Just wondering if it is possible to change the mainline of an old fishing rod. The reason is that the mainline is I think about 20lb but am not sure and for bream and flathead it really needs to be about 6-8lb.

thanks

 Hey fellas my boats sayin 21 degrees behind third mile? Trolling for mackies no luck yet anyone else got the same temp? Any luck with metro mackys? Other than ballooning woodies,or rotto, is there any action yet ??? 

 Headed out to Coventry yesterday for a fish. A few bids around followed by splashing and a few tuna getting air amongst a huge amount of bait. Casted deep divers, poppers, slices and trawled shallow lures around and through the bait ball for around a hour with nothing. 

Gave up on them and then drifted around for an hour resulting in a leather jacket, rock cod and wrass whilst fishing with occi and prawns. I also had an unweighted squid out the back on a balloon with no interest.

Had another go at the jumping tuna with a smaller mulie sized and coloured lure but after no interest, started casting into the white water for Taylor. Did 8 or 10 laps of the reef casting into the white water and onto the reef for 6 herring.

finally trawled around a purple deep diver and rapala mackie lure, went over some impressive shadows on the sounder but nothing to show for it.

 After Shane O's fav band/song thread that had so many good options (and some really shit ones). It's time for the best track ever. You can only pick one! Not your favourite track of all time!

What a great night I had last night with the over view of sounders presented by John Adams.
Does this guy no his stuff or what, to the guys at Oceanside big big thanks for making the night happen.
I picked up a few goodies and received a most generous discount from Ryan and the guys so all in all I had a very good informative night and a big win on the tackle I bought.

cheers for the advice from the fw members i have a variety of rods an reels to look at for my bream flathead & trout fishing. im open to any suggestions of your favourite braid. can anyone recommend there most preffered braid to use & also what is the best colour aswell.
cheers.

 I am targeting flathead on the swan river. I will be using atomic hardz. Probably fishing the flats. Will get there for low tide. I am using a 2m leader of 6lb fluorocarbon and the mainline is very old and guesstimate about 15-20lb. Any suggestions of good spots? Or if I should change my tackle (cannot change mainline). Thanks.

P.S. I have already used the search bar.

after seeing so many people rescued after boats going down I decided to
look again at safety and paticularly "grab bag contents"

hoping to share some ideas on what ppl have in their contents

I have
manditory
EPIRB (I know some prefer to mount but I'm still not sure about this...easy reach....or ...another thing to grab ?)
Flares

also
sunscreen
Cpl bottles water
cpl hats
few straps with attached carabinas (easy to clip ppl together)
small waterproof torches
relectors

maybe should have
red "V" sheet
handheld VHF

The kids have been harrassing me to take them fishing on Saturday night. I was thinking of chasing some bream down Maylands way. I was looking at either out the front of the Maylands Yacht Club or around Tranby House.

Any ideas would be helpful.

Have been away for 2 weeks so just wanting to see if there are many crays off Hillarys & what depth should I be dropping the pots? Only in my 1st season so any assistance would be appreciated

Gave some Berkeley gulps a go out FFB this morning, think I've been converted. 

Got a 54cm pinky and a 42cm Duhie pretty happy with the result for my first time useing them to target Demersals :-) and yes the Dhuie went back fine:-) 

http://www.trvsrg.com.au/CurrentState.html

heading up north soon ....looking for few kgs for bait.
SOR preferable.

Cheers

 are there any dhuies on da cape?
if so where would be a good place to start looking?

any help would be greatly appreciated 

Big thanks to John Adams and the fellas from Oceanside for running the "How to use an echo sounder" night last night.

I learnt heaps during the night and will be viewing my sounder with a new understanding of what Im looking at.

John has a wealth of knowledge on the the subject and I recommend FW members attend any future seminars.

Looking forward to having a good read of his book.

Cheers,

            Rosie.

