bigkingie

Well, it's 25% of the breaking strain of any line. That's off the reel. If you are setting through a loaded rod, then it is 33%. This is to give you safety margin. You lose some strength through knots. Also the pressure can increase if a fish takes a lot of line. For example if it is dragging a belly through the water. Also the drag increases at the reel as the line load drops and the diameter on the spool gets smaller. The rod rating is just a guide to the strength of line that is suitable. If you overload it then you will not exert enough pressure to utilise the line strength.

Remember it is an orphan - not being made anymore. Parts might get hard to get, as well as finding someone experienced in servicing. PS: they do seem to have more than their fair share of reliability issues.

I don't think the numbers of dusky flathead were even dropping as you suggested. The latest restriction were actually the result of lobbying by anglers.

I think Inox is petroleum based - like WD40. It can affect some plastics and rubber. The Lanox and silicon spray you mentioned are a safer bet.

I think the 115 hp Evinrude is a V4.

I have the whole range - from 2500C to 10,000C. The Chrome Rocket 6500C is one of my favourites - use it for beach fishing and it is still available I believe. I also have a 7500C which is a chrome brass side plate model as well.

As to lures spinnerbaits work well on freshwater fish like cod, yellowbelly and also bass. A selection of deep diving minnows should be in your kit. I would also invest in some sort of lure retriever to get them back from snags.

I just got an outfit myself for $160. The reel is an Omoto 5000. It's similar to an ABU (the company used to make them under licence in Taiwan). An Australian distributor is advertising them on ebay. The rod is a Shimano Raider Cod 641 for $111. Like the rod's name implies it would be a good outfit for murray cod. I'll be using it for saltwater fishing including spinning for jewfish and slow jigging offshore.

Nothing wrong with the Senator if you want to cast a bit. Most lever drag have the drag components attached to the spool which makes the spool very heavy, and you get poor casting (the flywheel effect).

The Pfluger Salt Spin is a good cheapy. I have seen the 080 advertised for $120. it has a simple but rugged design with a very good drag. I got a cheap Gladiator popper rod a one of the Boat Shows, but they don't seem to be available anymore. Daiwa and Shimano sell some heavy popper style rods at around the $300 mark.

Fights won't be long for kingfish off the rocks. They are very dirty fighters - if you can't stop them then it will be all over. An 8000 size reel will have more drag power. You won't need all the line on a kingfish - though you might if you hook a northern bluefin tuna. Casting distance is not a priority as kingfish are likely to be hooked in close. I wouldn't go for a long rod as you will give away too much leverage and won't be able to put much pressure on the fish. 8 - 9" is a good compromise (a GT popper style rod). As kingfish frequent deep water platforms you don't need a long rod - it's like fishing off a wharf.

He already said he would be targeting kingfish off the rocks. I think it would be safe to assume he would be running into some sizeable ones which will require considerable stopping power.

OK, I assume ocean rocks then. I would go for a threadline reel around 8000 size that has a strong drag and a gear ratio of at least 5:1, with 50-60lb braid and a GT style popping rod around the 8-9'' length with a similar line rating. There is a big price range but there is no need to go high end - might be best to get something modestly priced and see if it's your thing. I would need to know your budget to be more specific.

Live-baiting or spinning? Also do you mean ocean rocks - and whereabouts?

I wouldn't call it a 'lockout' with a couple of short closed seasons. It came from the Fisheries Department, so calling it a 'green agenda' is a long bow too. The risk if you stop this is that we never get ahead of the fishing pressure as happened with SA snapper and NSW mulloway. Then you are looking at more severe restrictions. And if we can't get our house in order this might be used to justify more marine parks - which really are lockouts.

I told you what was wrong with dive observations - which you ignored. You extended it to 'everywhere' so would that include my home waters, anywhere I have visited? I have been to Cairns for instance. On a charter the boat bagged out (reached the boat limit) - we filled a huge fish box with small-mouthed nannygai and other reef fish in a few hours. It wasn't far from port either.

Sounds like a magic pudding theory. For a start Asian fisheries are typically fished down to levels we would not find acceptable. In the case of WA fisheries scientists had calculated a 50% reduction in catch is needed. The rec effort is open entry and has been increasing each year - so that's why closed seasons are proposed.

They can't have had much in the way of fisheries management if they were resorting to dynamite fishing. In that case marine parks would have some positive affect. I made that point before. These countries you say we should learn from have fishing pressures orders of magnitude higher than we do.

The problem I have with that is that before you said "Especially along the Southern Great Barrier Reef from about Mackay to Bundy" was 'flogged to death', 'barren' etc. This is a range of 520 km (that's just as the crow flies). This was on the basis of you recently taking up diving. Then you doubled down and said "Plus there's FA to catch anywhere aslo, like an absolute barren wasteland out there". All this shape shifting doesn't do much for your credibility and doesn't give any justification for disregarding official assessments and scientific data.

Not really - not in Australian waters anyway. There is a lot of magical thinking on this You need something a lot more rigorous than your personal experience to draw any conclusions. You won't have a big enough sample size or an adequate timeline of before and after the green zone were established. Bet you haven't considered that the green zones are often chosen in highly productive areas and this would influence adjacent areas. And to assess a management initiative you have to compare it to other methods and their cost effectiveness. It costs almost nothing to slightly adjust bag and size limits, closed seasons, quotas for professional etc, and these cover the whole fishery and not just one area. It's telling that marine parks were not an initiative of any of our fisheries departments.

There aren't any known 'breeding zones' for saltwater fish. Also green or sanctuary zones aren't shown to increase overall fish no's when there is effective fisheries management in place - as is the case with Australian fisheries. They only work in poorly regulated fisheries where any management initiative would give some positive affect.

Rubbish.

Well, no wonder you are getting a few laughs. There is no way you could have covered a significant area by yourself and given you have only recently taken up diving. You have no baseline of what healthy stocks look like. If that's not enough even properly done diver surveys tend to significantly underestimate fish stocks: Reef fish communities are spooked by scuba surveys and may take hours to recover - PMC (nih.gov)

Well, that is your own opinion. And it flies in the face of all the official assessments. Stocks of coral trout - the most heavily fished species are well above what is considered maximum sustainable yield. Dr Ayling described them as 'extremely robust' and seem to be increasing in number before the green zones were introduced and there have been reductions in commercial effort since then as well.

On what basis - apart from your own opinion?