I was at a local store today and they had some run out specials with Penn 24KG boat rods coupled with large Fin-Nor offshore egg beater reels. 9500's I think from memory. Good looking and sturdy reel.It looked like a good deal all round.
I picked one combo up and the thing that hit me was how heavy the setup was and cant imagine spending a full day hanging onto one, so there must be a couple of saving graces to make up for such a heavy unit.
Does anyone have an outfit like this and can you please give me an idea wether its worth the effort or am I better off looking elsewhere.
Advertised at $350
cheers
Lurch

Afternoon all,

After seeing everyone's recent shark catches, I've decided to get in on the action.

Taking advantage of Motackle's 20% off of all rods this weekend, I'm ordering a Daiwa Sensor Surf 10-20 kg overhead rod...... figure you can't go wrong with that rod for a $199.

I already have a Daiwa Saltist 50 2 speed lever drag, has anyone had any experience in trying to cast these lever drags on the beach? I would love to get a second use out if this particular reel if possible, although I am a newby to casting overheads.

Advice I have received so far is that a star drag reel like the Shimano Torium or Daiwa Saltist Black Gold would be a far better option. Can anyone add anything to that?

Also looking for some advice in terms of which mono line to use. Was going to put a 300M of 50lb braid backing on first, then topshot with a 24kg mono. Any suggestions? Was looking at the Berkley Trilene big game 24kg.

Thanks in advance for any opinions.

Simmo

Some of you may have already seen some of these photos on the Zambezi Safaris website, but for those who haven't here are a few very special moments from previous clients at Sidinda Lodge.

 Nabbed a few ripper pinks on an overnighter last night, with the biggest one measuring in at 91cm and sporting two fisheries tags. Anyone know/recognise tag numbers PE 05257/PE 05258? Keen to find out whose tag it is :)

I have to sell my boat guys,stone broke gotta feed the family and pay bills,18ft Penguin Phantom on brand new Dunbier tandem trailer,anyone interested?

Hit the ramp at Hillarys at 7pm and headed to 3 mile out from Ob City. Pretty nice conditions and heaps happening on the sounder... Kept the bait n burley in the esky and sent down Mr Gulp on the 1 ounce lumo elevator to make some enquiries. 2nd drop connects with a 53cm Dhubanger. Nice. Not long after up comes an elbow slappin' KG, my pb at 48cm. Chuffed with that I shot off a quick brag message to Tim-o (who had to stay at home to look after his kiddies) and reloaded with a non-mangled plastic. Next up was the distinctive woop woop woop head shakes of a protesting Snapper. After a bit of to-and-fro on the little Jigging Master combo I had a nice 68cm Pinky on board. Once again fired off a final brag message and started heading in. On my way back in I was thinking how lucky we are to be able to catch fish like these right on our door step. Love it.

Received a “barrage” of texts from my young fella at work this afternoon – the wind is light, I will prep the boat, checked out the swell from the balcony and it is low, there are heaps of boats out there our size and it is all good, I will go to the bait shop and pick us up some ocky, etc, etc.  A check of the wind status and it is ok, not great but fishable.  Relented and came home early even though tomorrow morning looks the goods and a mate from work is on a “promise”.  All a bit late and rushed but we got “out there” to the 3 Mile just as the sun was going down.

As soon as it was dark, the young fella hooked up and after 10 minutes of a good fight had the 68 cm Pink in the boat.  He was back down there and a 45cm skippy was on board.  As we have an early start in the morning, called it a night and came in to make our burly for tomorrow.  Out at 5.30pm, in by 7.15pm with a few kilos of fresh fillets.  It doesn’t get much better, especially when it is instigated by the kid and he gets the results.

 With the water out off Mandurah being a bit rough for my tub this week, I decided to have a look around a spot I'd fished in the evening before in the Sound. 

My mate was bright and early and we were launching the boat by 4:15am got out to the spot by 4:45 and started getting a few mulie cubes over the side. 

Once anchored and had the burly running I dropped a 6" nuclear chicken grub on a 5/O 1/2 oz jig head down and left that one in the rod holder with the lure sitting about 1-2m off bottom. On a second rod I was casting and retrieving a 7" nuclear chicken jerk shad with a 5/O 3/8 oz jig head. My mate was fishing a drift bait rig with mulies on one rod and a "7 nuclear chicken jerk shad on the other. 

