slinkymalinky

Hi Jani, We'd love to see you and Saija again too. Hopefully if you visit again you will have a camper that doesn't leak! I always look forward to your posts and photographs. To me, where you live is exotic and exciting too. Having you as a member of Fishraider is fantastic... it gives us all the chance to see and dream about fishing in far away places. You are our honorary Australian in Finland. Best wishes, Tony

G'day Beau, Try this link... http://www.fishraider.com.au/Invision/index.php?showtopic=59384 Like it says in the article, I'm not a materials chemist or any kind of expert but the information in here comes from me having done work over a number of years with a company that manufactures braided fishing line. Cheers, Slinky

Service your reels

I bought a pair of Korkers wading boots. They have an interchangeable sole... I have felt soles for wading rocky rivers, rubber soles for walking and you can get other types. They have soles with cleats, plates and all sorts of other options. As for sand, the best idea would be to get some neoprene gaiters. I have a pair that came with my neoprene chest waders and their great at keeping crap out of my boots. Cheers, Slinky

If you're going to use live baits with circle hooks a bridle rig is best. When I was living in Sydney chasing kings I sometimes used a circle in the nose and a J hook stinger in the tail but 2 J hooks works better... circles with live baits always seem to foul. cheers, Slinky

Had a Christmas break with my parents on Magnetic Island. There are a couple of fishing charter operators on Magnetic Island but only 1 into serious sport fishing. The Skipper, Josh and his dad, Kerry (one of Magnetic Island's police officers) have a couple of awesome one-of-a-kind custom sportfishing boats that I've been lucky enough to fish from many times. This trip I went out with a crew of other fishos from various parts of the country including another Josh who was being shouted a 16th birthday present and what a present it ended up being. I almost exclusively fish lures (mostly plastics) up that way. Having fished there plenty of times I was quick to lend my light gear to the birthday boy and others as we came across the inevitable schools of tuna working... only Macks this time, no Longtails. I get a huge kick out of seeing other people catch fish, particularly when for young Josh his Mack tuna was his best every (but unbeknown to him, soon to be completely eclipsed). Unfortunately, I don't have anything to brag about myself. I caught plenty of fish including a handful of undersized spanish mackerel (all on mono leader), a bunch of aquarium fish, remoras, and some undersized reefies. But the real focus of this report is what happened when skipper, Josh, took us to one of his special isolated marks. As soon as we arrived the boys on board hooked a few tasty reef fish (small mouth nannygai) and looking over the side I could see some GTs following them up. "Great" I thought and over goes a 145mm Squidgie Flick Bait to the fish that I thought were around the 3-5kg mark. Much to my frustration and amazement, the little trevs completely ignored my soft plastic even though they looked aggressive and hungry. At the back of the boat, skipper Josh sent over a 2kg livebait on a heavy jig rod. Suddenly the trevs that I thought were small GTs about 5m under the boat turned out to be Volkswagon sized GTs about 25m under the boat and came tearing up fighting over which would get to swallow the livebait whole. It all happened so incredibly fast that I was left with my mouth hanging open as the overhead jig outfit howled and skipper josh started driving the boat away from the mark into clear water. There was no question as to who would get the rod and birthday boy got connected to the fight of his life. From never having tangled with serious fish to a 25kg GT is a biiiig jump. The fight was one of sheer stubborness but for a long time it wasn't certain who would come out on top. Josh's face says it all. His birthday present HUUUURRRRT but what a memory and what a great thing to witness. A second 'baby' was landed (about 16-18kg)... us older blokes were very quick to take a step backwards when volunteers for the rod were requested but it was landed by another reasonably inexperience fisho. The next day the boat went out again and hooked 9, boating 5, for a new crew. Almost as a footnote, I walked off the boat with some fantastic fillets of Cobia and both Smallmouth and Largemouth Nannygai... gifts from the others for my good Karma of sharing my gear around. Another great day on Magnetic Island. Cheers, Slinky

