the MrsWordfisherman quiz I get that wrong 99% of the time ! I occasionally jag one though There are quizzes for all sorts fishing as well on there .

Once you start it times you and doesn’t stop until you submit your answers , once you have started you can’t go back and do it again or do the quiz twice as it knows you have already done it , if two people are sharing the same computer to do their separate quiz I think you have to notify them of it won’t let you do it - all there to stop people cheating I suppose .

And a thank you has to to to Greg for letting you give Fishraider and Deckee a number plugs 👍👍👍

Congratulations Dave ! Can’t wait to listen to this one !

That’s the important bit - we are not playing for cattle stations and you might learn something !

I can highly recommend it !

I think the fishing Australia was the revised issue .

The lure is a Bellbrook swayback . Surprised the rubber on the floppy hasn’t disintegrated! They were an ingenious lure with a two position bib - worse thing was replacing the hooks - not a hard job but getting them wasn’t easy .

Yes but not the floppy it was rubber . Nothing wrong with timber lures , some say they have a better sonic signal than plastic .

To a lure collector they would be along with a genuine Rublex Floppy in mint condition ! I always wanted an ABU Killer but I don’t think they ever bought them into Australia . The Lure shown in my post was made in Sydney , they were a fairly famous name back in the 50s through to the late 70s . A jointed minnow has a really unique action . Sadly my one got sacrificed to the gods of the oyster reef a long time ago 😭