XD351

We had stopped using the ramp long before any of this happened and all i heard was it was from outboard noise - never knew it was because some tosser was flushing their motor - in that case their complaints were completely justified ! . I have seen all sorts of nobs at boat ramps but the one that takes the cake was at patonga - this nob reverses down a single lane ramp until the back wheels of his car are under water , loads the missus and kid into the boat then proceeds to try and start the motor while it is still on the trailer . It won’t start but he still pushes the boat off the trailer and pulls it up onto the end of the ramp and gets back in to work on the motor which doesn’t even look like starting - 15 min later the queue is getting longer with people trying to launch and retrieve and this nob is still blocking the ramp and the motor ain starting ! Even then i think it was only after the threat of physical harm from someone trying to get their boat in that he decided to give up and pull the boat out .

I see not much has changed then ! I remember years ago the locals there were trying to get it locked between sundown and sunup because the noise of the outboard motors was waking them up - poor things !

Would Tunks park at Northbridge be a better option until they open the Nth beaches again ? I haven’t used either of these ramps in a long while - 15+ yrs so cant say what state tunks park is in .

Once a year and takes 5 min a jacket to do - too easy ! With the self test certificate I download it , print out a copy then fill out all the info like model , serial numbers and my name etc but leave things like the cylinder weight, service tick boxes and service date empty . I then scan this to file on my computer and it is 90% filled out for each year , all i do each year is check them over , weight the cylinder and fill out the already mostly already complete form and laminate it then stick it in my storage compartment in my boat . Problem with the old cheese block units is they get stuffed away and never checked which can be a problem when you end up in the drink usually you can’t find the life jackets when you need them and if you do you find them straps have rotted and the thing is useless! The best life jacket is the one you are wearing !

As far as i know in NSW you are required to fill out the top section of the self test panel with the purchase date , model number etc and not required to carry a purchase receipt and your self test record starts from the date of purchase but your 5 yr self test limit is from the date of manufacture and this is also clearly stated on the Marlin website along with all the info you need to do the self test . I fill out the top of the panel and keep a copy of the self test form in my boat for each jacket - it takes only a few minutes to check the jacket and fill out the form even if it is brand new i still do it and am quite happy to do so for the piece of mind it gives me . I wouldn’t buy a jacket that is over 6 months past the date of manufacture and if you look at the photo in my previous post you can clearly see the date of manufacture on a Marlin pfd. There are many makers of these products and if you watch any fishing shows on tv or YouTube you need to understand that these are sponsors supplying these PFD’s so it doesn’t mean they are the best or most comfortable units . Now when was the last time you checked the use by date on your fire extinguisher ? - which in NSW you must have if your boat has a battery - but you really should have one anyway even if it doesn’t . Here is the link for the RMS lifejacket regulations . https://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/maritime/safety-rules/safety-equipment/lifejackets.html

Very lucky indeed! Would love to hear what you think of it after a few trips ! Maybe a few pics of it so anyone who reads this later on will know what one looks like !

Can’t say much about the rocks as I mostly fished racecourse beach and the lake when i had a van down there. I remember hearing that the complete angler had opened a store in Ulladulla so maybe give them a call or drop in and ask them or any of the local tackle stores really - if they are still there - its been about 4 yrs since i was there .

I use Marlin - i get them from a shop when on sale One thing to look for on all brands is the date of manufacture and i always rummage through the lot looking for the ones with the most recent manufacture date .

Oops didn’t see that 😊 Sorry!

Merry Christmas all ! I only joined a few months back but have had a great time here and learned a thing or two ! Many thanks to all those involved in keeping the boat afloat I have also been having a ball playing the mrsswordfisherman trivia although some days are a hair pulling ritual 🤣

The advice is if you live in there you can leave home for food shopping , work - if you can’t work from home or it is an essential service and exercise other than that stay home. If you live outside the area stay out unless it is for work and that work is essential services . I also have heard of people being told to leave and for your own safety it is not worth the risk - i have also been wanting to go for a fish at Narrabeen beach but not while this is still happening! If you are desperate for fish i would look at other beaches for a fish like the eastern suburbs , down in the shire or even the central coast .

Maybe people brining fillets for smoking ?