Enjoy

 The boat is out of the water and getting a birthday, so I thought i would take a moment to let you know how we have been going over the last few weeks of the season, post up a few photos and let you know about group discounts for bookings early this year.

The fishing was very good towards the end of the season but unfortunately as a lot of you would be aware a lot of the time the weather was not the best. We had a few more windy days than normal lately, but had a bit of luck that most days we did get out turning into really nice ones. Right towards the end of the season we where also fishing a little shallower than normal due to strong currents but this resulted in some good hauls and a few more differnt types of fish being caught than normal. This inclued a nice coronation trout and quite a few really big Rankin. Got to love the look on the punters faces when the first one of these get pulled onto the deck. Also a little bit of lady luck onboard lately, with most guys bringing their better half regretting it after being out fished with a few big hauls and a bit of extra luck with trolling lines including one nice Wahoo. And a nice story of a boys 8th birthday, see the red result below, did it all by himself, no help from dad at all. I was told he won somthing in a perth paper for it but could not find it myself.

Some of our groups on exclusive charters have done particularly well while we tryed out a few differnt things. On our first night charter for a while we cleaned up with the boys all getting their bag limit of reds with 12 of them over 10kg. We ually fish in the 80-120M area wher ther are plenty of Goldband, Red and Pinkys to be found, but a lot of people now keen to go hunt some Rubys we also tryed our first deep drop charter. Allready haveing plenty of marks out wide we headed out to the 2-300M and first drop we had double header Rubys comming up in no time. We also go onto a bunch of Flame/Long Tail Snapper, some monster 8Bar and a rare catch of an Ornate Snapper. I think Flame snapper may just about be my new fav eating fish. After these good results we will be looking to head out that way more often with any groups that are keen.

The big suprise of this year has been the pink snapper. We usally get a few most trips and have plenty of spots where we know they are. But usally up here they are not what we target because they usally don't get too big up this way. But this year they seem to be everywhere and not only that they are all good size. I would normally have to measure every second Pinky we get but I dont think one had hit the measure this season with all being of good size. We even had to move off some spots because we had our Pinky limit but they kept comming up.

With the boat going to be back in the water and ready to go before the end of this month, we are now lookig to next season. We are willing to offer big discount for exclusive group booking for the off season this year. With March and the first week of April usally haveing good weather but not many wanting to go fishing in it we want to try and change that this year by giing really discounted rates over this period. We can arrange accommodation, transport to coral bay or catering if required. Or you can just charter the boat alone and we can help you sort the rest of the trip yourself.  We can do anything from a quick weekend with one day chartering, to a full week of fishing.  If you can get a few mates together, or think it may be a good work trip, give us a call, email or even PM me on here and I can put a price together for what you want to do. If you want to book in the off peak time you would be able to get you accomadation for a weekend and a full day out on the boat for not much more than $200 each if you have the right numbers. But if you a really keen for this let me know soon, I am letting FW members know now but will be advertising these discounted off season rates shortly so let me know if you want me to hold any dates because it will fill up quick. But of course we can do good deals all season but we are allready filling up for the peak season. Make sure to let me know you are a FW member and I will make sure you get the best deal we can do.

I have posted a few photos of catches below, including a good photo of the boat taken by a punter as the boat came into the jetty on a flat morning and at the end a couple of slack beggers that are allways waiting for us at the end of the day for a quick snack. Sorry about the sideways photos, we do better work on the boat then we do behind a keyboard, trust me.

 Hi everyone. The time has come to upgrade from the old hilux to something a bit more reliable and a bit more power for towing the boat. The boats an 18ft baron and weight about 1000kgs. I would like to stay with a ute and don't mind to much on the make. 4wd of course. I've been reading a fair few reviews but just wondering what people's personal opinions and experiences are. Any help, reviews or opinions would be appreciated.

thanks, Reece 

 few home made poppers and stuff. all hand carved out of jarrah and tassie oak. just showin them off cos im pretty proud of em. squid jig was a pretty huge effort aha. poppers kill it on tailor and little ones on whiting but keen to get to monties to test the bigguns on GT,s and trout. couple of interesting ones in there too, keen to test on some coralies.

