seacow

Some of my friends did the maths on this years back around 2012. The compliance differences are apparently a pretty big hurdle and now with the AUD at 73 cents to the USD there is very little incentive after you include the freighting and duty costs. It seemed like it was a good idea at the time when the AUD was like $1.07 USD and every redneck was getting rid of their boat cause of the market crash. I know there are always kick arse boats for sale over there so I'd like to know how you end up.

Fished Jervis Bay Thursday. What a cracking day except the fishing wasn't great. Early rise saw us on the water about 6:30. Got 8 squid pretty quickly off Callala but no livies off the red bouy even though we burleyed hard. I couldn't hit a bull in the arse with a bucket of rice. My excuse was the colour of the jig. Jetting off to Perpendicular we were stopped by a rather large boat who advised us that the navy was bombing and that there was a big exclusion zone right where we wanted to fish. In no uncertain terms were we to fish there. Rather inconsideration of them I thought!!! Is there a website when they inform you of the bombing or is that a national secret? Anyway, trolled Longnose bombie instead with squid till they were devoured by the plague of jackets. Any place we went we seemed to find them. Any bait school we found turned out to be jackets. They all seemed to be about 15cm in length and voracious. Drifted the backside of Bowen Island cause the 40 metre mark outside had you guessed it - leather jackets. Ended up with two nice flathead to 45cm. Tough day apart from the wildlife sightings, whales dolphins and seals. Man that seal population has exploded since I was last there. Would have liked to see the navy unload into some of those jacket swarms. They even bit some of our hooks in half. Seven hours of fishing ended up with 8 squid, 2 flathead and a few leather jackets that were unceremoniously thrown back. Even the sea birds wouldn't take them. Better than a poke in the eye but no sign of snapper or kings. Probably needed to go outside to find them.

Off the bat I thought Eastern Frogfish (Batrachomoeus dubius) however looking at it again I am not so sure.

http://beacons.amsa.gov.au/maintenance/disposal.asp

The Stradic Ci4 is a more sturdy built reel. If you aren't an individual that treats their reels with kit gloves (I am horrible to my stradic) then I would go with the stradic over the freams.

Maybe Bill had Stockholm syndrome.

How did you go about attaching them to the power supply? Switch or directly to the battery?

I'd say it really depends on two inter-related factors. 1. the size of the squid 2. the size of kingy you are targeting. Bigger squid means that there is a great deal more surface area that the fish can bite into. A sliding snell knot with one hook in the top of the hood and one just above the head would work. The notion being that a kingy looks to take baits head first. For smaller squid I just put a hook through the top of the hood. I found that the hook up rate is still pretty good as the bigger fish tend to engulf the squid. If I was to strip the squid I would consider using the two hook snell just because it is less likely to spin around or bunch up on the hooks.

Ditto. Trolled squid nearly everywhere in the bay for a big fat donut. No surface action no bait on the sounder and the swell was more than the forecast 1.4metres and lumpy as hell. In all a tough day on the water.

Did anyone else see the boat fire on the Hacking on Saturday? It was well alight by the time we went past. Did it end up sinking or was it put out?

It could have been tailor or something like bonito (probably not bonito in winter) that simply bit your lure off. I'm a bit of a stickler for knots (not always, sometime I watch my lure fly into the sunset no longer tied to the line and then cry out many expletives) but I remember a time using fairly light line where I lost about 6 lures in fairly quick succession until I increased my leader strength. I can tell you, it was an expensive outing. Practice tying knots - if that's not working up your leader strength.

Ok I preface this with a statement "I am a lazy fisherman." With that in mind I was in my local tackle store searching for 6 pound braid to put on my new stradic 2500. Anyway, all the usual (braid) suspects were there for purchase. However there were no lengths over 150 yard spools. (I was looking for 300 yards to take up the whole reel) Upon questioning the staff I was told buy the shorter strands and put some backing on it. "It's better and cheaper." Now I can understand the cheaper thing but better????? Is it something here I am over looking????  If I was to use backing what poundage and what knot would be the best???? I don't think my standard double uni will cut the mustard. 

First trip over to NZ we caught a few good salmon. I was happy with those fish (50-70cms) until they told me that this was the bait catching phase of the trip. The hooks they used looked liked they could anchor the boat in place instead. Then came the carnage - broken lines, broken rods and broken individuals. Their words maunu nui ika nui. Translation - big bait big fish.

+1 for that location. We stayed at a place that had it's own mooring.

I'd say fish your terrain. If it's nice and open with fish taking surface lures then you can reduce the poundage of your line (considerably). If you are in some pretty hairy terrain then up the poundage. I'm not a big fan of having to re-rig, so the lazy fisherman in me says go bigger. My rods have 20lb braid into 50lb leader. My big rod has 50lb braid into 50lb leader with a stradic 8000. Roughly holds 39lb of drag (apparently) with 300 yards of braid.

You can catch kingfish on 30lb leaders and comparable gear. The odds are however, if you are fishing near the rocks, a reef, a wharf, an anchor rope or a marker bouy that you are going to lose more gear and catch less fish. Bit of a catch 22 situation cause I'm pretty sure that lighter leaders get more bites.<br /><br />But then that's why fishing is called a sport. There are people that like their heart in their mouth in the knowledge that they are giving the fish every chance to get away. Some would say it comes down to skill, other times some would say it comes down to dumb luck.<br /><br />Go hard and prepare for some big bust offs and some blood curdling cheers when you get them in!

I take it that you would need a fair size jig head to get them in 42 metres.

That's not a boat - it's a weapon!!! I'm waiting to see marines jump out of it and run up Utah Beach with Tom hanks.

You wait till he hogs the spot on ya; pinches the rod that's already rigged; only burleys up infront of where he's fishing and; tangles your line if you are getting more fish than him. Then talks smack about getting more fish on the car ride home! Or worse, he sends photos about catching them one after the other when you're at work. You must have got my old man on a good day!

Plenty of big salmon & reds - no kings. After we left, the Whanau (Maori for family) went further up the coast and got some to 15kgs. Very jeaous. I'll be back there as soon as I can.

Just wait till they get those salmon get over 80cms then you know you have a fight on your hands. My new stradic with 50 pound braid sung when we got a few around 5 and 6kgs in new zealand. In the end, no competition but still plenty of fun. Huge aerials!

OK so I'm going through the saltwater angling guide on the DPI website and I see a way to measure the average weight of your fish by the length fish to the fork. The sizes correspond with some of the fish I have caught in the past so it seems to make good sense. That is until I see a measurement for a yellowfin bream - fork length 70cm weight 8.4kgs. WTF????? Has anyone ever seen a monster like this previously and can they tell me where cause I want to get one????? I've got one in the past to about 44cm and I've seen them up to 50cm but 70cm! Surely they can't grow that big! Or am I wrong?

I'm there in the first week on March. Taking the stadic loaded with 50 pound braid with me. I have been told to get ready for some big bust offs. Just checking up on knot tying for 100 pound leader!!!

Those are good looking fish. The last one looks like a horse. Might need to put the fishing gear away and look to get a saddle instead. North Island?

Would have been interesting to see whether we could have picked up a few more if we had livies or squid. The bait on the sounder that the kings were eating looked quite small.