Yep and this is the only fishing show / podcast or anything of the like that i have found that always produces the goods in regards to information that is solely aimed at making its listeners better anglers and even though the show does allow a small amount of PB boasting this is soley in the context of allowing the listener to get to know the guest , after that it is all about pumping as much quality information out of the guest as possible while keeping it entertaining . When you have guests that are in the top 10% of lure fishos in Australia you can’t go wrong ! Sometimes the host Greg “DOC” Lures Vinall will do solo show and give a glimpse into his amazing fishing mind - these are pure gold as far as I’m concerned ! And just when you were going to ask - yes much if not all of this info can be used for bait fishing ! Instead of casting a lure across a sand flat you could always drift a live poddy mullet under a small bobby float across the same sand flat, my mates used to do this 40 yrs ago using cordial bottles and swim them out to the drop off - catching the damned thing when a big Flathead or Tailor took the bait was another thing altogether though! With lures you are trying to entice a fish into eating something that is not real , if you apply some of the tactics from this style of fishing to bait fishing you can improve your catch ratio considerably .

A fishing log is always a good idea but they become more effective if you fish an area at different times , tides , moon phase ,weather and time of year. For example : If you only fish an area on the first half of run in tide , in the morning , on a full moon and on sunny days your data will only indicate what you caught with these conditions and you may never crack the code for that area but if you mix it up and try different tides , time of day or night , moon phase , weather and time of year you can really tune into what is happening in that area. If you can get your hands on the book pictured below i can highly recommend it - it is in my opinion one of the best fishing books ever written and even though it was published many years ago everything in it except the depth sounder information is still relevant -depth sounder technology has come a long way since then ! You could also have a listen to some of the podcasts by Australian Lure fishing , on this podcast the host interviews some of the best lure fishos in Australia and the host is also a marine biologist / scientist so he understands how fish work plus he also designs and makes lures . Unfortunately most but not all fishing shows on tv or YouTube are big on product advertisements and pretty light on real information .

I’m a great believer that fish are in a certain area for four main reasons : Cover , protection or comfort ( like water temp ). Food, Spawning, Staging or moving through an area to get to an area for reasons outlined above . I generally pick a species i want to catch and do some research on it paying particular attention to Food and Spawning periods as these are the two main reasons fish will aggregate in one area in larger numbers. The fish are also in tune to with the spawning habits of their prey and you will find that the two spawning time are closely related . Take for instance Dusky Flathead in the Hawkesbury river , Spawning is just kicking in now and will go for a couple of months and this coincides with the prawn season so i would be using live or at least fresh Hawkesbury prawns and start searching from milson island downstream and out into broken bay looking for contours or channels that funnel the water flow into them as that is where the Flathead will be waiting. Winter time is the opposite - the metabolism slows down and they head for the warmer shallow water where they are more likely to be feeding on baitfish or the occasional prawn . Summertime i use medium to large soft plastics (75mm and over )that i can weigh down enough to get to the bottom in 10 -15m of water and drift jig them , Wintertime it is small to medium (under 75 mm)and it is up over the sand flats paying particular attention to weed beds and drop offs . Mulloway , Kingfish and Squid are another combination that always seem to appear together but that is another story altogether that you can spend a good part of a day reading fisheries data ( boffin fodder) looking for clues ! but in essence pick a species and region , look for the spawn season ,what the species predominantly eats then break the bait down into categories like baitfish , crustaceans ,molluscs etc and do a bit of study on these looking for any coincidences in regards to spawning times and peak seasons that are close to the fish you want to catch , look for areas where this bait will be more prevalent - ie: you’re not going to find pink nippers in a gravel bed and once you have a few pieces of the puzzle you will find everything will start to fall into place . Matching the hatch can help but sometimes you just have to keep experimenting until you break the code , lures for example have many varying attributes that can make one lure that appears to be very similar or even exactly the same to another lure next to it but one will have a different acoustic signature or action or maybe a different sink rate or have slightly different buoyancy and one lure will get smashed but the other won’t get a touch .

Ripper catch mate! I always look at wanda on the coastwatch app and it gets some good formations on it !

Drool 🤤🤤🤤! The water must be getting warmer , a dart in one of the catches yesterday and a fantastic haul of whiting here !

I loved my 2 piece MT6144 Wilson( probably a close second to my snyder mag bream i built years ago ) but i just didn’t see the value in spending half the price of the rod on one guide, binding thread , filler and epoxy finish . If i still had my rod building gear i would have only had to buy a guide ( probably would have had one in stock already ) ,bind it on and finish it . For now it just sits in a rod rack collecting dust .

