Steve0

It is frustrating seeing schools of Salmon just out of reach of your maximum casting distance. Extra casting distance is pleasing, but there was always another school just a little further out. I read a lot of theory learning to get the lead slug out a bit further. Spool size relates to the changing angle the line travels over the lip of the spool as line comes off during a cast. A newly filled spool with light line probably won't make a lot of difference, but there will be some. Assuming equal service (bits snipped off to re-tie and a wind knot or two) and equal line lost, the smaller capacity spool line level will be further from it's ideal fill level, increasing the angle across the lip and that increases friction. Adding width and/or length to a spool leads to the line angle across the lip changing less during the cast. For every change, there's a trade-off. Larger reels are heavier and you'll need more line to fill them (not a major problem - use more backing). Continuing theory, angle at the spool lip also makes a difference. Many modern spools have angled lips that help smooth line angle during casting The spool in the above is designed for surf casting and also has additional depth as well (red arrow direction). As more line goes out, depth of line on the spool decreases at a slower rate helping slow the decrease in fill level, which helps keep friction down friction. Different manufacturers use different marketing hype for essentially the same thing. Some reels sold still have small, sharper angles. That doesn't make them bad reels, just not a good choice for distance casting. I learnt the hard way that spool lip angle also increases susceptibility to wind knots. I could hear the knots forming at the first guide! On one occasion, the knot tied itself to the guide. 3/4 strength casts only with that reel. A bad choice for surf casting, but it was good on a boat and functioned well enough casting bait from rocks. Summing up, longer, wider spools with more obtuse lip angles make better distance casting choices.That's not the end of it. The rod the reel is used on needs a design that accommodates the reel.

Charred leaves 15m under may explain the dead Leatherjacket in the char heap not mentioned above.

This photo of the black wave would have blown the size limit above.

The 2019/20 Border fire burnt to the edge of Eden, but that doesn't mean Eden was spared About 4:45PM on 4 January it was so smokey, automated lights switched on. There is no colour tweaking. We see i as the phone camera took it (very eerie to see). The beach was a mess of charred leaves and creatures that paid the price: Above and below: Charred leaves achieved a depth of about 30cm in places A single feather only hints at the scale of destruction suffered by birds In about 1km, without digging into the charred leaves I found more than 20 birds washed ashore. Most were even sadder sights than the above. Also amongst the carnage washed up were a dead Wallaby and dead Penguin. At a guess, ocean predators had full bellies. Bluebottles rise above debris.

Not for the (lack of artistic) photography skills, but for the subjects: Selfie on eroded sand The rod is 10'6". The top of the sand ledge is a tad under half the rod length. The cause was a moderate storm. When a bad one hit I could not get down, close to all sand eroded away and there was little other than rock left. In case you need Luderick bait on the beach.

There's a lot to achieving casting distance distance. Lure needs to be optimal weight for the rod; guides need minimal friction; line need to have minimal diameter AND minimal friction; line needs to be able to handle the stress of hard casting; assuming threadline, the larger to spool the better; Angle over the lip of the spool needs to be as obtuse as possible, while remaining practical (in your mind think of friction at 90 degrees compared to coming off almost straight); line coming off the reel needs to go through the bottom guide cleanly; and it all needs to come together in a way suits you. Here's how distance casters load their rod. You probably won't do that, but experiment to find a method that works for you without trading off too much accuracy. WFT Gliss is by far the best distance casting line I ever tried, but it comes with impracticalities. Here is a 14lb Gliss to 20lb Black Magic knot that may give you some idea how impossibly thin it is (don't tie using FG, by the way or it may surprise you by slipping off if you knot is less than 100% perfect or doesn't have enough wraps). Here is a review by Starlo. I don't agree with his ratings. To my mind Gliss is finicky and, unless you tie a good leader knot, it tends to slip off (which is also testament to it's slippery nature). Casting Distance 10/10 Sensitivity On par with regular braid Knotting 4/10 Tangling resistance Can't say - no problems encountered Value Personal decision Durability and Abrasion resistance. Not good on rock A review by another regular fisho. Summing up. Gliss turned my 80m cast into a 101m cast (measured using cranks of the handle - but line belly would account for some of that). The trade off was the level of care needed with the line. MY fishing when using it was beach and rock - on the move, so casting around rocks most sessions. Gliss didn't like rocks! I didn't like the extra care I needed with knot replacing a leader. If you bear with it, you may learn to love it in a less abrasive environment.

