Brodie_S

Completely agree with jaz44 rinsing reels isn’t a very good way of maintaining fishing gear . In can push dirt and sand further in the reel . Though then I rinse my line over the spool I tighten the drag so water doesn’t get into the reel and I reel in a bit so the spool covers the body of the reel then a very slow bit running water will do the trick to wash your line and no water will get inside any ware of the reel if done correctly . But like I said I only do that once every 1-3 months. And after every time fishing just wipe it down with baby wipes

Yeah I just put grease on the gears and oil the bearings . If you do surf fishing or rockfishing I would recommend you grease the ball bearings but for land based river estuary the odd beach fishing session i would just use oil on the ball bearings .and yes I remove the old grease once a year for my cheaper reels . But this isn’t necessary for a Stradic as the grease in the Stradic is a lot better then the cheap stuff they put in those siennas and airds

I usually use coles baby wipes on my reels I know what your think . What the hell but it gets rid of any fishy smell or bits of salt or sand on the outside of the reel . Sometimes if I’ve been fishing heavy salt water or have got some saltwater spray on the reel I will use a rag with wd40 and wipe the reel all over expect for the line and once every 1-3 months I will rinse the line in very slow running water over the spool . That’s the maintenance I use for all my reels including my Stradic . One thing with wd40 is I don’t recommend spraying it on the reel just use a little spray on a rag making sure you just wipe the outside of the reel just so it leaves a thin layer of protection I don’t use it often maybe once a month . So far my Stradic feels the same as the day I’ve bought it . And I’ve dropped it in sand twice and fell in the water when fishing for sooty Grunter was wading in the water and slipped on a rock and I fell in deep and so did my reel . After that I just had a quick break left my reel in the sun in was completely dry after 3 minutes after the dunking Because it was like 34 degrees . Yea that’s the maintenance I’ve used and found it works well I do the same maintenance for cheaper reels but service them once a year just so the grease in the gears doesn’t get stiff and dry out and I also oil the ball bearings. But I’m not going to bother servicing with the Stradic as it’s a pretty tough reel and the reel looks way to tricky to pull apart and put back together . Hope that helps . Yeah I’m very happy with Stradic super easy to maintain and is silky smooth . Oh and every 6 months I would put a tiny bit of oil on every joint/moving parts and wipe the excess oil off this keeps the reel from getting stiff parts . Also be careful with oil some oils don’t work well on certain reels like don’t mix normal reel oil with daiwa magseal oil stuff

Yeah sounds good mate Can’t wait to see you blogs

Noice also you might want to check out the suburbs of origins in the event section

I’ll be going for whiting bream flathead tailor and trevally

Yes it was indeed good practice for the suburbs of origin unfortunately I didn’t catch any of the species from list though but If I was I’m would have probably been fishing with plastics to get trevally or flathead . I wonder if queenfish count as a species of trevally hmm don’t know . And yea next time I go there I will bring my 2-5kg daiwa rod but with the same 1000 Stradic with 6lb braid and now that I know I should be using atleast 10lb leader

I rocked up to Cooktown jettie around 5pm with some servo sardines/phillies and some small suicide hooks a type of fishing I rarely do .went with some people that were staying near us .took my 6lb braid and leader setup and my 3-8lb rod first cast got a fish line snapped second cast got a big butter bream no photos for that one .3rd cast got a huge run and a few headshakes after a 2 minute fight I landed a decent queenfish and then another cast after that got a slightly smaller one . A few cast later I land some small Moses perch . After that the bite slowed down and the light did to it was now dark I spotted a big squid I casted my phillie at the squid it picked up the bait and ate It I set the hook as I’m bring up the squid I pull the hook on it and it flops back into the water I go back fishing for fish now as I drop my bait into the dark water I wait and then get a massive run I set the hook and get a massive run and huge headshakes bigger then the queenfish also note after I caught the queenfish I switched to 10lb leader to avoid losing fish after another big run I pull the hook on the fish but some bait is still on the hook a cast in roughly where I lost the fish get a run and set the hook I feel nothing I bring my line to see no hook left it snapped the line clean I retie and bait up and quickly get another run I bring up a pike . After that not much action then all of the sudden I go to bring up my bait I feel like Im stuck to the bottom at first I thought it was a snag but this snag started moving and then running and then I started walking around the jettie like a mad man as I have no control over this fish after a bit of walking around the jettie walking closer to the fish as it was moving fast along the jettie Like I said I had no control over this monster I it started get closer to another jettie I tried pulling but it was useless my drag was super tight and it was still running eventually my braid just snapped . Some people said it was a crocodile another said it was giant grouper but what ever it was I didn’t move it by a single inch it was giant after packing up I go pass the spot where my line snapped and I see this giant probably 2 maybe almost 3 metres grouper . And I’m pretty sure that was it and yea I didn’t take any more photos after the Moses perch .fishing session ended at 7:50 overall a pretty decent session I was the only one that caught fish on the jettie besides a bloke catching a few pike and some kid catching baby Moses perch

Yeah would but most of them know and don’t care and are often Look pretty dodge

Very sad I regularly see people near my local area back in nsw use cast nets and haul in mullet bream and tailor and what else gets caught in the net and then on top of that keep way to many fish very sad to see

Yeah team north for me thanks

Buster now 2 years old also known as the garfish eating machine or the live bait thief He’s a blue cattle cross kelpie