Agree with Marshie... the Gomoku rod wouldn't be a great choice for popper and plastic fishing. They are designed for light vertical jigging and while I'm sure plenty of people use them for all sorts of fishing and they seem to be 'flavour of the month', they're not designed for your style fishing. Gomoku rods have a very gradual 'parabolic' taper... most people who fish plastics and poppers on light gear prefer medium to fast taper rods... they cast further, faster and more accurately. (That's not a criticism of Gomoku rods... just that they're designed for something completely different) Of the 2 I'd recommend the t-curve. I've got a bunch of t-curves and have fished with (someone elses) GL2 Loomis. While I don't know your specific models, my feedback on Loomis GL2 rods is that you're paying a premium for the Loomis name on an average blank. The top end Loomis rods are awesome but IMHO their GL2 and GL3 rods, while good rods and very well made with good components, are overpriced vs competitors at the same quality level. Just an opinion... I'm no expert. Cheers, Slinky

Best bet would be to give the Okuma distributors a call (Rapala Freetime in Australia I think). I've not had anything to do with their service dept before but if they're up the standard of Pure Fishing, Shimano and Daiwa, you should be able to get one sent out pretty easily. Cheers, Slinky

50cm Bass is the target everyone (me too) ssems to chase with Bass. Never really heard anyone talk about another 'milestone' size. 50s aren't uncommon but most of us hear stories about 'someone' catching a 50 but never get one ourselves.

Congrats on your first Bass dylrox. A warning that Bass can become a bit addictive. Cheers, Slinky

Awesome start to the season, Mate. Congrats on the new PB... pretty unexpected to hit fish like that in the shallows but its a surprise worth having. Also great news about the slot limit. I've never kept a Cod anyway but for those who do quite understandably want to take a fish or 2 for the table, that's a good way to manage healthy stocks. They've had slot limits on Dusky Flathead on the Gold Coast for years and the stocks are really good with good numbers of bigger breeding fish always around. Cheers, Slinky

It's been 'too long between drinks' for Jewhunter and I to get out on his home turf... the Tweed River. Due to work and crazy people ts been close to 18 months in fact. Not that I mind crazy people in small doses... that's why I fish with JH. The trash talk had already been running hot for about a week by the time we finally met up but Jewhunter didn't seem to appreciate my peace offering of a packet of stinky servo prawns that I thought might increase his chances of actually catching something. After offending me slightly by refusing my gift (or at least, putting in his freezer for the kids to use from the back yard fishing spot). We hooked up his Hornet Trophy (very jealous of that fantastic rig) and got to it. We got out on the water at around 5.00am NSW time (that's 4.00 am real time for those of us who live north of the border where the curtains don't fade ). As it turned out, the servo prawns might have been a good idea for JH as I then proceeded to kick his butt up and down the river. After a very slow start but one where trevally herding jelly prawns along the edges kept us on our toes, JH started us hitting a succession of deep holes... he knows the Tweed like the back of his hand so his guiding skills are awesome... much better than his fishing. After getting totally smoked by a trevally at the Tumbulgum bridge. We opened up the tally proper with a few sand whiting of all things including a couple of really nice ones 36-40cm fish for the fridge. Some small flat things and bream things came to the boat and I was having a ball. I even managed my first lure caught mullet (fair hooked in the mouth). Last year I was lucky enough to win Catch of the Month and as part of my prize got sent a few packets of Berkley MF40 soft vibes. They were braining the fish while JH struggled to get a touch fishing right beside me with hard blades. We put it down to the slightly slower more throbbing style of vibe they put out rather than the 'buzz' of the blades. It certainly worked on the fish with me getting hit after hit and regularly boating fish. You have to hand it to Jewhunter for his tenacity and focus though... he worked really hard to ignore the MF40 I offered him (did I mention JH's lovable stubborn streak?). If you haven't used a soft vibe, they're awesome fish-magnets... just ask Jewhunter. In a few of the other known spots, A nice Flat thing of around 50cm came to the boat (well, it actually came to my MF40 actually) and JH boated a little Moses Perch... just to prove that the blade did actually have hooks on it. When one of Jewhunters super-reliable flatty spots failed to produce (it looked awesome with the runout tide falling off the back of a sand bar into deeper water), we realised that the flatties were pretty much off their feed but the other fish kept coming. I flicked a 35mm Halco Roosta Popper at a fish charging jelly prawns along a snaggy bank and after missing a good hit from a Trev, nailed a respectable Bream. In the end we ended up getting a mixed bag of Bream, Flathead, Mullet, Moses Perch (JH's 'other fish'), Whiting and even a crappy little Bat Fish (which I'm told sell for $50 in aquariums yet they're like rats in some fishing spots up this way) To improve his future fishing,if anyone is looking for a Christmas gift for him I'm sure he'd appreciate a throbbing style vibe... particuarly as a single man... with plenty of time to fish. In all seriousness I have to say thanks to Jewhunter. He really does work hard to find fish but more important we have a lot of laughs and a day on the water with him is a real tonic. We're both eating fish tonight and JH even got a big buck Mud Crab from his pot on the way home. He does it in style living on the Riverbank (Just call him Toad of Toad Hall). The fishing all balances out since JH outfished me about 3-1 at our recent Borumba trip. We figure today was my good Karma for lending Jewhunter the killer spinnerbait (my only one) on that last trip. Thanks mate... I'll pick you up some MF40s to pay you back for skipping out on the boat cleaning today. Cheers, Slinky