Was quiet for the first hour while the burly trail did it's thing then as soon as the sky started be comeing lighter it was like some one flicked a switch. First and biggest fish  (84cm) went to my mate on the jerk shad that he had just sitting in the rod holder while he was mucking around rebaiting his drift bait rig again. Then no sooner had his fish hit the deck my grub also just sitting in the holder was on. While I was pulling that one in my mate hooked up n lost a fish on his drift bait rig, I landed my fish and dropped the grub back down it barly made it half way back to bottom and I was on again landing my secon fish for the day, bout 5 mins latter my mate got another fish on his jerk shad after casting out into the burly trail, he hooked up on the drop also.

After 20 minutes of hot action it was over as suddenly as it began. While the bait did get a couple of hits all fish landed were on plastics, my mate said he might give the bait a miss next time! 

...of the feather type, sorry! I'm absolutely clueless at identifying birds but I saw something out of Ocean Reef today (aboaut 7nm out, 30m depth) that was a first for me. We got our berley trail going and in no time at all a single Albatross was hanging around very close to the boat and a bit further back about 6 brown (Petrels I think they are) fairly large birds, not like the Mutton birds that steal our mulies at the FADS.

A short while later there were a few small birds that never actually landed on the water but just hovered above the surface picking bits to feed on. The next thing one of the brown Petrels snapped a small bird straight out of the air and ate it! My mate and I were not quite sure if what we thought we'd seen was happening but during the course of the morning we saw 2 more get taken. One was stunned and lay half dead before being gulped down and the third one caused a bitof s stir when the attacking bird dropped it and it was a free for all.

I've never seen this before and would be keen to hear from others of they can identify the types of birds and if this is common?

thanks 

Just wondering what everyone uses at home for rod storage??

I've basically got a whole spare room for my gear and was thinking about buying a standalone type rod rack except after quite an exhaustive search online there isn't a hell of a lot around.

I've seen the okuma plastic version and from a thread search on here found a couple of guys saying it's very light and unsturdy, which won't be too good for me given my 'gear room' has carpet floor.

i did find a pelagic extreme alloy fishing rack on ebay for $79.95 in a variety of colours and holds 24 rods, but very difficult to tell if it would be any good. (Trying to paste a link but it won't let me for some reason).

Anyone care to weigh in with ideas/suggestions???

 Hi all, I am down in Busselton for the weekend and was just wondering if anyone is still catching salmon in numbers down in Dunsborugh at the moment? Thinking about heading down tomorrow. 

Any  info would be great, thanks!

With the last storm being very productive for pink snapper and mulloway the need for a descent long gaff is a must. We use a 4m 2pce rock gaff and thats what you need when you have a descent fish near the rock edge.

That same gaff is back in stock so if your heading North or South doing landbase or getting yourself prepared for the next storm pop in and have a look.
 

The specs,

2 Piece
4 Metre
Aluminium Handle 25mm Diameter
Stainless Steel Hook Gape 90mm / 8mm Diameter
Hook Point - " Sharp "

$67.50 (FW Price)

Just got back from a couple of weeks in Exmouth. This years trip wasn't the best weather wise but we still managed some quality fish and a great time was had by all. In the lead up to the trip I had a few outboard issues that no one could work out what was going on. A throttle position sensor that had a mind of it's own. Mangaed to get the outboard to run ok but still have a fault showing up on the smartcraft gauges. On the drive up we weren't sure if we would be able to get into town with all the flooding they had and reading there was road closures on the way into Exmouth. Had to take a bit of a detour to get into town but all was ok in the end. The town had recovered pretty quickly from the floods but there were signs everwhere of the damage it had done. We got another 90mm of rain overnight a week later but it didn't cause too much damage as like the previous down fall. 

First couple of days were spent over at Long Island. Got some good fish off the bottom and had a fun session in close to the island on Queenies and Trevs.

One not so lucky Queenie that gave an awesome aerial display before been bitten in half by a shark at the boat.

The next few days the wind was up. We did manage to get a few tuna in the gulf one afternoon but it was hard work in sloppy conditions. One of the tuna that was kept for sashimi.

Over the next week we had a few days where the wind dropped off in the arvo and we got out and into some good fish.

Found some nice Goldband out off the Murions in the hundreds. Muz with a good double header.

Fished into the night a few times as the wind dropped out. Daves stinky cod (Estury cod). These cods smell like crap when they hit the deck but are great to eat.

A little mackie caught on the NE side of the Murions while waiting for the wind to drop.

The last couple of days we spent trying to get a billfish. Two of the boys on the trip had never caught one before and one of our goals before the trip was to get them onto one. In some average conditions we managed to land a couple of blacks and was a great way to end another trip up north.

Enjoy

G'day lads

saw tangles post about this reel and didn't really wanna hijack his thread but just after some opinions. So far my research has told me it's a real solid reel heaps if drag and line capacity. First is the 550m of 80lb braid capacity a myth? Sounds too good to be true! Secondly , if you own this reel what rod are you running? I'll be looking at getting a rod preferably under $200. 

