Neil Stratford

Beautiful clean looking fish , looking forward to Sunday . Please promise me , we are not targeting fresh water cobia ! Regards Neil

I find the tide sizes don’t really affect it too much , you’ve just got to be prepared to move around and position yourself in the right spots during your session down there. It’s always about knowing how the puzzle works ie how when why and where you anchor your boat and present your baits. Whiting will move to where the food is., think like the fish .Sounds like you tried a few spots ,but hey , not all was lost , at least you’ve found where they don’t bite on those tides. The next trip will be better. regards neil

I presume you’re not sleeping in your boat whilst reef fishing ? If sleeping I prefer to use a plough of some sort and drop it on a sandy patch and set the anchor alarm. If just shallow reef fishing , I suggest just using a lead filled 5 pronged reef pick with about 3 m of 6 or 8mm chain with some 10 mm silver rope and pull it up with a ball when your on reef . ( The 10mm rope is softer to use on your hands than 8mm) This can be all stowed in a fish bin and taken out your boat when your not planning on anchoring on rock or reef. Keep your expensive Manson anchors for sand and mud for which they are designed . Have a look at a Sarca , they’re cheaper than the Mansons and have a slide shackle set up. They are bigger and may or may not suit your setup. Regards Neil

Found a significant school of Threadfin and baby bull shark tailing in 1.5 m of water this morning , right where they’ve been for weeks, so didn’t have to go looking for them. Helped myself to a couple before the wind started to puff up a bit , then took off for home. Had a double hookup on the second one , but it got off before I could attend to it , which was a bit of a bummer. 2 was enough , so left them feeding , for next time. Beautiful clean fish off the sand , full of banana prawns , bled out and iced down well , they should taste good! A start for team south for May. Threadfin 1010mm and 910mm.

Arrr Ellicat , I thought you were just leading a northsider up the garden path. I think it’ll be good in sheltered waters till about 10am ,then it’ll get windy pretty quick. Fish usually bite well leading up to a strong southerly , if I get motivated I might give it another crack early tomorrow as well. The boats packed, I’ve just got to get motivated tomorrow morning. regards neil

Urrrrr Im pretty sure it’ll be a bit rough and windy in open waters tomorrow , try in a sheltered creek,or southern bay islands for a Thready or Jew .Or in a dam for some bass is my tip.

It was another solo trip chasing rainbows this morning . Did a bit of exploring and found a little bit of gold at the end of one rainbow ,down Jumpinpin way. I also stumbled across a fantastic live bait spot stacked full of herring and huge hardy heads , never seen so many in one small area., the water was literally black and boiling with them .(Those threadfin are now on my short list for May) Unfortunately I Left my tags and good brag mat in the other boat , so the little jewie didn’t get any jewellery to wear home. Unfortunately for the Northside I had an old measuring device stashed in my rod locker. SOUTHSIDE Flathead 570mm Mulloway 740 mm Big eye trevally 510mm regards neil

Looks like I missed out on a really good day. That photo of the reflections of the trees is one of the best I’ve seen down there. regards neil

The Old Scaley one is correct! Depends on the pasture they live in but they’re a fast growing fish .

I donated a threadfin to Qld Fisheries the other day . Guess the age of this fish ?

Yes my flathead spots have been very quiet for the last couple of years . imo the waters been way too hot for them .

Yes it’s certainly a fair trip up there from the Southside of Brisbane, especially on a public holiday . Presume you got rewarded with quality fish . We got back from our stint dog sitting at Bribie yesterday and I went for a whiting fish this morning. There was a heap of boats out down the Pin. Surprisingly I managed to find a quiet spot out of the chaos and got a nice feed of pretty good fish .