It all depends on where on the Gold Coast you're going to be but your best bet for a quick session through the week would be the broadwater. If you're into bait fishing, try to get your hands on some live herring (small bait jigs around bridge pylons and pontoons should get you a few)... live bait them on a light outfit along the seaway walls. The inside of the north wall from about half way along to the end is the best stretch of water. If luring is your thing, the seaway and the rock walls around into the broadwater on the north side are well worth throwing plastics. The south wall of the seaway is good from about the pipeline out to half way along the wall then swap to the other side. Casting back in towards the wall and bouncing plastics on the bottom should connect you to flathead, jew, trevs and Jacks and Emperor are a good chance. For Jacks, the gnarly stretch of rock wall on the north side around into the broadwater is a good stretch. Its rugged so expect to lose gear but cast in tight to the wall with flathead style plastics and you're in with a chance. The other stretch nearby that's worth a go is Wave Break Island... the rock wall you'll see inside the broadwater directly opposite the seaway. The whole broadwater is very tide dependent. If there's no tide pushing it will go very quiet... the exception being at the outer end of the north wall, where slack tide often brings Jewies on the chew... especially if the tide is big. Cheers, Slinky

Sounds like a classic Ray hookup. Take a bait, move off, sit on the bottom no matter what you do, then for no particular reason just decide to swim away to somewhere more interesting... complete with your rig and as much line as you are unlucky enough to lose. I hooked one in Kiama harbor once that 'ran' (more like an unstoppable meander) 300m of line off my 6.5" Alvey before I finally gave in to the inevitable and locked up to bust him off... that wasn't easy either with that much mono in the water. Cheers, Slinky

Really great idea. I've tried the split shot approach but it catches on weed and twigs a bit. I've always found it impossible to get weedleed rigs like that in anything smaller than 'Barra' sizes... I'm going to make some for my bass fishing. Cheers, Slinky

G'day Phase... Maybe Birdseye I think

Spinnerbaits are hard to beat, especially out of a kayak. They are very snag resistant even when thrown right into the middle of fallen timber. Bassman or Smak are my fave brands. For surface lures I like small 'walkers' like River to Sea Buggi Pop or small Jitterbugs in black, along with small poppers like the Bubble Pop.

Surface lures for any fish always get a lot more strikes than hook-ups. It's not a body bash but a fish has to deal with 2 problems hitting a target on the surface. Refraction and reflection from the disturbed water surface make targetting harder... just think about what it looks like when you're in the pool yourself and look up through the water, particualrly when its moving around. And second and probably more the reason is that the fish moving quickly to the surface creates a pressure wave in front of it that knocks lures out of the way. Have a look at GTs charging down big poppers... they push a huge bow wave in front of them.

Are you striking when they hit or maybe its just a 'flinch' reaction. Don't strike until you feel the weight of the fish. Like matyg said they often just miss. If you get a hit and it misses, leave the lure dead in the water for 5 or 10 seconds, give it a little twitch, maybe move it a little, etc. You will often draw another strike. If you don't get another hit put the lure straight back into the same spot. Keep plugging away and if you're getting hits, you'll end up with a bass soon.

