Derny Driver

They look exactly like cycling gloves Mike. Try a bike shop.

That would be my set up to catch the yakkas 😁 For kings it's 80lb braid with 120lb leader.

I havent Blacky but I probably should. I will do that this weekend. I used a mat and a sticker to triple check it but I will check everything with a tape measure.

The fisheries officer did measure mine to the tip. Unfortunately due to 2 hours bleeding in the ice bath it still came up a centmetre short. The thing that annoys me is that these guys obviously know fish shrink when they are in an ice slurry - but he blamed me for having a dodgy measuring mat.

No I have a 2004 Yamaha 70B 2 stroke with only 320 hours on it. Overheating alarm went off 10km off Jervis Bay and I had to call Marine Rescue for a tow. Mechanic told me that it's likely a build up of salt in the cylinder heads and it will be an ongoing problem. I've decided to bin the motor and upgrade to a new 90hp 4 stroke with hydraulic steering. A lot of money but I intend to use it heaps as I am retiring soon. Shame about the old 70 but I dont trust it.

Thank you for your response Couta. That's pretty much exactly what happened to me. Im new to fishing and still learning ... keen to learn all I can which is why I'm on this forum. And keen to do the right thing. I wont make the same mistake again. Thanks again for confirming what happened. I had no idea at the time.

All before my time Noel but I understand what you are talking about. My interest is more the 80s although I have bikes from 60s 70s and 90s. That older stuff is quite difficult to find parts for. 28 and 27 inch tyres especially. I have a 1940s Blackbird which was 3 speed Ozgear originally but was upgraded to Sturmey archer in the early 60s. Sounds like yours was a nice old bike, quite special.

I will be from now on mate. Cheers

It was perfect conditions for outside fishing over Easter so on Good Friday I headed out solo from Murray's ramp before dawn to middle ground. Had no luck with squid or livies but I had plenty of frozen bait. It was pretty quiet out there but I was able to hook a good kingfish early. Measured it at exactly 65cm. Double checked it by flipping it the other way on the mat. Yep 65. My mate made me up some stickers with a CriCut machine, I have a 36cm flathead, a 30cm snapper and a 65cm kingfish stuck in vinyl inside my boat. I held the kingy up to the sticker and it matched. Cut it under the gills to bleed, brainspiked and into the fish bag with a full bag of ice and half a bucket of seawater. 2 hours later Fisheries arrive. There were about 15 boats out, they came straight to me and I handed the kingy over for official measuring. 64 What the actual!!! I was shocked. Embarrassed. Bewildered. They took the fish and threw it on the floor of their boat. Took my details and told me I would get a official warning. 2nd offence will be $500. They were polite enough. I apologised profusely as I am really careful about size and bag limits. They checked the other boats and then went out to the banks where they confiscated 12 more undersize Kingys. To say it spoiled my day would be an understatement. I spent all day wondering how I could have measured it wrong. I even have a photo and it appears to be 65 in the photo. Then I wondered.... if you bleed all the blood out of a big fish, put it in an ice bath for 2 hours, will it shrink? Im convinced it did. And from now on I will have to allow for that when I catch fish. No more " just legal" ones. They will need to be over from now on. Has anyone else noticed this? I never even thought about it. I spent Saturday at home moping about my kingfish, and on Sunday hit Greenwell Point Ramp to head out to the Banks solo for the first time. It was dead flat and calm. Caught 2 red rock cod, 2 wrasse, 1 leatherjacket, 1 brown cod which all went back. Not interested in rubbish fish. I had a surface livie out for a Mahi Mahi and a weighted livie out for kings as well as my snapper rig. Nothing. Tried trolling for a while then called it quits about 11.30. Only made it a short way in before my engine alarm went off. I shut it down and assumed it was overheated. But after an hour it was still going off. I spoke to marine rescue shoalhaven and after a while we decided to call for a tow. The guys were amazing. I was of course embarrassed but I made a generous donation to their service when I got home and will get the motor looked at. The alarm is still activated which might help them find the issue. All in all a pretty crappy 2 days for me.

Hey Noel Thats only 1 shed. He has 2. The other one is the workshop. We don't have many cotter pin bikes. I have a nice 1932 Sydney built bike called SJH ( builder was Stanley James Hillden). It has inch pitch gears and is really old and cool. Cotter pin job. Danny builds wheels and trues them. He's an old school bike mechanic. I just collect all the parts and watch him put it all together. There is a whole underground retro bike collecting community who buy and sell ancient frames and old parts ... there's a big swap meet and show and shine show coming up in 2 weeks time at Randwick.

This is my mates shed. We built it together last year. It has a wood burning stove in there. We sit in there a couple of nights a week and build bikes or just solve the world's problems. He has about 40 bikes and I have 50. Restoring old classic steel frame bikes back to showroom condition is a hobby we share. Not fishing related I know, but its still a cool shed. And some fisherpeople have more than one interest, like I do.

I get stale bread rolls from the local bakery. Dry them out in the oven. Chop them up and put them through the blender. Then into ziplock bags.

I use a tiny little kids rod with a $30 reel, 10 lb nylon line ...samaki jig for yakkas, Squid jigs for squid. Works a treat.

If this guy is busy, I have used an amazing aluminium boat building company in South Nowra. Great prices and the workmanship and service is brilliant. The company is named after a mythical immortal greek bird which obtains new life by rising from the ashes of its predecessor ....

Finally got my first legal kingy on Sunday ....two actually, one 66cm and one 65cm. 66 was on squid and the 65 on a livey. Lots of rats caught and returned. Lost another nice one when he took about 30 metres of line off my reel and broke the leader on the reef bottom. It was a decent sort of swell out there on Sunday but again the boat handled it quite easily. Lots of time wasted getting blown around, by the time I land the fish and unhook it, Im 300 metres away from where I hooked it. Then I have to start the motor and go back to the waypoint. Im getting a big Minn Kota fitted this week so I can anchor over the school which will be a game changer. Cant wait to use it.