Ed.

About the only place that I know of that fishing has apparently improved after commercial scallop dredging and fish netting was restricted/ banned is Port Phillip Bay. Apparently the fishing really improved. I personally don't know first hand as I haven't been fishing there for about 5 decades but I am going down there in several weeks so will give it a good bash. Corio Bay still is permitted to netfish and scallop dredge but that will be stopped in 2022. I used to go snorkeling/spearfishing in the bay when I was 16 off the rocks at Mt.Martha there were nice weed beds with plenty of fish, cuttlefish, octopus ect. then about 8 years later I went there again and the area was a desert, with a slime/sludge/silt covering most of the reef areas there, no more seaweed and no life, it was totally devastated. The cause from what I was told was the scallop dredging. It will be interesting to see if the sea life has returned. Although I won't be snorkeling, too damned cold for me now, I don't go in the water nowadays unless it's at least 23C now, but will try and throw in a line there if I get a chance and see if I can catch something. I have a buddy down Seaford who still dives inside and outside the bay about 2-3 times a week for the same period of years and will ask him if he has noticed any change.

Haven't tried them but at one stage was considering buying a popper rod in that brand but not at those prices, some of them are listed at over $1100. To me, no rod is worth that much and I absolutely hate the bend in some of the pictures I saw, the bend in them reminds me of a limp piece of spaghetti and probably just as effective. Looking at Alibaba and Alliexpress they are selling similar rods significantly cheaper, possibly the importer is putting on a silly price to try and get buyers to think it is some kind of wonder rod and selling "slightly marked" rods for a couple of hundred dollars also trying to build the name as a high end quality brand. Again in my opinion even at the greatly reduced price I still think that they are grossly overpriced. Personally I like a bit of a backbone in my rods, in other words a stump puller with a flexible tip, but that is just my preference. In popper /jig rods I prefer the bend to start about 1/3 of the way up the blank, absolutely no bend at all before then, and progressively bending more towards the tip, probably why I like Ugly Guttsbut/Tiger sticks (and in those they can go "J" shaped with out breaking the tip, in game rods a more even but slight curve unlike the Hamachi's which go almost half a circle. Having a flexible tip allows one to feel the little nibbles from bream etc, and with the powerful butt, still be able to handle a mulloway if that takes your bait instead. I was actually looking for a a bream rod myself today but torn between getting a high graphite 2 piece rod such as the Abu Veritas 3 922H or the 2 piece Ugly Stik Gold SP802GPM, the ugly is a bit shorter and heavier in weight. Both probably overkill for bream but would give me the extra reach over the rocks if fishing from a break wall. The Ugly would be more rugged and forgiving as you can usually put a lot of grunt on them without fear of snapping them should a Mullaway or Trevally bite. Assuming your line and rigs are strong enough. There should be no reason for the line to touch the blank, if it does then the rod doesn't have enough properly placed guides or the rod blank is badly designed. Either way I wouldn't buy one. Just my 2 cents worth.

Thanks Drop Bear, but I am already a member of Ausfish, is that different to "OzFish"? That wouldn't surprise me as there have been a few fights in that forum, I suppose like most forums, some people just can't get along.

Well Facebook won't get me as I don't have an account and have no intention of ever getting one.

Yeah, I notice that a bit too, I am a member of Fishing Monthly and nearly of the discussion are listed as being several years old. I put up a sale listing there to sell a Makiara 30 II reel. It is a bit strange in that my advert has had over 500 views in 3 or 4 days so there must be a lot of people visiting the site but not participating or else not logging in. I do not know how that site is still going! I just logged in there and there were 6 people on it and only 1 (me) had logged in.

Never heard of "Auscrab" any links?

Very nice! that's what I like to see, flat clean water, where were you when you you took the video? Makes me want to go for a swim!

I can't remember what percentage of micro balloons I used as it was quite a few years ago that I made them, using the 2mm wire will add a lot of weight to your lure so I would reduce it to a smaller diameter, you most likely do not need wire that thick, I am not sure what the breaking strength of 2mm is but it would be well in the area of several hundred KG's, even 1.6mm that I am using is overkill but I have a large roll of it so that is the only reason I used it. 1mm to 1.2mm will probably be strong enough. Polyurethane is heavier than water so you need to make the lure lighter by reducing the lures weight per volume ie; filler of some sort, light weight beads or even an air cavity of some sort. Pic below is of one of the lures, replacing both hooks on the lure with the hook size on the right will make it sink otherwise it will float with the ones on it. They are both 6/0 but the silver one is 5X strength.

I made 2 sizes of poppers a while ago, 155mm and a 180mm, using 2 part Polyurethane (not resin) and added micro balloons (from a fibreglass supply store) that gave me added buoyancy, when I put on the 6/0 treble hooks on the smaller lure it still floated. I also used much heavier 6/0 (5x) trebles on the larger 180mm lures, those ones sank but only slowly. Adding the micro ballons reduced the working time of the mix considerably and made the mix white. A 1.6mm stainless wire runs from the front to the back through the mold for the eyelets. The polyurethane I used is pretty tough (used for make boat trailer rollers) it was slightly flexible unlike resin, and it is very hard to get paint to stick to it, I sprayed the mold, when it dried I then poured in the mix. Coated the outside with a clear polyurethane paint and added glitter to it, then coated it again and added some eyes and the hooks. If I used 1mm stainless wire it would reduce the weight a bit as well so probably float better but 1.6mm is what I had at the time, don't know what size hook you use but you might get better flotation if you used smaller or lighter hooks, also you might be able to add some light weight plastic beads inside the mold as well to lighten the weight of the resin.

Well, can I have some fish fingers please, but only from the fish's right hand!. Now that the picture is on the internet, I wonder how many people have razzed her about it?

If this is a real picture and not done as a joke or had the image Photoshop'ed, then it just shows what some peoples basic intelligence level is!

Nope, it's a small town.

I have 6 or 7 ugly stiks, they are a composite glass/graphite rod but the graphite is predominantly spiral bound like a spring, I think that they are the only brand that uses the Howald process to build them, so they have a huge hoop strength, which also gives them the tip sensitivity. They do have a range of 2 piece rods but the larger stronger rods are now confined to spinning reels or one piece especially in the overhead variety. They will take much more abuse than the straight graphite rods which you have to take care not to nick the rod or high stick them. Although I do have both types I still prefer in many ways the Ugly stiks as you are just able to fish with them instead of pampering them, my oldest rod is about 40 years old and I still fish with it, I just replace the guides if they fail, as that is the only thing that has happened to any of mine. I am not sure about how they build the newish GX2 or their travel rods though.