You will find camping anywhere in Sydney around Christmas will be booked out pretty much a year in advance and most in coastal NSW will be booked out 6months in advance . If you get onto the National parks and wildlife website there is plenty of info on where you can camp in the parks in NSW . You will have to pay for a permit in the parks but there are a few free ones dotted along the coast but they are dwindling in numbers .

I had a look at the Wilson catalogue and there is no mention of a low mount rod in the live fibre series so you could be flogging a dead horse there . Cutting the butt off will change the characteristics of the rod but not as much as cutting the tip down - you will lose a little bit of butt power as you are moving your grip towards the tip and you won’t end up with a 12ft rod - more like 11ft something .The tip section will be longer than the butt section which will make the rod tip more vulnerable to breakage as it won’t have the heavier butt section to protect it when the rod is in two pieces . At around 250 bucks it is an expensive way to get a rod for an alvey ! The stripper guide will more than likely be in the wrong spot , maybe too small and could allow the line to flog against the blank during casting - killing your casting distance. This was one of the crucial checks i made when i used to build my own rods ( long time ago )- find the spine , set up the butt section according to reel type then tape on some guides and head for the local footy field for some casting tests .Once the optimal stripper guide placement was established i could then work out the guide spacing for the rest . Is there a particular reason for wanting the live fibre ? I own a few Wilson rods - all low mount : MT8144- has fuji guides and seat and i use this for jewies . MT6144- has cheap guides and needs a new stripper guide and is now retired as i bought an Alvey rock and beach 62 to replace it ( spend $40 to buy the stuff to replace one cheap guide on a rod that cost $100 or spend $150 and get a new rod with fuji guides - new one it was !) . The Alvey is a slightly heavier blank in the butt section but similar in the tip section , i would have been happier if it had a fuji seat on it but you can’t win them all !

I would check with the National parks website ( Kuringai chase national park) before camping in jerusalem bay as it was prohibited when we used to hike in and fish for jewfish there , we got pulled up by a ranger in a boat one morning but fortunately for us it was summer and we used to sleep on the rocks and didn’t have a tent or sleeping bags so he couldn’t prove we camped there. If you cross the creek or sand bar at the end of the bay try to do it at low tide , we waded / swam across the creek one night at high tide completely oblivious to the sharks that frequent there ! You can also hike down to flint and steel point ( end of west head rd ) and access the little beaches either side - the one on the west side has pit toilet but please don’t swim on any of these beaches especially the one on the eastern side of flint and steel - sharks frequent these as well . Please be aware that it is now summer and total fire bans will be in place a lot of the time and you really need to be ultra careful entering the park as you can get trapped in there a fire breaks out . There are walking tracks all through the park and the National park website should put you on to some maps. Strange that ! I was only thinking about doing an overnight trip to Jerusalem in my boat a day or so ago ! HTH!

Pretty much the same rig i was taught to use by the old guys fishing off luna park wharf 40yrs ago but they used mince meat for bait - probably because it was cheap and readily available . I went from handline to rod then back again - you can’t beat the feel you get with a handline and i noticed that when using a rod the yakkas always seemed to stay a little deeper and wider - maybe they could see the silhouette of the rod ?

Next time you go to buy Mustad hooks take a look on the packet and see where they are made now ! I have always found that the suicide and 9555b hooks i used to use ( always Mustad) had eyes that would break if i tried to open them , must be something to do with the tempering process . I think that with the hooks that are designed for the user to make up gangs they leave the eye are softer so it can bend a little

This was common back when Black bass fishing was all the rage - even after Jack Erskine re worked the drags on the reels they still couldn’t get enough drag pressure to stop the bigger bass ! I have seen photos of one guy with blisters on both thumbs that he got trying to stop a bulldozer heading back to its snag ! These days the drags are much better than what they had in the 80s and 90s !

It will sink mate . If you are fishing off a wharf you will need to tie a rope onto it anyway so just tie it off so the bucket sits near the surface . You could try drilling the holes in the middle third or even 3/4 of the way up from the bottom of the bucket and that way when you put it into the water the top section will trap air and make it float ( provided your lid is airtight ) and when you lift it out of the water it will drian down to the bottom section leaving some water in there for your bait to swim in . There are other ways to make it float like an inner tube that fits around the bucket ( something off a wheelbarrow would be close to the right size ) or you could hack up a kids pool paddle board ( cut a hole in it that the bucket fits into and trim the outside so you end up with a donut shape ) we used to do these things to out nipper sieve so it floated . One tip is if you catch a slimy mackerel never put it in the same bait tank as a yakka or poddy mullet , the slime on them gets into the water and chokes the other bait .