Cheers

I have been thinking about buying a shack at naval base , dose any I know what the long term future of them is , will they go the way of the ledge point shacks

Just read Wes idea on bottling (canning) salmon.

My little kids have just discovered they like canned tuna, and I was wondering if anyone has a recipe to preserve / jar tuna or mackeral.

It would be interesting to try some different recipes.... and save the dolphins  :)

this year it includes both onshore and offshore fishing

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-13/fisherman-fined-18k-for-bashing-great-white-shark-to-death/5257052

Would this have happened in WA? or would Barnett refund you your fuel used?
expensive fillets those were

 Headed out of woodies on a bait catching venture. Drifted, trawled and anchored with little action.

Trawled a Halco deep diver from WP to Herring Bay trying for a mackie, or anything for that matter but managed a NW blowie.

Anchored up at Garden Island and threw mountains of burley in and only got a rock cod.

LLLLOOOONNNNGGG way back into the easterly in a 3.95m tinny with a few big speed humps but still not a bad day out.

Gady all - im thinking of upgrading to something bigger and was wondering if anybody has a trailcraft 660 sportcab - if so all good and bad comments about them greatly appreciated. So far i hear they tend to bang and crash alot in choppy seas and dont have a comfortable ride. Ive got a fibreglass now (voyager) and its great its just the boats not big enough any more. All input appreciated. Any other boat I should look at also? got a budget of up to 50 maybe even 60K for the right boat Cheers 

 Hi all after guidance from those who done some switch baiting. Heading up to exmouth in a few weeks and going to change it up and switch bait a few days instead of running lures all the time. Just wondering how to set up rigs in regards to leader size and circle hook size. Also will be running 2 hookless skirts, should I still be going usual trolling speed while doing this?

cheers sammy 

 A neighbour hooked one of about 60kg in Halls Head canals and cut the line instead of banking it. Last night I went for a walk with my wife along the Mandurah foreshore and some guys who were fishing for Whiting hooked and lost one too.

Hey guys well Ive decided to spend a week in WA fishing! Not sure which charter to take yet... I want to go jigging, flick plastics for species and maybe try for some small gts on stickbaits ... I'm not bringing any dedicated popping gear... my big egrell can suffice.. its  a serious stick... like a nitro godzilla sort of...


The gear I'm bringing is only two reels.

Morethan Branzino 3000 loaded with Tasline 20lb (breaks at 32lbs). on an egrell s10 for light plastic work and loads of fun

and a SALTIGA 2010 4500 loaded with 50lb (300M) braid with a 7 foot egrell 8-15kg "Bear essential for deep plastics,poppers,stickbaits on the reefs and trolling big minnows and trolling up some big spanish or black jews"

I want to do a few things while im up there but have no idea where to start? leader to bring and what plastics ? size jigheads? and maybe some big poppers for reef species and a handful of jigs for the amberjacks....

2 reels. 3 Rods. and a whole lotta lures.


Anyone also recommend any charters ? I perfer just to fish by myself with the guide to be honest... Trying a few different things throughout the day...
bring the big fish on!

 

Hi All,

Looking for some feed back on what people think of Marine Parks and the proposal to declare more (Kimberley), do they serve an effective conservation purpose, is there value to the community or can the cost of managing marine parks be better spent on fishery management. What are the long term effects to rec fishos?

Rick

 Hi all

Heading back from rotto and we started hearing a dreadful ginding noise from my gearbox.

Got home drained the oil.... We'll... Sludge... it's black it smells and there's a lot of metal shavings in there.

Im thinking it's better to buy a new one than a recon?

Dose anyone know where to buy a new leg from And how much is it going to hurt me?

or is it worth getting a recon ?