linewetter

Hey everyone Went out tonight after work with about 45 mins fishing time. Not much time to fish, but I was still looking forward to it. Took a look at the tides and I was going to be fishing the lowest point of a very low tide...not ideal conditions either but sometimes you gotta fish when you can, not when you want. I will make a comment though...having spent many hours together with @DerekD over the past summer a few months ago and many conversations together, I've stopped caring about going fishing only at the most ideal of times/tides. He set me up with a great foundation of fishing knowledge but also changed my mindset about trying to min/max my fishing experience by going only at the best times. Changing that mindset, I just go whenever I have time to go and only look at the tides to decide where I want to go. And today I decided to hit up Middle Harbour. I find the storm drains I frequent are not ideal at low tide in terms of water access, and especially today's low tide being a height of 0.5m. I went anyway since I didn't have much time to fish and going elsewhere meant a further drive. First cast out across the storm drains, and I caught onto a small tailor. This one struck my plastic right at my feet. I've been continuing my slow rolls all the way to the end until I can't anymore rather than pulling it up early because I find that often, tailor will hit it even at my feet. They'll come out of nowhere in an instant and hit it, and very cool to see it happen. Quite a few casts later fanning out of the storm drains net me another tailor: After some more casting around the storm drain and no further interest, I started casting out towards the broader bay. I started to wind a little bit faster now just to see if I could entice any pelagics...I have been hoping to catch another trevally lately because I love catching them. Instead...I catch this unexpected catch! Pike: After this and many more last casts, it was time to go. Ended the night with this fish and a lot of fun for a short session.

I've been letting the shops spool my reels up for me with the main reason being I'm not sure how to best estimate the amount of mono backing to put on to get the perfect amount of line on at the end.... definitely something I could learn myself and try out but for now I've been letting the shops do it since that's the easy way for now and I think they're using a double uni. Though I've had my eye on some of the braid available from the Japanese JDM sites since there is a much larger selection at a similar or cheaper price point. That would be enough to motivate me to learn how to do it myself and tie my own backing knot. I just have to find a reason to buy a new rod or reel too to make the shipping costs worth it 😅

Yeah I was looking to replace with 0.6 since that’s what I had before and it was fine for the most part but the shop only had 300m spools of 0.6 left 🥲 Hoping I don’t experience many break offs with this 0.4 otherwise I’ll have to swap again if it’s no good after all. But I do like the idea of a challenge in getting a fish in on even lighter line

I went out this late afternoon intent on fishing for a few hours but was cut short when I felt my line getting caught on my spool. I checked it out and it was catching on the tag end of the knot for my braid to mono backing 😥 It was time to change lines then...But since I was out, I figured might as well keep casting a bit even if it catches on the tag end...it still casts. Put on a mutant Zman slim swimz that fused colors into a mix of greasy prawn and motor oil. I came away with a decent sized flatty that I put back into the water and called the session here to end on a high: Ended up switching to PE 0.4 Atomic Linez braid to try out. I haven't been able to find much about it online ratings wise so time will tell how good it is.

That's a thick one! Great catch on the micro jigs yet again. I'm surprised by the variety of fish that'll go after them. Sounds like a really hard fighting fish by the sounds of the runs.

I'm using soft plastics a lot lately... my go to is a 1/12th jighead, size 2 hook with a 2.5" Zman Slim Swmz paddletail. That's the combo I'll always reach for to start out with in waters up to probably the 2-2.5m mark since it manages to stay enough above the bottom while slow rolling, without being too light to get too far off the bottom. Though if the current is a little strong then I swap over to 1/8th, though 1/12th is my preference for how the tail paddles...too much weight I think doesn't do it justice.

I’ve been thinking of replacing my braid anyway as it is running a bit low. Especially after tonight losing a good amount of line and then snapping off back to back to back. I have on some mid range braid and at one point considered the more expensive stuff that’s like $80…but reading your experience…maybe not… I have been thinking of what if I just switch from x8 to x4 just to help a little with durability. Thanks for the recommendation on the platypus braid, I’ve seen that one around in shops before, I’ll have a second look the next time I go in. I do like that it’s Aussie made in particular

The braid has been quite good for me in terms of breakage so far so I was surprised it snapped so many times in a row. Figuring maybe just a manufacturing defect or maybe it is just the saltwater weakening the line a bit. Seeing people say braid lasts them years though...I don't think mine will last years at this rate 😆

