Josh88

I'd have to go with Giant Trevally, Kingies are certainly up there, striped tuna are always good for their size too.

We were in Thailand last december, I remember on the boat to Phi Phi we saw sail fish carving up groups of bait on the surface, even chasing the some of the flying fish we saw. Then on the boat back there was a massive school of sizeable tuna going mental in a big ball of bait. We're going back this January so any feedback from you guys heading over there in the next couple of months would be great. Cheers Josh

Outstanding fish mate, I know a lot of Jews caught from that area can be up around that 50-60lb mark, haven't seen one for a while though. Great job!

Yeh they are still around, we caught some rats on yakkas on friday, along with heaps of trevs. Water was freezing though only 17 degrees, got up to 18.5 outside near manly.

Really great effort KT, you're an inspiration.

Nice fish, I lost a big Jew on 4lb Braid last week in the harbour had it on for about 10min didn't make a great deal of line back but it was slowly coming, the 12lb vanish leader i was using was chafed the whole way up so must of been rubbing against the side of its body when it took line and must of been a fairly long fish as well as it was about 6 foot of leader chafed nearly to the mainline connection, eventually wore through down lower.

Nice work Jim, another plastics session? Off to NZ again tomorrow so hopefully get a few big ones, spoke to our guide today said he got smoked on real heavy gear this morning so fingers crossed!

Cheers guys, been away in thailand the last 3 weeks so been missing the harbour commotion, saw some sails chasing baitfish in open water over there which was pretty cool but hopefully kings will be on the menu in the next couple of days. Cheers Josh

Thanks for that info guys all sounds real helpful, Dicko we're staying in Koh Tao for 5 days so i reckon i might have a go out from there, at least if theres plenty of fish to be caught that will keep the boys happy. May have a go out from Phuket as well but I'll have to see what the others think, not always easy when you're the only mad fisho in the group! Cheers Josh

Hi guys, Heading off to Thailand next week for a couple of weeks with a bunch of mates, we're going to be going all round but Im not too sure if it would be worth going fishing over there. I was thinking maybe whilst we're in Phuket or Koh Samui or the islands off it, it may be worth a shot going out on a charter but just wanted to know if anybody had been over and fished before and what they thought of it. Cheers Josh

Yeh I think it voids the insurance if you've got higher than the max rated HP, I know with our boat we have a 75 Optimax on it and were looking at putting a 90 on it as the 75, 90 and 115hp all weigh the same which was under the max transom weight but the dealer said it would void the warranty and insurance if something went wrong.

Thats a monster mate, how big was it?

We'll get em mate.....sometime

Think we may have seen him out there, we lost most of our squid to pickers, killed a couple of live ones too which gets pretty annoying!

G'day guys, Going to be heading over to Thailand in December with some mates and thought it would be a good opportunity to get some cheaper tackle (mainly reels). Just wondering if anyone has previously been to Bangkok and could recommend any tackle shops that will stock high end gear. Probably going to be travelling around a bit as well so even places in Singapore, Vietnam or those countries in the area I'll probably be visiting at some point. Any help is much appreciated. Cheers Josh

Mate we've got the 170cc with a 75 optimax on the back, runs nicely and we use it regularly in the harbour and ive taken it out to long reef a few times on calmer days. Only downsides for me are the low gunwhales, if you get some big waves coming from behind at anchor then sometimes you get some water over the transom, also its a bit narrow going past the helm and can be a bit tedious when theres a few people on board, preferably i fish with 3 on board but you can manage 4 ok, and the lack of storage space is the only other thing that gets a bit annoying i never take much when im going out on it. Make sure you get the bow rails fitted if you get it and we got some clears fitted around the rails which keeps the spray out when its choppy. Otherwise its been great for us no major problems, and I'd take it you've seen the ads on the website , they're bloody tough boats. With the optimax we generally cruise around 19-22 knots 4000-4200rpm, top speed i think is about 36 knots around 5800 rpm. Any other questions feel free to ask, I'm going to be in hospital tomorrow for an ankle reconstruction so if i don't reply for a few days that'd be why. cheers Josh

Play Rugby Union for lindfield 1st Colts and Cricket for artarmon along with attempting to play golf and surf

Thanks dicko, the slimies were around as well, I need to stock up on metals though, lost a fair few to tailor over summer. I've found the gillies ones work real well, get bent pretty easy though. Gotta sort out stuff with the boat rego and other crap before I head back out though.