Oh also I will do some common Q&A for some questions beginners usually ask Q what strength line should I use A depends on what your catching but for small river and estuarine fish like bream flathead 6lb will do Q how big or small should my setup be A depends on what lures your using and also the fish your targeting .for bream/flathead I would use a 1-3kg rod And 1000 size reel for fish like trevally and tailor a 2-4kg rod and 2000 size reel For fish like Barra and jacks a 3-6kg rod and a 2500-4000 size reel will do Q how much should I spent if I’m just starting out A. For a reel you want something that can be used not just in the beginning stages but something that will last long and be durable and has some quality to it . If your just starting out a sienna or Sedona would be perfect as both reels last a long time and are very smooth and strong so generally $50-80 for a reel but sometimes if a reels on sale you’ll can score a reel such as a sienna for like $30-40 and for a rod I would suggest something like a daiwa laguna or daiwa aird x rod both can be found between $60-90 Q braid with a leader or mono . A Basically a general rule of thumb braid with leader for lures and mono for bait fishing . But that’s just a general rule of thumb sometimes I use braid with leader for bait fishing but sometimes I will use mono if I’m fishing surface lures and the water is super clear I will use 6 or 4lb mono . Just depends but I’d just fallow the rule of thumb Q DAiWA vs SHIMANO A both are great some stuff from daiwa is crap but also some stuff from shimano is crap but general I use both equally just stay away from Kmart fishing rods reels and lures and basically all Jarvis walker stuff unless it’s like hooks Swivels or sinkers because Jarvis walker actually make good hooks Q which brand of plastics is best A depends on what you like . I like zmans and some of the old school squidgies plastic but all plastics work as good as each other at the end of day berkley gulp zman squidgies savage gear kokoda keytech ecooda just to name a few work all well Q graphite or fibreglass 99% of time a graphite rod is best a fibreglass rod is rarely used instead of graphite. One of the only situations where you would use a fibreglass rod over a graphite is when your doing heavy duty game fishing ok there are just some common beginner questions I get asked a lot I hope that helps

If your looking for knots to Learn I recommend uni knot and Alberto knot tackle advisors version for Alberto any questions just ask on the forum there are plenty of members that know more then The info you get on YouTube

The new 2020 and old 2017 daiwa aird x rods are pretty similar to the raiders if you can’t find any raiders

Leaving Bluewater now in total I landed 11 tilapia while one big one snapped the line my friend who was there caught /landed about 5-6 tilapia and one also snapped his line . So in total we thinned the tilapia population by 17 while I was there but I know that won’t make a huge difference but I think the more people that target tilapia the better as most of the fish in the creek were tilapia besides the odd Barra hope one this will change as tilapia are very bad news to the northern waters I could definitely see while there such strict on the laws . Seeing that fish like jacks and Barra simply couldn’t keep up with the way tilapia conpeat with other species was a little disappointing hopefully one day these fish won’t be in Australian waters . The last fish i caught there was big and had a mouth full of eggs . I was very happy removing a fish like that from Bluewater creek as that would reduce the population by a fair bit . Sorry for spelling errors

Yep was using 6lb braid and 6lb FC leader and mustad fine worm hooks size 8 what I usually use for bream

Yep there pretty fun to catch all though there really fussy and take forever to eat the bait . I’ve heard there harder to catch in winter because of this reason but when you can catch a few 40cm tilapia it’s worth it . I think there easier to catch in summer

They sure did very good sport on light line . Not as good sooty Grunter though but 10/10 would recommend as a target species as their fairly easy to catch if you can see them/sight fishing .and a good sport very similar to the way bream fight

Yeah uni knot is good for connecting hooks and swivels because it’s a lot stronger then a blood knot and for joint braid to mono/FC Albright is fine

Today i went fishing for awhile at Bluewater creek north of Townsville fished with some slim swims nothing but 5-8cm mangrove jack nipping the tail . I seen some bigger fish which at first fought were decent sized jacks but even if I hooked one there was on no way I was landing the jacks on 6lb braid and leader I chucked out a few pieces of bread crust to see if there were bream this far down the creek as it leads to the ocean I seen a couple splash’s near my bread and As I had a closer look I seen it was tilapia that were smashing my bread not mangrove jack I Quickly rig up a small hook . put a piece of bread on and after a few cast I hooked a decent tilapia I quickly killed it and put it in a bucket. the tilapia stopped biting after that for about a hour then more tilapia came through and picked up my bread . I got 4 tilapia in about 40 minutes . A boy my age came down and we fished for a bit nothing took the bread they shut down again we went for a walk closer to the bridge and he managed to hook a tilapia after dodging a few turtles

Welcome to the forum Kat the first things I would learn is tie a uni knot get information on forums fishing mags or YouTube for the species you want to target learn how weather and tides effect fishing for example for bream Fishing I like 2 hours before high tide fish lighter when I first started fishing 2 or so years ago I started with a cheap shimano fx 1000 and a short telescopic rod with 4lb mono . Note my gear is 50 times better now but in the beginning cheap and light is the way to go you will be able to catch good fish but as you get more experience with fishing roughly 6 months- to a year you might want to upgrade to something like a lure setup with braid And if you get snagged what I do is losen the line the pull back on it and flick the line like a bow and arrow . Kind of hard to explain but you can look it up hope that helps after fishing for awhile I would recommend starting to fish with lures as you generally get more hookups and better fish but for now just start with bait because both work extremely well also I will add if you’re right handed swipe your reel handle to the left side or if your left handed swipe your reel handle to right as you will get more casting accuracy and some other benefits I did it a few weeks ago and it’s a lot better hope that helps

Also forget to add photos I’ll add them now

Yeah it was very good ellicat finally being able to catch some fish that fight pretty good for their size to

Yea I’ve heard people catch Barra there to but yeah the sooty Grunter were very aggressive on the zman slim swims the only lures that touched