The fessor

Pretty sure they were made by Snyder . A few guys I knew back in the 1990s extended their MT8144 rods with 4 ft butt extensions to mount big Alvey 651A5 and C5 and 700A5 reels on. These rods were ugly but great for lobbing 4oz and 6oz snapper leads. One of them was extended as retrofit , he continued using his 700A5 reel on it , looked ugly and his casting technique was like with an overhead, looked awkward but he sure could get the distance . Two of the guys I knew upped the anti and build MT9144 rods with 4 ft butt extensions , one of these guys used a big SeaMartin eggbeater (was ugly but great reel). I had a go at casting it one morning (was thinking of buying a MT9144 and 4 ft butt extension to build up a home made rod for use with my Alvey 651C5 reels but it was like casting with a telegraph pole and a lot heavier than my FSU7165 so I abandoned the idea. My 651C5 reels are my favourates, literally indestructible and only needs wash down after a fish , and replacement of the ratchet (triangle clicker) and the antireverse after a while. I've used A5s but don't like having by thumb pounded when the fish is running, hence the C5s I use for the big fish. If you want a light reel , an Alvey yellow spooled 651C5 is not for you.

Wasn't the standard in spools of mono = 100m , 200m , 300m , 600m and 1000m Been a long time since I bought new mono for any of my reels.

I knew what you meant anyway , wasn't Snyder a fibre glass rod blank maker …. think nearly all my MT , SU and FSU rods were that brand .( now (?) Snyder Glas )

Snyder was good mono - knew a lot of old hands who fished for jewfish and snapper from the rocks who swore by it.

I've never used anything other than mono . There is good quality mono and rubbish cheap mono. The cheap stuff stretches like buggery and is very soft surfaced (horrible if there are rocks around). My choice for mono is Torque Green or Maxima .

Yep , I've been to known to add what ever was in my stomach to the burley trail.... and even when I get back onto solid land and lay down , it seems like the world is still rocking for quite a while. One of the reason why I've never owned a boat. I'm fine in lakes and rivers, but out on the sea , if the fish aren't biting , I'm spewing. Hear there are effective pills around , and some use gadgets now (but that sounds like hokaspokis to me).

That shows the closures started mid Oct 2017 , about bloody time this practice was brought to an end in Port Hunter. I hope that closure include lobster traps too. I know the Pilots were pissed with the gill netters because they had some instances where they collected the nets on their props and rudders on the way in and out of the harbor, especially when rounding the end of Nobbys wall to head south , and when they rounded the corner near lighthouse. I know this because I had a run in with some of these guys when I reported them to the fisheries. I stopped fishing Nobbys because I was fed up with loosing fish (snapper, trevally, kings and jewfish) to these nets when they swum into them , and I was fed up with loosing terminal gear nearly every time I cast out at the Sharkhole (a place I never had this issue before some fool at Fisheries granted these guys a license to net the wall. Been 3 summers I've not gone to Nobbys to fish because of this , and it was a bone of discontent for over 10 years , none of the regular jewie fishermen and snapper fishermen were happy and quite a few gave up fishing Nobbys too , and these guys were sneeky, they'd set the nets on dusk or after. (For obvious reasons , not least the fact they were using gill nets that were set , in breech of their license ). You can accept that or not , I don't give a toss.

There is a lot of rock and reef along that wall so how do they lay nets along it, especially with running tides? <<< I've watched them do this , they simply drift out along the wall with the current after dropping the end of the net with some kind of anchor at the up current end, then they are back next day and reverse the process by hand hauling the net into the boat . I don't think I have ever seen a profession cray fisherman lay traps inside a river to catch crays. I have seen plenty of recs try it though. Do you really think it is a viable cray fishery inside a river for a commercial cray fisherman to waste his time doing and does a cray licence even allow for them to fish inside the river. I have also done a bit of cray trapping over the years as a rec angler and the amount of fish ever caught in a trap is extremely minimal. Certainly can not ever wipe out fish stocks with them. <<< irrespective of your armchair objections , they do , at least they do here along Nobbys and Stockton walls and they do take lobsters and fish from the traps , I've seen them do so over many years .