The saltwater fly hooks are good... stronger than the usual stinger hooks. I use the same sizes with smaller ones sometimes on my little 1/8oz 'sneaky creek' spinnerbaits. I have the same thing with blade colour... I usually have silver blades on light natural coloured sb's. Which TT's do you use? The Vortex or the Striker (The strikers are the ones with the stronger hooks and 'triangular' head... they have bigger blades too)? Smaks are my absolute fave... swim great and skirts, hooks and hardware are all really good out of the box. Not nice when they keep flying off when your line breaks for no reason (I worked out what I think was happening... I sometimes swim new lures in my pool to try them out and see how they swim/sink etc... usually I rinse my line but I did it a couple of months ago and then just put the reel away. I reckon the chlorine stuffed my braid) Cheers, T

Bad Stewy! Don't make me smack you on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper

After my weekend on Borumba Dam recently I decided to play around with 'tuning' a bunch of my spinnerbaits. Why?... well not all spinnerbaits are created equal and changing blades or skirts can make an amazing difference to how they swim. Not to mention that with a lot of popular spinnerbaits pushing $15ea it means that for little cost you can pretty much have 'more spinnerbaits per spinnerbait'. 'Tuning' makes it sound complicated but its as simple as swapping the main blade (attached to your spinnerbait by a split ring) and/or changing skirts. Both blades and skirts are easy to get hold of. So what did I change? 1. I had a bunch of TT Vortex spinnerbaits that have quite small blades out of the packet. That means less flash and they sink fast or you fish them faster than I like. So I swapped the small main willow blade for bigger ones. Don't get me wrong... there's nothing wrong with them out of the packet but after doing it for a while, every Bass fisherman will tell you how particular they get with the action or colour of a lure, the characteristics of a reel or rod, etc. This way I can make them do exactly what I want and change them, even on the water if I feel I need to. 2. I changed blade colours on a couple of spinnerbaits... personal preference but I like to fish silver blades in clear water, gold in dirty and I've also set up a couple of black-skirted baits with copper coloured blades for tannin stained water (black & copper Celtas used to be my 'go to' lure colour for stream trout in tannin stained water so thought I'd give it a go on natives). 3. I switched a couple from Willow blades to Colorado (the more round ones) blades. Willows are flashier but make less 'noise'... Colorados are very noise but less flashy. Colorados also make spinnerbaits sink more slowly so you can fish them higher in the water (like over weedbeds) or more slowly. Bigger blades of any kind also make the same spinnerbait sink more slowly and make more flash and noise. 4. I changed a bunch of skirts. I had a lot of spinnerbaits that I've bought thinking 'I'll give this colour a try' but on the water I always seem to stick to 2 or 3 colour combinations for 90% of my fishing. So with a bunch of good quality purple skirts and natural skirts I've made a lot of them look more to my (and hopefully the fishes) liking. The skirts I use are also thicker than a lot you see on spinnerbaits out of the box so to my eye they pulse and move better in the water, make more disturbance and again, make the lures swim a bit higher in the water. 2 identical TT Vortex spinnerbaits. Bottom one out of the packet, top one after a bigger blade and new skirt. I now have a bunch of different spare blades and skirts in my spinnerbait bag that I carry on the water. In only about 2 minutes and for about $1-$2 I can have a 'new' spinnerbait on the end of my line whenever I want and I don't even need to tie a knot. Cheers, Slinky

Don't be too stressed about the toga. A lot more get hooked than are landed... they've got a hard mouth and with their crazy acrobatics and fight, they spit hooks like nothing else.

G'day Matt, I mounted some rod clips and a couple of holders for larger rods to the 'outside' of the bow access door. You can sort of see where I mean in this shot. It worked really well for light gear when fishing estuaries and impoundments. Cheers, Slinky

Why is it that when we see 'made in Japan' on fishing tackle and instantly assumes it's got to be good quality? There are shonky, cheapo manufacturers in Japan just like everywhere else. There are also brands made on the cheap in China, Malaysia, Australia and lots of other places that use a Japanese sounding brand names because it makes it sell better but have nothing to do with Japan (did you ever wonder why 'japanese' brand lures are given away free with fishing mags?) Don't get me wrong. Japan is also the centre of most fishing tackle innovation and the huge number of small, high-end manufacturers have created some amazing gear... I just bought a Palms Molla rod to replace the Berkley Venom that Jewhunter shortened for me... and it's WICKED! But nickb is spot on... if its too good to be true it probably is. That's not a reason not to buy the leader material... just a caution to set your expectations. If you get some, let us know how it goes. Cheers, S