Ed.

13 hours ago, Junky said:

Hahaha. 

My kids were out there at Easter and asking why noone was jetty jumping. 

They thought it was because there were no stairs to get back up onto the jetty. 

I explained that there is no stairs because the authorities do not want people swimming there due to the shark population.

Apart from that, It's also the fact that when the tide changes, the water rips through there, if you jumped or fell in on a outgoing tide you would end up miles from the shore and with the ingoing, you would end up in between Urangan and Fraser Island, with no chance of swimming back to shore, it is very strong. There actually is an emergency ladder about 3/4's of the way out to the end of the jetty on the right hand side which goes onto on the sand, just on where outer sand bar starts, but if you ended up in the water you would not be able to make it to even climb up.

You can see where the current rips through and has left the sand bars.

Haven't heard of any large Tigers here before, but no reason they shouldn't be here, quite a few bronzies here, I saw one when I was on the jetty that morning, much smaller version, I didn't get a good look at it but from what I saw it wasn't all that big, still it would have been doable on smaller gear.

Most of the manufacturers claims of the capacity of reels and also line in my opinion are bogus, not just Shimano as there doesn't seems to be a legalized standard method of enforcing measurement. Some measure using mono or braid capacity/strength/length however there are huge variations in the actual line strengths for their given diameter, so one mono line might have a diameter of 0.78mm for 80lb line(Platypus Platinum) and another brand will have the 80lb line in 0.92mm(Stren). Then there is the issue of Pretest/IGFA line or general line with the former supposed to break less than but close to the rated strength but no more than, as against the general purpose line which means squat.

Which is where the advertising line comes from ie: "ours is the strongest 20lb line", which generally means it is much thicker than the competition and is mislabeled as 20lb instead of 30  or 40lb line which it should be! The amount of tension when laying the line also effects how much line goes on as the tension thins the line diameter and stretches the line more.

I have a spool of braid which says it is 67kg and a diameter of 0.39mm but when I tested it several times with a micrometer it measured close to 0.5mm and broke at half the stated strength on the spool. Also with braid it depends on the amount of strands and the amount of strand twists per given length in the line, high strands count usually means that the line is rounder and it sometimes means that other lines may flatten out more, so the width is more than its height,  ect. then you have the issue of how you lay the line, if you manage to get the line to lay right next to the line coil that you just laid and move across to edge of the spool and then repeat to the other side, then you will or should have more line as there will be less air gaps between the coils and less cross over in the layers. However in real life how often does that happen when you spool a reel for the first time or especially when you have hooked up a fish and are winding it in.

So when buying a reel assume you will have less capacity then stated and buy the next size up if capacity is important. So its a bit complicated but in the end it's all marketing crap. Just my opinion!

The only time I would lock up a drag would be when you have hooked a largish powerful fish that was heading for structure or was near the bottom when hooked, in which case I figure I have nothing to lose as most likely they will reach a cave/ledge/structure and snag the line and bust you off.

I used to target Mullaway in the Swan river and the only ones I ever lost were the ones that I tried to drag in, due to over excitement and not thinking. Those would turn and swim straight towards me and under the jetty, then it was game over and the line parted due to sharp bits on the pylons, the others I played on lighter drag and they would swim down current usually and towards the center of the river, a bit of back and forth  till they became tired and much easier to handle when close to the jetty or rocks.

So I think it depends on the type of fish and the nearby structure. One of the guys I met up in northern W.A used to fish for up to 30kg mackerel from a boat and used  light line, can't remember if it was 4kg or 4lb line, chased it all over the ocean and the fight would go on for a very long time, the fish was pretty much cactus when brought on board.

For large sharks, I would try to get them in quicker so they can recover quicker and be released without too much trauma on them, downside is they also tend to be a bit more energetic when being de-hooked so more care must be taken. I suppose it's a bit like running flat out for 300m, at the end you are very tired but can recover rapidly VS a marathon race, whereby afterwards you are completely shattered  and have used up all of your reserve energy.

Not a shark but a large ray, many decades ago when I was a young man, I went up to Queensland from Victoria for an extended road trip, living mainly out of my car, an old FE holden sedan and ended up in the Shute Harbour area,  knowing very little about fishing and not much cash, I tried to supplement my food supply by going fishing, ended up buying a light handline and also a heavier one with 80lb line.

I had snorkeled off the jetty there so I knew there were some decent sized fish in that murky green water, wouldn't do that again now that I  now know what else swims around there, anyway I caught some smaller fish on the light line and put one out on the large hand line. A short while later it started to move so I grabbed it and gave it a decent yank which hooked up solid.

So about 20 minutes in to the fight I managed to get it off the bottom and saw a flap break the surface so recognized it as a big ray, in those days, the ferries that went to the Islands used to leave from that jetty and there was one tied up at the end of the jetty. Eventually the ray swung around to it and ended up either under the boat or under the jetty and I couldn't stop it, resulting in the line being cut off.

In a way I am glad it broke the line as I wouldn't have known what to do with it had I managed to bring it to the shore, so yes it did give me a decent workout even though I was quite strong in those days. The smaller fish I caught which I didn't know at the time turned out to be "Happy Moments" which I took back to fillet and eat, apparently there are a few similar fish called by the same name, didn't know anything about them till I went back the next day and the guy I was fishing with the day before asked what I had done with them, and  was quite surprised that I had eaten them.

