Andrew_P

Managed to snag a pass to AFTA for today. Was a big day looking at products and talking to people! Was kinda like being in a YT video with all the familiar faces, big logos and shiny gear. I realised I only took a couple of quick pics of products so I’ll try to do better tomoro! if you are planning on going to public day tomoro they are expecting lots of people so best get in early. Cannot imagine how crazy it will be in there with all the gear and the public!

G’day Josh. I agree with the Lowrance sentiments. electronics loyalties are similar to rod and reel loyalties, they share the same level of technology and similar price points, but so much depends on your use of and exposure to products. I have heard of several Garmin products failing in SW environment but the rep in Qld provides great service when this happens. Lowrance/Simrad are the same company so no difference there. Don’t know much about Raymarine. All the serious offshore fishos I know have Furuno sounders and separate plotters and they swear by them. My 2 cents.

Hi AFOers. AFTA is on this week Thursday 3rd til Saturday 5th August at the Gold Coast convention centre. Even though it’s an industry event they open it to the public on the Saturday with free entry. Is anyone going? There’s a rod building get together on the Saturday I’m thinking of going to. Might take a few pics of the show and post them up here for those interested. more info here: https://afta.net.au/trade-show/ Andrew

Interesting theory on the algae @mangajack hamish - if you were fishing Saturday morning there is a weekend closure for commercial fishing activities in the bay and river from 6pm Friday until 6pm Sunday. That could explain it. My understanding about the reason for the closure is to reduce conflict between rec fishers and commercial fishers in this area. Also an interesting concept

I bought about 40 packs of jigheads from one of the big chains clearing them out half price. Free shipping cos it was over $$. Funny thing was they came in 15 different packages from stores all over the country, delivered over a week or so. I reckon my total bill would not have even covered the postage!

Brett - I’m good with the rod side of the equation but I haven’t quite mastered engineering and production of reels yet so am a slave to the market mark up! I’d take a $50 clearance reel any day!

Definitely not seeing these levels of discounting in SE Qld. Maybe regional Victoria overstocked before they heard the comm games were cancelled

@fonzeno1 location mate?

I wish I could scratch my itch with that!

No not at all! He’s pretty attached to the rod with the white butt cap. It’s sporting a nice maroon 7 inch alvey too and gets used often so it didn’t even cross my mind. I might have to rebuild the one already in my rafters a bit sooner

Speaking of Snyder glas I am at mine and @flattyfan4573 uncle’s place this weekend and found his stash of fishing rods stored safely at the side of his house in the sun and found this little beauty! having never seen a white butt cap before I had to take a closer look. Turned out to be a door stop! My uncle is an engineer and when I quizzed him about it he said “it fits, it’s soft and it’s spongy so it does the job!”

@Bretto77 it is still safely stored in my rafters. No better (or worse) condition

I withold my comment as this is a family friendly site

nice one @flattyfan4573 looks like your driveway could do with a pressure wash

Hard to say but could be a little blue

Day 3 I spent Wednesday stretching and getting ready for the big game. Sorry to the Queenslanders. Brian - losing Game 3 when you already have the trophy is like dropping an undersize snapper at the boat when you already have 4 good ones in the esky! inconsequential.

yeah my 32inch Lee jeans dont fit as well as they used to! must be them not me! i dont rebuild a lot of rods, only some of the wilson and snyder glas fibreglass jobs that i cant get blanks for. i see a wide range in build quality even in these - but most are between 30 and 50 years old. so i cannot comment on the quality of newer rods. give me a new blank any day! my capacity to build is limited (story of my life) so if someone asks me for a bream or flatty stick i send them to their local fishing store and say spend between 100 and 150 and you will get a rod that will work and costs less than my parts (let alone labour!).it might not last as long as one of my builds but they dont have to wait for it or spend ~$300 for a custom build. my niche is bay and offshore rods made with quality blanks and components. these builds arent cheap (even with ss guides not titanium) but i know that their handles wont come unstuck, bindings wont crack and they get to choose their colours and reel seat placement etc for a one of a kind build. most of my clients are happy to pay for the time i spend on the build, quality of components and customisation; to be honest a lot of my time is spent selecting the blank that is best suited to their application. sylva - how do the titanium guides hold up against a hard fighting foe? i have heard of issues with rings popping out under load as the ti guide is softer than ss and can change shape thereby popping the glue holding in the guide ring. which Ti guides are you using? For your info, i use Fuji MN style stainless guides with SiC rings for my HD spin rods, underbound and double overbound!

Your trailers look good Luke. A few tips from me: Navionics is a great resource for new areas. Nothing beats going to a new area and working it out for yourself Try searching this forum - most of the topics are SE Qld specific but there are a few of us further north that have posted trip reports from Yeppoon and Airlie Beach areas. Having fished both these areas myself i can tell you that you still have to work hard for your fish. Weather and sharks can be a problem. There are a load of youtubers based around the Whitsundays - try contacting them for a few tips. Andrew

To top it off

No, but it was warmer than the air temperature and felt nice washing hands over the side!

Oh yeah. Did I mention it was cold?

I haven’t fished much lately but around 3 months ago I picked some dates to go see my mate in Newcastle. It was a fluke that the weather came good and we managed to get out for 3 sessions in the 2 days I was down. The first session resulted in only bonito, heaps of bait on the reef and signs of fish but nothing on bait or plastics. We aimed to fish hard the next session and were rewarded with a 20min bite which produced 5 legal fish including 2 x 70s for my mate and a modest 50+ for me. Legal size in NSW is a laughable 30cm but my mate won’t keep anything under 35cm so we threw a few back. Hopes were high for the next session and we woke to 10-15knots of NW which was fishable but not fun. We got out to the reef about 20 mins before sun up and found big arches up high hassling the plentiful bait schools. I cast my line in front of the drift and let it sink. When it hadn’t hit the bottom I started winding and felt a few light headshakes of what I called for another bonito. As I kept winding the suspected bonito attached grew in weight and took a scorching run with excess power and I started getting nervous. This was a real one and was trying to get back to the bottom quick smart. After a bit of a battle I saw some colour surfacing and was confirmed to be a big snapper! I swung him into the net and gave out a hoot - this was the one I had come for. My mate caught another legal fish and the bite completely shut down after the sun popped over the horizon. So in 3 days we fished for >12 hours and had caught and kept 7 fish in a total 30 min bite window. Madness!

Fresh off the drier is a Snyder Glas blank I salvaged from a local rod builder. At 7’6 it is likely an FMT90 but with no model number on the butt one can’t be positive. I built it for a mate to chase reefies in the bay with a baitrunner 4500b and 6kg mono. He chose the pink and white colour scheme and I added the grey to match the grips and blank but didn’t realise it shared its colour scheme with Alf Stewart’s favourite bird. Early bird gets the bay reefies I guess!

Nah mate got an Alps power wrapper. Couldn’t live without it

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