Feel free to voice your opinions! 

Cheers lads

 Hey guys,

Went out in the Sound today just targeting squid and whiting and we managed to get a couple sand whiting in 4-7m and then we got 9 squid all up mostly in about 4-5m of water. The Sound was very murky. However in one particular spot we managed to get a few undersized pink snapper (all caught on fresh squid tentacles - all returned too), around 35-40cm, they were good fun on 1000 size Sienna reels!! This was in about 8-10m of water, just wondering if your experiences if where there are small pinkies, are there also big ones? Marked the spot on the gps just in case we return soon for some sized ones! Also caught this fish which I haven't actually seen before, looks like a wrasse and a whiting have got together and created this?? Haha

cheers for any comments guys!

  Hi all,

 Heading to India for a weeks work in August and have a chance to head to Port Blair/Havelock for a couple of days on the way back. Looks like I'm going to be        battling the monsoons at that time of year but if anyone has fished there and has any info on Charters, landbased spots, accomodation it would be appreciated. I'll  probably head there anyway to have a look for future trips so to be honest getting out for a fish will be a bonus.  

  Cheers in advance for any help, always happy to pass on anything I learn once I've been.

  Nick

Supported site sponsor Assassin Tackle recently - went to Cast Away Tackle (Tackle Shack Malaga) and bought an Assassin Amia 11' spin with Microwave Line Control System and also an Assassin Beachmaster Heavy 13'8" low mount.

Fantastic products and the team at the shop provided some great advice (something thats hard to get internet shopping or at most three letter tackle supermarkets)

I have already teamed a Shimano Biomaster SW5000 with the Amia and plan to use a Trinidad A 50 on the Beachmaster.

Thanks Assassin and Cast Away Tackle

Happy with new toys!

 Hi all,

I have been reading with interest the reports of tuna being caught off the metro coast, however had no luck so far. Is it a just a matter of finding bird action?

Any tips would be great.

Cheers

Hi all,

planning a trip to the Abrolhos, can anyone help out with the best place to drop anchor for the night in the southern group.

many thanks, kev

 16kg Pinky off the stones

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/albany-fisherman-nathan-brown-lands-catch-of-a-lifetime-a-16kg-pink-snapper/story-fnhocxo3-1226917835511

Hi Guys

I might be in the need for a deckie, 2 days B/bouncing, must have fishing licence/own gear.

6.55mtr glass tub.

leave friday morn 2-3am, fish all day then back to a rental duplex for both nights, buy takeaways for dinner.

maybe a quick fish sunday morn if need be.

can come with me in my car (from Forrestfeild), all cost will be split 3 ways with all the usuals

send me a pm, im out for dinner tonight so it will be a late reply or tomorow

cheers

ron

 Hi everyone. Wondering if Hamelin bay would be good for salmon this weekend. Would the schools still be there? Have checked the search thing.

also what months will salmon be caught? For Hamelin Bay is it still worth going there or will metro be as good/better?

lachie

 hey,

just wanted to get everyone's oppinion what's better a sustain 6000fg or a biomaster 6000fb?

cheers

So the CANAR-FIN fishing comp is coming up in a few weeks. I'll be taking part with the missus cousin who is a canarvon local. As this is my first fishing comp I'm getting a little excited. The idea of a solid week of fishing is giving me an itchy trigger finger. My question for you fellow fishos is will I be seeing any of you there? And what will I be expecting to catch? Hopefully my gear can stand up to the task!

Hi guys,

Heading out this weekend for the usual demersal fish out past Garden Island but would like to try and get amongst the salmon if any about however I have never fished for them from a boat before.

Just after bit of advice for targeting them offshore. 

How / where do you find them and what's the best tactics ( trolling or casting )?  Any particular lures work best ?

Thanks for any tips,

Joycey

 Hi guys, i am thinking about heading to the North Mole this weekend for snapper and possibly salmon. Rigs, bait, lures and gear advise would be appreciated. 

cheers Maxi

 hey guys. Have had my 950 offshore for while and have never been able to get the line lsy even! Thought it might be because of casting distance with the way it lays from narrow at bottom to wide at top but not sure. Just wasting alot of spool that could be loaded up with more line. For those that have them do you have the same problem or can you fix it with washers (which I couldnt see anyway). Any help would be great.

Tangles

 havent heard or seen any bait fish around for a while now

can any one tell us where the scalies, yakkas, herring & gardies are?

in need for fresh scalies if anything!

Has anyone on here ever eaten or tasted this highly rated fish. And where would it be placed compared with our WA fare.

Always wanted to try but never seen it anywhere.