Looks like you had a good day Ray. I presume you got the job done for Bill? Pie shop shut - what a tragedy -a total unjust ending to the day! regards Neil

Couple more whiting for team south 390mm and another 350mm

I was suppose to go mackerel /reefy yesterday morning ,but my mate who was taking me in his boat cancelled with a sore shoulder at the last moment . Since I had that all important leave pass organised ,I went and dug a few worms and had a whiting fish last night . Could not find any decent ones , but scratched up a nice feed of whiting. Got a beautiful little juvenile mulloway and a little lizard as by catch , which were tagged and released .Managed to upgrade team south’s whiting slightly. whiting 350 ,345,350mm mulloway 405mm flathead 385mm

Well done Hamish , he would have pulled a bit of drag. regards neil

Great land based fish Max , looks like you suffered a bit of line burn Hope it didn’t nip you when you were removing that slug. regards Neil

Went for a flathead fish this morning ,but my Lowrance side scan told me to forget the flathead and fish for something else. Ended up getting a nice feed of threadies off the sand in 1.2 m of water. Jess those things go on light gear. Hopefully the photos come up ok as they were beautifully conditioned clean fish. team south Flathead 510mm Threadfin 1030mm ,930mm and 965mm Gave all the fish barring 1 Thready away , which I’ll be having with some nice fresh salad tonite. regards Neil

I personally like using slightly larger spinning reels . I recon I get greater distance in my casts with the slightly larger spools , and you don’t have to put as much effort when continuously casting and retrieving lures and plastics .You also often get greater line capacity which sometimes comes in handy if you come across an unexpected larger fish like a big thready or longtail ,they’ll empty those tiny 1000 and 2000 series spinning reels faster than you can blink .So long as the larger reel isn’t too heavy and the rod /reel balance feels good there’s nothing to loose going up 1 or even 2 sizes. I think the Daiwa kix and Shimano sustains are pretty similar on paper. The Sustain 3000 is just over 10 percent lighter than the 3000 kix., but the 4000 models are pretty much both the same weights. regards neil

Very nice !! You’ve done a great job with it using some excellent components. Have a look at a sustain 4000 . Fairly good quality reel that’s nice and light.

Good to see some good numbers again . well done regards Neil

Went down the Pin to hunt down a huge threadfin that I dropped at the boat last week, couldn’t find any bait for a couple of hours and missed the bite period . By the time I found some bait it was way too late and had to contend with stingrays ,cat fish , sharks and bream . I did have an unusual visitor though , a small wallaby out for a morning dip. South side Bream 290mm

A few more for team south . Spanish Mac 1100 and 945mm Spotty Mac 800mm Grassy Sweetlip 480 and 420mm Spangled Emperor 440mm Cattle dog cod 370 and 380mm Wire netting cod 340mm

We got quite a few really good 70 cm plus tailor up at Fraser last September , the best year for big fish I’ve ever had up there , best fish was a 76 cracker , looking forward to using that stick later this year to crack an 80 .

I’ve been wanting to make a custom spin rod for Tailor fishing up at Fraser Island for a while now . About a week ago I got on Facebook and purchased an old trashy looking 13 ft butterworth surf rod, (the number on the blank appears to be ss 51569 )for the princely sum of $50 -hoping I could do something with the blank. First up , I stripped it all back and shorted the blank down till it felt real good at 11 foot 8 inches. I wanted the rod to be powerful ,but as light as possible , so got on line and ordered a set of Alps aluminium oxide High Rise Guides , a Fuji reel seat , some shrink wrap grips, and a butt cap from a local supplier . I had a bit of thread and epoxy in the garage which I used for the project . It took me two nights to bind it all up and epoxy it . My wife even made me up a little decal sticker for it. This morning the epoxy had all gone off rock solid , so I put a Shimano 6000 Saragosa with 20 lb braid on it and loaded it up to give it a test.Jezzz … It feels like a weapon and cannt wait to fire out some 65 and 85 g Raiders later this year. I’ve used a lot of high modulus rods but I recon those old school surf rods are hard to beat when surf fishing , they cop a flogging out there on the beach and a lot still being used 20 to 30 years later . Super glad I gave this old girl of a rod a second lease of life. Neil