I did start to go for a quick drive that evening and had a hard time driving as the road seemed to be swaying, so quickly did a u turn and went back to sleep it off. Possibly one of those might not have been edible, and possibly a bit hallucinogenic. So after that I made sure that I knew all about the fish I was going to eat!

Nowadays if I am going to go after large sharks then it's with a 30II or a 50WII, rod gimble and stand up harness, I am not nearly as strong as I used to be and need all the advantage I can get!

I try to take a simpler approach, have a look at the Platypus Platinum line, (0.78mm) , it might give you a bit more length compared to other mono lines, it is about the thinnest 80lb line that I have found. I usually put on about 50-60m of it as a top shot on to my braid but I connect it direct to a swivel and 4m stainless cable so no going through any rod guides, but I figure that should be long enough so I can grab the stainless cable at the boat/rocks/beach, and should the shark take off at that point, the 80lb mono should be able to take the strain with it's stretch.

Having said all that, I use 130-150lb braid so if the line is going to break, chances are that  I will loose some mono instead of the more expensive braid.

Just out of curiosity I had a look at the spin reels I have, I only have Penn Spinfisher Liveliners V4 and V5,  2500-4500-6500 sizes and mine barely moved about 1mm or so, (I didn't test the 8500  as it was buried amongst the other reels), I don't know if it is just the design of the spools, or it might have to do with how the drag stack or bearings are done. I personally wouldn't be happy with that much wobble as it would just annoy me.

I mainly use overheads/baitcasters and very rarely the spin gear, so don't get that issue.

As Neil said, I would be more concerned about flushing the trailer after each use, than the motor if you are using it daily.

Happy New Year to everyone.

Have a look at this Penn Liveliner model, on special till the 31st Dec 23 for $139.99 including delivery. This one is has a manual bail arm trip and the Liveliner feature which is good for letting fish run with the bait before striking. They are also water resistant which is good for surf areas.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/292810550338

P.S. The on special date has been extended to the end of Dec, so I updated the date above in case anyone was interested.

Exactly how big is this "little pond" to sustain fish that size?

Thanks Hamish.

The issue that I see is, that mzaakir  has already bought a Spartan 20-30lb PE2/3 rod (which is not a cheap rod) but which will probably be too stiff for a light setup using light line, and putting a light reel on it may make it feel a bit unbalanced especially for casting, off the side of a boat might not be an issue though There are few 2500 sized reel that will have sufficient drag and line capacity to handle his target species but might feel "not quite right " on a 20-30lb rod. I have said it a few times on here, go to a tackle store and see if there is a reel you can put on it to see how that rod will feel.

I would be inclined to go for a 4000 sized reel which would be more than enough for the species you mentioned.

Hopefully it won't affect the charter boats too much, I have two fishing trips and a sailing trip booked from Port Douglas and they are all large sized boats.

On 20/10/2023 at 7:49 AM, Angry51 said:

Don't like your chances of good weather, cyclone forming in the east and wind forecast from 21/22 oct. It hasn't stopped blowing here since end July. But for your sake I hope I'm wrong.

 

I hope you are wrong as well Angry31, heading up north with the missus on Thursday on a road trip, so hopefully it will fizzle out or stay away from the coast. Staying at Airlie Beach for a week, so will wait and see what it's doing before we decide if we will keep going up to Port Douglas.

2 hours ago, LucasV said:

I do plan to use mainly baits ... at this point in time lures are a totally new and totally confusing aspect of fishing (geez, Anaconda have walls and gondola space purely dedicated to only lures ... too much for my tiny brain to process at the moment) ..

 

 

Yep, they really good at catching......... the fisherman not the fish.

There is no sense in the numbering systems anymore as others have said, they are all over the place from reels to line strengths, generally when I choose a reel I check the capacity in mono and that gives me a general idea on the reels capacity so for a 2500 sized reel I look for about 140yds of 10lb mono which is more than plenty for most fish and if you want to use an equivalent in braid you probably will double the capacity,. A 4500 size would be about 250yds using 10lb mono, same again about double that in braid

These are just rough ball park figures because line diameters vary from brand and formula, you can get 10lb mono that is fairly thick listed as 10lb strength but will break 50 to 100% more, to my mind it is not 10lb line but probably 17 or 20lb line mislabelled as 10lb line., hence the reason a lot of manufactures advertise that theirs is the strongest 10lb line.  Same as Dyneema braided line, I have had braid advertised as thin but extremely strong braid which broke less than half it's rated strength, so brand name is no guarantee of quality.

I use a combo of braid for the bulk of the mainline and a topshot of mono for the stretch factor. Gives me a larger line capacity and enough stretch in the topshot so it acts sort of like a rubber band to keep constant tension on the fish should it jump.

So getting back to reels, just look at the physical size of the reels and the spool on it, you may find two similar sized reels but the spool on one is half the size of the other or the body of one is much smaller than the body of the other but labelled the same 2500 size. Even for people who have bought a lot of reels in their time it is frustrating not to mention very annoying to check everything. That's marketing for you!