Decided that not getting on the water since February was probably a bit too long for my liking and with uni holidays decided to do an arvo session on the harbour, so called up Mikey (Browney1) and met him at roseville where we got going, tried a few spots for squid but as usual no interest so thought we'd head outside for a flick with some plastics for snapper seeing it was so calm. Was surprisingly greeted with birds going ballistiic in the distance, went in for a look and find a heap of small salmon busting up, trolled and cast for ages but when they're feeding on stuff thats less than an inch long theres not much you can do to tempt them. Did find a school of somthing else nearby and i thought they were frigates as they were feeding very fast chopping through the water. It was very hard to keep up with them and actually get a decent shot infront of the school, eventually I got a good one in on Mike's little Tierra outfit and found this thing gave a bloody good account of itself, after a good 10 minutes or so of runs and circling I've got my very first Striped tuna to the boat, not a big fish in length but this thing was like a torpedo must of been near 4kg. We tried to get some more but the school went down and the salmon weren't playing ball so we headed in. Cheers Josh

Up the roosters

Far out, im definitely getting out there asap!!

Dont mean to burst everyones bubble but whilst over in NZ i brought up this topic with our charter guide and to put it nicely he wasnt a fan of Matt Watson. The marlin helicopter jump is a fake, the filming of him jumping out the helicopter and the footage of him landing on the marlin were taken 6 months apart. What happened was they played a marlin to the boat until it was nearly dead and he jumped off the front of a cruiser onto the marlin, they just put it together to make people think he jumped from the chopper onto the marlin when he really didnt. Some of the other stuff he's done is pretty cool though.....makes you think whether its real or not though. Cheers Josh

Well done Jim I think that fish has been a long time coming, much deserved. Cheers Josh

I wasnt sure, something contender shaped went past a fair distance away and it had something on the side of it, couldnt see if it said next or not Thanks mc fishn i thought the problem would be something like that, last time i went out a couple of weeks ago i had a similar problem where the squid died but the yakkas survived and the water wasnt very dirty, i think that may of had something to do with the pounding everything took getting through the heads that day Cheers Josh

Headed out today from Roseville with a couple of mates, the water was the dirtiest ive ever seen, the surface just coated in leaves, sticks, rubbish you name it. Started well picking up 3 squid in 3 casts, then it slowed a bit but we picked up half a dozen squid and a cuttlefish in not too long which is more productive than normal, when the squid went quiet we decided to go put some of the ones we had down. Get to the spot, open the tank and 4 of the squid are already dead so i was less than happy as i'd continually kept the pump going and it wasnt overcrowded in the tank, maybe the water or something...?? Our good starts continued as my mate hooked up on the first drop on the cuttlefish, only a little fella so back he went We kept getting hit on every drop for the next 10min or so and went through the majority of our squid and picked up a little soapy jew around 60cm which was a surprise but first harbour jew we've caught so was happy about that I decided to try the way they bled the fish we caught in NZ which was to tie a tail rope around the fish, tie that rope to the rail and hang the fish over the side to let it bleed back into the water which is good for us not having a specific kill tank and not the biggest bait tank. So I put the fish over and about 10 seconds after i sit down....SPLASH ohh no you didnt the tail had slid through the loop but luckily the fish was dead and stayed on the surface so i quickly grabbed it and this time he went in the esky. Probably not the best idea with jews having paddle shaped tails, good with kings forked tails though. The hits dropped off after that and the kings moved off, we did have a greedy bream hit one of the big squid baits and hook himself with an 8/0, tried a few more spots after that but it went a bit quiet, had another go at squid but they werent going to cooperate however i did manage to lose my 2 favourite yamashita jigs...$50 down the drain still a reasonable day, awesome conditions and good being out there with mates. Met Zenman back at the ramp, and had a chat, pretty sure i saw Next fly past us at some point, Greg were you out?? Cheers Josh