MrsISO

Haha, actually I pulled up a groper at 43cm later that day with the same setting but the bait was cooked prawn. I think the drummer faught a lot harder than that groper.

Hi @Little_Flatty I thought of something you can start with. For Sydney enclosed water areas, you can try your korean float next time. I am not sure what kind of float you got, but my recommendation is to buy one in Size 0.5, and match them with a 5B clip sinker. It's easier to control and suit most of days in Sydney enclosed water area. It's easier for beginners to use a half-float setting. For this kind of setting, you need start with a float stopper knot, then a float stopper bead, then add your float, next would be a float cushion stopper, then a really small swivel, followed with about 2 meter leader, and clip your sinker on the leader line about 30-70cm away from your hook. With a flat sea you can clip your sinker further from the float, with noticeable waves you need to clip your sinker closer to your hook but no less than 30cm. If you can not remember all of these, just talk to your local tackle shop and ask them what you will need for a half-float ISO fishing setting and I believe they can explain better. You don't really need an ISO rod for this setting, but you need the longest and thinnest rod you have to try this. For a half-float setting, you do need to know the fishing location well. I mainly fished around Manly, the water depth of my fishing location is around 5 meters at high tide and 3 meters at low tide. When I arrive it is usually around low tide so I will start my setting around 2-2.5 meters. This means the length between your float stopper knot and the hook should be around 2-2.5 meters. With the tide rising I will adjust the length of my setting during fishing, just by simply moving your float stopper knot further from your hook. The benefit of half-float setting is once you know the depth which the fishes are in, you can cast your line right to the spot and it will sink fast to the depth you need. So you can avoid small by-catches, and fish more effectively. After the cast, I often close my reel, and quickly throw 2-3 spoons of burley on my float to attract the small fishes around, then I will open my reel again and allow it to sink to the required depth and pass all the small ones. You can watch this process by looking at the float stopper knot you made(it's often a bright color of yellow, orange or pink so you can see them clearly) , when the knot reaches your float, you can close your reel and wait for the target fish to bite. Above is a simple mechanic of half-float ISO fishing. To actually fish successfully on each trip, you do need to have ample experiences on tide, wind, sea level, water depth and bottom structure of the location you choose. Tight lines! MrsISO

Good morning @Little_Flatty Yes I must admit the rods are expensive. I started with a Shimano Advance Size 1.7 which costs me AUD300 and it's just an entry level ISO rods. I fished with that rod for a few months, it's okay to use and landed me some good fish, but also lost a few big ones due to its lack of elasticity. I won't recommend that to you if you want to enter ISO fishing, because even though it doesn't cost a lot, it's useless after a while, and won't get you big ones. Recently I found out there are a few Taiwanese rods available which won't cost you an arm and a leg but are also very good. One of my favorite taiwanese rods is the Amazing 530 from Protako, it performs almost as well as my Gamakatsu Master Mode H-53, with only 1/3 of the price, but around AUD500 still. For in-shore fishing I have another set of rods, which is a lot lighter. If you only fish in-shore you can use a ISO rod size 1-1.5, you will lose some really big ones that hook on occasionally but most of the time you are fine. Smaller sized rods will let you feel the fish more, so more reaction when you bring in smaller fishes, a lot of fun to play with. Bigger sized rods are more for locations that's outer shore, because bigger fishes are there and you need stronger rods to bring them in faster. I do suggest you talk to your local tackle shop, but bear in mind they will try to sell you what they have in-stock so shop wisely. Every ISO rods has its own character, so don't expect to find the perfect one for you at first go. My treasured ones can be trash to you, when it comes to ISO rods. However you do need to fish this style quite some time to know what's good for you. For reels it's easier, just get one Shimano Larissa 3000 LBD reel and it will last you for a very long time. It costs around AUD360+ these days, but it's made in Japan and it's good. I recently upgraded mine to a Shimano Technium C3000DXXGS, it's definitely better but I don't think it's necessary. With all that said, I think the key to make this fishing style effective, is when to and where at and what you use as a burley. This is hard to explain because the situation changes every time I fish. ISO fishing doesn't require a lot of walking around when you fish, basically you choose one spot and you fish there for the entire session because your burley stays there. I am still learning about how to choose the spot, hope I can explain this in the near future. Tight lines! MrsISO

Hi Donna! Thank you and I hope I can renew that within this winter! Fingers crossed.

Good morning Little_Flatty, I too think ISO fishing is very effective, because on most of my trips to the central coast, me and my friends seem to be the only group that have been catching fishes. It's a technique that is used mostly among Korean and Japanese and Chinese fishermans, and I do find there is a limited English version tutorial video about this kind of fishing available on the internet. I learned how to do this by fishing with experienced ISO fisherman, and I am not an expert yet. Even the fisherman I fish with, are still learning new techniques everyday. The fun in ISO fishing is, you are allowed to fight big fish with a noodle size rod and very thin line. Because our rods are all specially made to fish this style, we bring fish up by keeping our rod high so it will form a beautiful curve and "bounce" the fish up with its elasticity. The lever brake on our reels are essential when you fight big fishes, it allows us to release and fully stop our drag when fishes taking a dive or a charging run. It's very efficient especially on kingfish and big snappers, I imagine the fish must be on a running and stopping pattern which is very tiresome for them, so they gave up quicker than usual. I landed my first legal kingfish with an 8lb leader line by using this kind of technique. Although I have tried with my limited English, I do believe I have only explained a fraction of this fishing style. If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to ask, I will try my best to answer them. Cheers, MrsISO

Hi Waza! I must say I read all your yarns, repeatly and I love every single one. You are a legend!

Thank you Donna, happy to be another female member in your forum!

Not sure if anyone would like to know more information but I'll share it anyway I fish ISO style, Size 0.5 Korean float on size 2.5 braid mainline, then float stopper, then connect to about 2m leader line. My 20lb leader is weighted with 5B sinker, about 50cm from hook on a moderate swell day. The hook is Japanese sized 5, which is small but strong enough. Not sure if this setting suitable for other style of fishing. I use full-float style, which means my reel stays open and my mainline sink freely before fish on. For bigger fish I normally use lever brake on my reel but never with drummer fishing, because they tend to dive into rock holes when I release the brake for even just half a second and snag me. For bait I used fresh sea cabbages on this one, twist them into a worm like shape and run my hook through the strongest part of the worm shape I made. I found smaller pigs also take peeled prawns, but bigger ones say 45cm+ would prefer sea cabbage and cunje more. MrsISO

Thank you! I am getting use to early am now, first light does fish better, less car on road and less people around too. Thank you😄

Yes. But I do found out later that Black Drummer at that size has chewy skin, so I decide in the future I will only keep 40-45cm ones.

I have regular sized feet, and that's a 60cm pig 😝

Yes, it measured at 60cm. I forgot to ask my husband to take a picture of the measurement because I was too busy talking to my friend, and I regret that till this day.

Thank you everyone. Hope I can renew my record this winter!

Good morning raiders! Woke up around 3:30am that day with the intention to fish first light. I am not a morning person at all but fishing is another story. 1.5hrs drive to beautiful avoca beach, 20 mins walk to the location with head light, then burleyed hard with bread and prawn powder and some chopped sea cabbage just before sunrise for about 20 minutes. This one showed up around 9am, it fought me so hard that I had to squat down and stand up quite a few times to bring it up to the surface. I am fishing iso-style, so my leader line is only 20lbs. After I saw the size of the fish in my landing net I am just glad my leader didn't break. Anyway it's a personal best, and from what I heard from my friend it will remain as my personal best for a long time. Because apparently this size doesn't come very often. Tight lines! Mrs ISO