Thanks for the information @Ryder When you live on the edge of national park and get into the garden almost every day, spraying with DEET spray becomes too much of a chore when you only plan to be outside for a couple of minutes. Treating clothing seems worth a try. Ticks are said to be on grass, close to the ground and climb up until they find a place they like. If that's right, treating socks may be enough. Ticks host a lot of diseases. So far, I remain with scientists on Lyme disease. DSCATT seems to be the problem here. I did hear (indirectly) of someone who returned from USA, came down with symptoms, and took an age to be tested due to unfamiliarity of local doctors (an elite female swimmer???) In early days, unfamiliarity was a problem for MMA. The association with ticks was only made in 2007. @BaitDropper. Ticks spread a variety of diseases. While I know many who suffered tick bites, nowhere near all suffer MMA (my wife had even more bites than me, for example but still has red meat on the diet). MMA won't necessarily happen straight away and it won't happen every time a suffer eats meat. When it does happen, it is normally many hours after a meat meal. I suspect statistics are on you side, but it is better to be aware of MMA than not.

About 5-6 years ago I was Salmon/Tailor fishing on a beach North of Eden. I had done a walk, following and catching from a school of fish, but this is not about fishing. As the sun was setting, well off in the distance straight out to sea I saw a dark spot gradually moving in my direction. I kept catching, occasionally glancing out and seeing it still heading my way. Eventually the description of the dark beast became clear. I swapped rod for phone, knowing it would keep coming my way. A reasonable impression of what I was seeing is in the first photo to the right of the breaking wave on the l/h side - just a small dark blob above the water. Eventually, it found its way into the wash zone where, with feet on the sand, it stopped all attempts of forward motion. I watched for a few wave breaks. Seeing it shivering badly, I decided to step in and do what I could to get it out of the water. It was swiveled by waves to face the ocean again, so I used the opportunity to take hold of it's tail and drag it up the sand. While I was nervous about a potential kick for my trouble, the wallaby did absolutely nothing to protest the tail grab or the drag up to bank. It was totally spent. You can see by the scrape marks in the sand that it did not change position for the entire time I had hold of it. The outer marks are from my shuffling feet. I considered phoning WIRES, but the sun was setting and the location I was in included a walkway too dangerous to use at night. I made the decision to leave is shivering and hope it recovered. On may way out about 10-15 minutes later I looked back and saw it still there. There is a happy ending. The next morning there were wallaby track from where I left it leading straight into the scub. The beach was a long open beach and the nearest headland is many kms away. It was not coming from that direction, but equidistant from land each way. Being a Swampy, it is not a surprise to see it swimming. It was surprising to discover that it had been out to sea long enough to be at serious risk from hypothermia.

Instead of finding tougher bait, have you considered bait elastic tied a different way? Different people use different methods to tie it. A web search should find a source. A web search should find a source. If you have a decent local tackle store, try there first.

It gets worse: You may not suffer every time you eat meat (or the other things mentioned). Slow and incomplete cooking is more likely to cause a reaction that fast-cooked and overdone (which does not mean the opposite will not occur). One type of meat may cause you a problem, some types or all types. For example, I thought I was OK with pork and ate pork chops without problem for quite a few years. Every time I cook them the same way, which is into a very hot pan to seal, cook fast and cook thoroughly. The last time I cooked pork chops, I had a dose of hives. Meanwhile in another tick mystery, I have a very old bite site that occasionally raises into a welt and itches. Doing nothing, it settles in hours. Yes, I have been bitten quite a few times! We live on the edge of a national park with lots of small mammals that act as tick hosts. You'd be crazy to spray yourself with DEET every time you walk outside. We also get leeches that hitch rides, I suspect on a possum that lives under our verandah and/or a neighbour's cat that uses our place as a dunny.

There are four stages of tick life cycle. They happen at different times of the year. My introduction to ticks was 19 bites from larvae. I scratched at them. A lot. The itching became worse. Not being able to see the larvae, I visited the doctor. "scrub mites", he said and gave me a prescription for a steroidal cream. About 12 months later the itching stopped - well after giving up on a cure from the doctor. So, DO NOT SCRATCH. Keep up the antihistamines to counter any itching.

A note of caution. Every time you cast line sideways off a reel it twists. Threadlines wind in a way that undoes that twist, but that doesn't totally eliminate the problem for threadline reels. When the drag allows line to run or if someone gets excited and keeps winding without recovering line (due to drag setting), line twist results. Sidecasts run put a twist for each wrap of the line around the spool every time you cast sideways off the spool and the wind-in method does nothing to take the twist out. High quality swivels can help but you don't use a swivel between float and reel. As much as possible, cast minimum distance and let the wash or current do the rest. To take twists out, I used to walk with line trailing loose along a beach, but towing behind a boat is far better. Incidentally, Fuji used to make a sidecast reel so you could quickly alternates the side line ran off . Mine broke a chunk off the rim I prefer a line guide for free spool float fishing (you know where to find your line in windy conditions), so favoured my Avon. Some people prefer no line guide. I include the comment only for the reason I don't see a guide on any of the reels @XD351 included in his first post. Centrepin reels with line guide seem very rare these days.

