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All depends on what these “pickers” are! If they are leatherjackets, toads , small snapper / bream ,tailor or even squid it won’t matter what you use as they can bite chunks out of any bait with ease . Have you tried using berley? A good berley mix will keep the pickers occupied and turn them into an attractant to bigger predators or even tried live bait ? It could be the area you are fishing also and sometimes you just have to move elsewhere or cast off to the sides of where the pickers are to get away from them , small fish will pile up in an area for a reason - usually either a food source or some form of structure that makes them feel safe and the bigger predators won’t be far away . I have used the berley method many times to feed the pickers so they don’t eat my hard earned nippers - nothing more frustrating than having the nippers that you have worked your butt off pumping destroyed by pickers 🤬

Practice for naval bombing would suit me better !

Iirc a longer rod should alway give you a better casting distance purely because of tip velocity- just like firing a bullet out of a rifle barrel - the faster it travels the flatter the trajectory and the further it will go . I wouldn’t be surprised if you get two identical rods and one cast the same weight a little further because the weight of the lure is closer to the sweet spot that all blanks have. You could try tweaking this sweet spot on your rod by wrapping a layer or two of insulation or masking tape around the ferrule of the rod tip - this will soften the action ever so slightly but you can’t make it harder without surgery- trim the top of the blank ever so slightly . If you want to try a 9ft rod I have an old Daiwa procaster here you’re welcome to borrow - it will throw an unweighted bait junkie critter on a worm hook about 20m and if it helps you to find the answers you seek or gives you a feel for a 9ft rod even better!

Thanks Mike ! I spent a lot of time yesterday sorting everything out - now I just grab the appropriate bag and rod and go !

Definitely separate battery ! I had mine all hooked to one battery and once the electric started the sounder gave a lot of trouble !

Nice flatties and great report ! From what I have seen off FB and a few You tube channels I watch the squid at Kurnel have been hard to come by in the last couple of weeks. I thought skis were bad at Ettalong and the Hawkesbury , then I fished botany for the first time in 20yrs and couldn’t believe the number of the damned things there- it is ridiculous ! Unfortunately for the fishos that use one as a fishing platform there are a lot of clowns out there that will ultimately end up with them being banned altogether. There was a guy on FB asking where he can launch one to fish long reef - so many people answered Sydney harbour it wasn’t funny - and because they got booted out of the harbour you can’t even launch there to fish outside which really sucks for the fishos that were probably not bothering anyone .

Great report Mike ! That mat ( or should I say ultra wide tape measure !)certainly looks the biz ! As soon as you take all the plastics out the situation where you desperately need one will arise - nothing surer ! BTW what are you currently using as a bag ? I was using a Daiwa sling bag but after my last outing where I started out lure fishing off the beach then moved to a river I found it is too small and a little cumbersome to use . It would probably be awesome as a bag for wading where I would only have a small selection of lures , a pair of pliers, scissors , tube of scent and some trace material but trying to use it to cover everything from the beach to stream was asking a bit of it .

I was nearly ready to walk to Cronulla to avoid it! I had to stop half way up to catch my breath 🤣🤣

Sent you a message Fred. not sure if it was ok to link the video here as it is by a lure company and on Facebook so sent it via messages .

Usually ok with surfers, most are out the back , it’s just the ones that have to ride that little wave all the way to shore - right in front of me ! Or the swimmers that insist on swimming in the rip where I’m fishing and the surfers are paddling out - go and swim between the flags where it is safe !

Yep sure ! beach rig river rig both are 3”” tails

G’day Raiders, I lobbed down to Wanda beach for a play and to try some different lures from the beach . One rod was rigged ( sidecast set up ) with a cyclops rig and a whole pillie , these are usually used offshore for snapper but with me being something of a cross between mad fisho and mad scientist I had to try it !( waiting for the next salmon / tailor run to try it again ) The main reason for the trip was just to get out of the house and get my little fat legs moving , I also had a play with some plastics on my sea bass rod , this set up was rigged with a 3inch gobbler curl tail in in UV pro stinger colour on a #4 bait holder type hook and had a 15gm lumo sinker riding onto the hook ( sort of Texas rigged but not weedless) . I only fished for an hour and a half , lost a few pillies and got a few tentative taps on the plastic , changed to a white tail but came away with a donut. Two other guys were fishing nearby and they did get one flattie that I doubt was legal but that’s my opinion. Things got busy around sunup as the surfers started coming over the dune in a never ending stream ! Anyhow I left there and dropped into Rydalmere ferry wharf to flick some more SP lures , set up was the same as the sea bass rod above but this time a worm hook and a 5gm orange uv glow sinker . First plastic was a gobblers twin paddle in motor oil colour and after what seemed like a hundred casts , a few bumps and nudges it finally got hammered- a small , maybe legal flathead ( couldn’t measure as dopey left the brag Matt in the bucket in the car!) It was released after a photo and I continued to cast,walk,cast etc until I was fishing off the wharf . I changed to a curl tail and tried a few different colours but the only action was the occasional jumping mullet !

