Hacking whiting, great start to the holidays

[JET01]

Weather looked like it was going to be good for fishing today. Cloudy, light wind, dropping tide. Perfect for my local flats.

Bought 2 bags of nippers and hit the flats at 11am. Caught the bottom three fish and a stack of undersized fish.

I recently bought a new shimano Exage 1000 rear drag reel which I wasn't very impressed with, but after using it a little more I've been able to figure out how to adjust the drag a little better. It's very touchy and not very smooth.

As the tide went dead low I had 3 whiting including the 40cm fish I'll enter into COTM.

I usually need 4 fish for a proper feed for my wife and I, and as I only had 3, I figured I'd better go get some more bait and fish the incoming tide also... hahaha.

Went over to st George sailing club to pump some nippers, 1.5 hour round trip and I was back in the hacking fishing by 3pm.

The bream were on the bight to my surprise. All just under legal, but loads of fun on 3lb FC sniper. The new reel got a work out today.

There were some HUGE whiting around on the incoming but none would take the bait. Water was crystal clear and the clouds had cleared. Managed to hook the fourth fish (29cm) and also released a legal flatly.

Something green for the COTM

Edited December 23, 2015 by JET01

[Farvos]

Good catch. Thumper whiting.

[Yowie]

You did better than me this morning, only one just legal flattie, dropped a bigger one at the boat and some undersized flatties and whiting.

I have found that if you can see the whiting, they can see you, and they won't bite.

On a different note, my son told me that a fisho was playing a salmon off the Lilli Pilli bathes just the other day, the salmon started going beserk but that was because a shark around the 3 metre mark was trying to eat it. And people keep swimming off the Lilli Pilli sand flats and Swallow Rock at Grays Point.

[Basil D]

hahaha and here is us swimming and ski tubing in the hacking

[campr]

Nice whiting.

As for your reel problems you can try modifying the drag, but rear drags can be hard to get at on most reels.

I fish 1 kg pretest lines a lot in ANSA comps and always modify drag as follows:

Hone metal washers flat using super fine emery paper with a piece of glass as backing and ensure drag washers are clean and oiled.

You will be surprised how cupped they can be from being stamped out.

I sometimes replace washers with carbontex, especially larger reels such as used for jigging. However I'm beginning to think the old oil soaked felt washers are still the best for light lines 3kg and less.

The main problem is the design, as rear drags washers have too small a drag surface and are hard to service. I have about 15 reels and I won't have anything to do with rear drags except as used in baitrunners.

Good luck. Sometimes drags will smooth out a little as they bed in.

[JET01]

Thanks for the input. I've lost a few fish getting used to the reel, but it's doing the job well enough now. I'll never buy another rear drag? I've actually got a Sedona 1000FD waiting in the box for when the Exage dies. A bargain at $54 posted.