Ticks may not kill directly but they are spreaders of many severe inconveniences. Yours sounds a bad 'un. Everyone who lives on the East Coast should be mindful of ticks. I suffered a bite about 20 years ago that took all red meat out of my diet (and consider myself lucky symptoms are not severe). My daughter also suffers MMA. I suggest everyone who get into the outdoors (including your own garden) read this. Any brand of spray that contains DEET or Picaridin should keep the ticks away (but apparently not the leeches). Tick removal methods changed since the days of tweezers. Anything that irritates the tick will make it vomit. This is current best practice for tick removal.

I recall only approximate length and thought they were 'fatter'. Reading dimensions on the link, I agree.

I read it similarly but reached a conclusion one of the plastic bait traps would be legal, provided you complied with requirements. As you are allowed one only of the plastic style, you'd need to keep busy checking an moving the trap. I used to use this style of trap, but they don't appear on the NSW permited method list. They worked really well when set in long sea grass.

How I wish I'd kept mine! Good luck with your search.

You'd think a reel as good as Avon Royal would keep being manufactured or production rights would go elsewhere. We regret our mistakes at leisure. I may not have used braid for float fishing, but caught many Luderick down South on braid with a tiny sinker running straight to the hook. I became a braid convert. Flouro does seem a bit of marketing hype, like many other things relating to fishing. It may help. On that other hand, I have caught bream on 20lb braid with no leader (nothing like my standard bream rig).

I've never used braid when float fishing, only tough mono right to the hook. Everything else has been braid only for about 10 years. It's time to think about floating braid and flouro leader,

I let the water drift take line off my reel and found the Avon line guide handy when the wind blew, so left it place. I could easily manage one without a guide but... Thanks for the value advice. My Alvey is pristine and currently resides in its original box. I am never keen on the process of selling but if the price is good, it may be worth the inconvenience and annoyance.

Looks the part, but I can't see a line guide like my old Avon. Meanwhile the Alvey cost too much to not stick with while deciding whether the passion is returning.

Good to hear in context with your usage. I am also a self-funded retiree. I was servicing my own until the price to have someone else do it became too attractive. My fishing now is likely not to involve a lot of beach or very hard pulling fish so, over-gunned describes my current reel situation. Looking at going back to Luderick fishing, my current disappointment is a Luderick reel. My Avon clagged up with fatigued metal sitting idle and I made the mistake of thinking, "I'll buy another if I need it, as I sent it to reel heaven". Highlighting a down-side of mail order, I read reviews and decided to buy an Alvey Luderick reel bought via mail. IMO it is not in the same class as the Avon. On the bright side, I still have my Butterworth bent tip rod. It's battered but working.

Japanese domestic market and export models may vary (https://japantackle.com/tackle_topics/made_in_japan.htm), but no point asking about parts and repair, I suppose. JDM aside, buying direct seems a good choice for you. Everyone's day spent fishing is different. I suspect my reel's beach environment tossing lead slugs may have been a lot harder treatment than most reels suffer. I had a couple of warranties honored. Another time, repaired for the cost of parts. I am very grateful to the tackle shop owner and Shimano for each occasion. Minimum necessary time out of service and no mucking around with paperwork each time. "leave it with me", then sometime around the promised date, "your reel is ready; no charge" came the voice when I walked in the door. He offered very inexpensive service, as well. So inexpensive I couldn't pass it up. The other aspect of a tackle shop owned by a crazy keen fisho is the advice. BCF, etc outcompeted such places around here. My nearest is about 20+ minutes away. That's incredibly inconvenient compared to the well-stocked bait shop that closed it doors that was about 5 minutes away. Bearing in mind it is highly unlikely I will be tossing lures of the sand like I was for about 10 years, direct from Japan is now a viable option.

I know from chats with an old-fashioned tackle store owner, Australia's Shimano importer won't honour Shimano warranty. How do you go with claims?

My license is paid for to cover every year, fishing or not and I don't resent paying the fee, knowing it feeds back into the fishery. I find it hard to empathise with people who are caught doing the wrong thing but, yes, that seems a very harsh penalty in relation to personal circumstances.

G'day Luc Where to go today? Wallagoot, Wonboyn, somewhere in between? Its a tough decision you have to make. This time of year, the answer for me when living in Eden was nowhere. I hated what tourists did in otherwise pristine fishing locations.