You've obviously never been parked on Nobby's or Stockton B/Ws in March and April , when the trawler fleet leaves it's continuous stream of trawlers for 3 hours , then there are the beach haulers who literally wipe out entire sections of Stockton Beach and take entire schools of tailor, mullet, trevally etc, add the dregs to these = the guys who use the run out to lay gill nets along virtually the entire length of Nobby's from Horseshoe to the very end of the wall and who take everything , and the guys who put down "cray traps" that take more fish than crayfish along both sides of both Nobbys and Stockton walls. I expect similar pro fishing blitzkriegs happen at Bundaberg to Tweed and Morton Bay, Port Phillip & Western Port Bays, St Vincent & Spencer Gulfs, Pt Kembla, Sydney, Hawksburry River / Broken Bay, Swan River and Freemantle Hbr, Darwin. If there's a big population near a port , the pros have Xmas, NY, AusDay and Easter to make the cream of their living and they literally wipe out the fish stocks each year on November/December and March/April to meet demand from the public. The pros used to do the same in Lake Macquarie until they were banned from fishing professionally in the lake. Not sure about the situation in Port Stephens , don't often wonder up there hardly ever fish there since the beaches and 4x4 trails into the ocean rocks were closed access to vehicles. Most the fish sold in the shops and the Coop are thawed and has been frozen and on ice for weeks.

Been my experience over many years that it's pointless wetting a line over easter, the pros hit the reefs , rivers, lakes and beaches like a blitzkrieg in the 3 to 4 weeks before easter and it all goes on ice to be sold for top $ in the week before and over easter. Only fish left are the dregs and maybe a few that come in from areas the pros are prohibited from fishing. Plus I don't like fishing when there lot's of tourists and holidayers overrunning the local spots , 90% of them can't caste straight and it's not worth the agro IMO. Plus - traffic , just traffic. I'd rather stock up on fish , prawns, squid, crabs 1 to 2 months out from eastern and keep them in the freezer. So we simply stay home , and got the 8 yr grandkid and his dad here over easter, thawed some fish from my stash in the big freezer and OD'ed on chocolate eggs . Best way of spending easter is staying put, having family come to you bringing yummy chocs , and mostly just doing as little as humanly possible when not playing board games with grandson. IMO travelling anywhere over easter is for mugs. Those who wet a line over easter, even travelled to do so, hope you found some take to east fish.

That's a serious bit of kit. Looking forward to seeing how it's developed and the end product and reading how it performs . Not that I've ever fished anywhere requiring an electrically driven retrieve but I'm interested in seeing how you solve the engineering and materials challenges of getting to robust and durable and effective reel.

The guy with big alvey and long rod has the right idea for there. I've been there a few times but not in the last 10 years. I was interested in tailor during the day, slayed them. And jewfish at night, caught my yellowtail on site an hour or so before the sun started hitting the horizon and had the big float (a piece of Styrofoam with biro pushed through it) and I head either to the end of the wall if it was running in or down to the start of the wall if running out) lobbed out the live bait under the float (set to stay about 16 ft down (if my memory serves me regarding the tidal flow and channel depth) as far as I could towards the other side and I simply let the current take it and followed by walking the wall until I reached the end , at which point I either retrieved or let the current take the bait out another 100m or so. I've caught a few nice jewfish there but it was hard work c/- fishing the dykes, foreshore or walls at Newcastle, Carrington and Stockton. I have memories of a lot of walking following the bait/float. Much the same deal as at Blacksmiths , Swansea , Forster and Tuncurry seawalls (all fast current). The trick with tailor there was slabs of yellowtail or tailor (fall back was strips of mullet from a fillet) on quadganged 4/0 520s , no sinker. The locals told me they kill the Luderick there in winter (but you have to be in the know to be able to find the best weed sources). I confirmed this by watching a couple local old guys haul in nice sized kg class luderick one after the other while I was trying to catch livebait nearby. (As is often the case in my experience on my home turf too). One more place I should go back to for a fishing holiday some day.