Hit up one of the bays in the lower north shore tonight for some after work fun. It was quiet for a bit at the start but tide was also higher than it normally is when I come here so I had to adjust and work my lures a bit slower to allow more time to get toward the bottom. First fish up was a small bream caught at the edge of a sandflat using a slow rolling plastic: Next up was a small tailor: Then ensued the frustrations...I got snagged then noticed my braid had tangled on itself at some point and bit into itself probably when I was reeling. I broke off the snag and pulled my line in by hand and had to cut off a good 6-7m of line and trash it since I couldn't undo the tangle. I went to tie on my leader and it snapped off while cinching down... I went to tie it on again, making sure I lubricated it extra and it snapped off again.. I went to tie it on a third time with my fingers feeling like frozen fishsticks and it snapped off again during the cinching down. Each and every time it broke off from the braid, not the fluoro. This whole time my headlamp kept autodimming due to excessive heat or low battery. I could hear and see fish busting up literally at my feet. Meanwhile I'm here cursing the braid for costing me so much time. The fourth time was the charm, then went to tie on my jighead and dropped it. I scoured the ground and my clothes for a good 15 mins trying to find it - mostly because I did not want a dog or kid to accidentally sniff it up or pick it up. For some reason I could just not find it. Turned over every leaf and stone in the area, looked around crevices, with my dim headlamp. I didn't find it and was so sure it must be on my person somewhere if I hadn't found it on the ground by now. I tied on a new jighead and got back to fishing. Landed this small flatty and made me feel a little better about missing those bust ups 😥 After casting for a while longer and having no interest, I put down the rod and did a final look around the area before moving on. I ended up finding the jighead on the ground out in the open where I had looked 100x over. It just blended into the floor I guess but I was glad to have found it finally. Last fish of the night pulled some string to my surprise. It was a small bream but it had some oomph to it with how much drag it pulled. Totally thought it was a bigger fish at first but happy to have brought up this beautiful specimen:

Great bream catch man! And on the micro jig too. You're the best unintentional micro jig salesman 😆

Yup I used to use hops and twitches too, but, and this is just my personal opinion, I feel like hops and twitches are better for curly tail lures. I’ve done a lot of playing around with the lure at my feet just to see what it looks like in the water. When I hop the slim swimz, especially in shallower water that I like to fish, I don’t think it gives the best action. The curly tails look a lot better when hopped even in shallow water since it flutters on the way down but the slim swimz doesn’t have enough depth where I fish to give much action on the way down. But also for me the hopping and twitches just take too long to cover water. I’ll hop and twitch and give it a few seconds then do it again and just takes me forever to cover water. So I started to try doing slow roll and after a lot of observation and testing different lures and shapes I found I liked the slim swimz the best. One day I tried slow rolling only for a whole session just to experiment and it caught me a ton of great fish to my surprise. From that day I was sold and only slow roll my plastics because it covers water a lot faster and keeps me engaged since I’m constantly paying attention for any reaction on the rod. I’ll find the post I made when I experimented and edit this post and link it here. It’s caught me bream, whiting, flatties, trevally, pinkies, the common fish you’d find Here’s the post where I experimented with only slow rolling just to see since I wasn’t completely confident in it yet: And additional report showing bream aren’t afraid to take a slow rolling lure. Most of my past reports I’ve done since April are all results of slow rolling the lure primarily

It has not been an easy winter of fishing 😅 Definitely has tested my patience and attention span

Thanks @Yowie ! I’ve slowly been toying with the idea of upsizing my lures to try and aim for some bigger models. The only drawback is having to get another set of jigheads and weights to suit

I’ve been using the Zman slim swimz in greasy prawn color. It’s been my favorite go to for a while now. I’ve tried other branded paddletail lures too but find that I like the action of the slim swimz the best, much more free flowing regardless of speed. I have grub and prawn shapes too but always gravitate back to the slim swimz just because I feel like it suits my preferred method of fishing the best which is a slow constant wind across the bottom or bottom half of the water column in shallow water. I use that color day or night have found a lot of success with it…I also have it in motor oil but don’t use it that much in comparison to greasy prawn. Just feel like it looks a lot more like a tiny fish in the off white, but I’m sure motor oil works just as well given that’s a top color for a lot of people too

Stoked from yesterday's session with plenty of tailor caught, I headed out this late afternoon again to the harbour for some more soft plastics fishing. First cast out to test the waters, I got a bite and a hookup. Usually when I get a fish on the first cast, I prepare myself for a session of no action afterwards feeling like I used all my fishing luck in one go 🤣 Up came a small hungry bream: Next couple of casts were quiet and I was fearing the curse was going to come true!!! I moved around a bit and continued flicking my plastics and the fear of the curse vanished. Up came a small tailor: Next cast out to the same area got me another one: ...and then another: Moved around to some drop offs and structure and started to bottom bounce hoping for a flatty. It was the right environment for one to be around in and sure enough: Photo quality starts to drop off here since I took these off a video recording and it was starting to get too dark... Cast back out and ol' reliable tiny tailor shows back up: I ended the night focusing on the sandy drop offs near structure and hook onto my last fish of the night: A fun little session and happy to finally catch a bream again....it has been what felt like months since I smelled the smelly smell of bream slime!