I have a strict policy- I won’t swim in anything I can’t drink or wade through anywhere I can’t see the bottom for at least a 20m radius around me - unless it is less than ankle deep . Sadly we still blame the shark for attacking us . The lady broke a few rules that should commonly known Stay out of the water at dusk/dawn unless you are inside a netted enclosure. Don’t swim after periods of rain - if the sharks don’t get you the brown mullet will ! Summertime is shark time in the harbour- but they are always present just different species throughout the year - small whites and mako’s come into the harbour in winter time , the only reason we don’t see attacks is because less people swim in winter time. As far as I’m concerned you may as well jump into the lions enclosure at the zoo coated in blood.

Didn’t know that Zebco were still going , had some of their gear when I was a kid and mid teens . Can’t remember if Zebco stood for zero clearance bearing company or zero hour bomb company it was one or the other 🤣🤣🤣

The ones by Matt and James are in South Australia and possibly Victoria - I mentioned them as they do things a little different down there and it might give you some ideas to try here in Sydney . Mel is usually at either at Kurnell or little bay iirc.

After a few minutes of fb I have to retreat to the sanity of Fishraider! I think I know the women’s fishing fb page you alluded to - some awesome fishos on there !

A couple of YouTube channels you could look at are Matt’s fishing escapes James’ fishing adventures Both are right into squidding and use techniques that you probably won’t see here in Sydney - well maybe not very often ! Also Spikes fishing Australia, Mel is a gun fisho and catches lots of squid both inside Botany Bay and outside . Maybe you pick up a few tips and tricks from these channels . ( Before anyone ask - I have mentioned Fishraider To Mel on a few occasions hoping she would join but maybe it’s not her thing ? You can lead a horse to water ……) I Generally avoid facebook groups for any useful info as I found that most groups are full of twits who just want to make stupid comments - definitely something you will NOT see on Fishraider!

True about the line twist but you get used to it and I just strip 20m or so of line off and wind it back on while pinching the line between my index finger and thumb ,I find the twist is usually contained to the last 20m of line . I added the reel mostly to give birdy a few more options with the rod - he can take it with him and change over reels from centre pin to sidecast and use the outfit to fish the washes with unweighted or very lightly weighted baits for bream and pigs , have a few casts of the beach on the way home or go down to the local estuary and fish there . He could always use the threadline for luderick- reel position isn’t optimal for casting long distance but he won’t need to do that fishing for luderick , the cast action is more of a gentle side sweep with the rod rather than over shoulder as a conventional cast would be completed. This is how I first started fishing for luderick as a kid because it was all I had - an old solid low mount luderick rod and a small threadline .You hold the rod exactly the same way as you would if the rod was a high mount - butt under armpit , reel close to chest ( usually resting on your pectoral muscle )and reel handle pointing up , fish an open bail arm and use your index finger to trap the line against the spool lip , releasing the line as needed to keep up with the drift . I fish a centre pin much the same and use my index finger to guide and trap the line and strip line by hand as needed.

No weed Donna !

All good mate may it serve you well !

No worries I hate to see fishing gear collecting dust ! I thought I would chuck in my old 5 inch alvey ( got it when I was maybe 10 ) so Birdie has the option of using the mag bream for what it was built for - a good all round light rock / beach and medium estuary rod as well as a luderick rod .

+1 for keep showing old photos ! I recently read a post on another platform asking info on an old hut supposedly located on either Dangar or peat island , I spent a whole afternoon searching on the internet and various groups learning some of the modern history of the lower Hawkesbury river and found some great old photos at the same time .

John Bethune told a few funny stories about bass fishing with Rod in his book Bethune on bass ( now that was an epic book ! ) they did quite a few trips into the upper colo river . Harro certainly does have a strange way of saying lure , most Aussies sort of pronounce it loo-wa but he sort of says loo-r - maybe something he picked up from fishing with Americans ?

I always found dead low tide was worse for rays , if you are anchoring your bait to the bottom it gives them time to find it so my bait is always moving - I adjust the sinker weight to slow it down if there is a bit of a rip but never so heavy it anchors it in one spot - the exception would be fishing for mulloway , but things like rays and sharks are always par for the course with that . I heard somewhere that Wanda beach is good for worms , I use pipis as they are easier on my back , sometimes pillies or I fish lures .

If you go too big the loop could catch up on the hooks when casting if you do it with a hard body lure that is . I only do it on sp lures running worm hook and a small ball sinker in the loop and it is not for action it is only to allow the zman to float up a bit more off the bottom .