Neil Stratford

Yes , there seemed to be plenty there on the lead up to the full moon in August.

Yes it was a barramundi cod. It was successfully released straight after the photo.

A couple more photos , still trying to figure an easy way to post my shark feeding video ,you might have to wait for the sites repairs to be done .

Yes the head alone would have been about 4 kg . It would have been a pb Red Bass for me . I was spewing ! Managed to get this little specimen up though

You might be able to open these links to see a couple of photos

The use of Braid over mono is great in most situations . Because of its very fine diameter you can use a lesser sinker size to hold the bottom , it has next to no stretch so you have a much better chance to feel even the most subtle bites. You can cast it further with more accuracy. Braid has next to no memory , so you can get away without even using swivels . It’s down fall is it is highly visible under water , it’s fine diameter allows it to scuff easily and it has no stretch. It also may require you to learn some new knots, to lock it down without slippage. The introduction of a leader such as flurocarbon to braid gives you abrasion resistance , makes your working end of the line invisible and gives you a little stretch to fight fish a little easier. There are also different leader materials available , ie some sink and some float - this can also be used to your advantage in different situations. In most situations you use at least a rod length of leader material , the FG knot is a good knot for joining braid to leader material , it’s very strong and it’s low profile allows it to pass through runners very easily , where as the use of a swivel won’t allow you to wind the leader through your rods runners. If you want to have a trace separating your sinker from your hook ~ by all means tie in a swivel at act as a stopper. regards Neil

My 1st Decky went back home with a nice lot of red fish and my brother and his wife joined us for the second week of our holiday.Fortunately we got another weather window ,so we set a plan to fish shallow for RTE ‘s . Again , we found some real quality fish pretty easily. Strips of Iodine Bream , Mac Tuna and whole squid were the go to baits. By about 11am we had a good box of RTE’s , then decided to move out off the shallows and fish some deeper ledges to top up with a few more red fish . We struggled with some Reef Sharks , Spanish mackerel , and Bludger Trevally taking fish and baits till about 2pm, but got a few trout , Venus tuskfish and my brother even managed to extract a nice red emperor . I caught my fish Barramundi Cod, and had a massive Red Bass shortened by a shark ,after I had the fish beaten on the surface . It’s head and shoulders would have been about 4 kgs.Unfortunately the attached picture doesn’t really show the true size of this magnificent fish . The sea conditions had flatten some what and we had the wind up our stern, so we called it early to run for home. We ditched our left over bait frames and videoed the not so small reef sharks making short work of it . We sat on 25knots most of the way home and got back in an hour and 15 minutes. I’ll attach some photos and a video of the sharks that you can hopefully view when the site allows viewing again. Regards Neil IMG_0691.mov

Verdict is in - I put the trout skin chips up against some IGA Birdseye Duckfat roast baby potatoes - the potatoes won hands down.

I’ve just got back from Agnes Water yesterday. There were school mackerel and tuna herding up bait fish about 100m north of the headland at the Agnes caravan coffee shop 3 days ago.These were only about 10m off the beach and would have been easily caught on slugs. I went for a drive right through the Deep Water track , it was a bit soft about 1 km in and soft going up that big hill in behind the wreck rock area. Probably a lot better now they had a little bit of rain 2 days ago. The Deep Water Cause way only had a little bit of water on each side and wasn’t looking fishy at all. I’ve caught small Barra and tarpon there in the past when it runs across the track but wouldn’t bother at the moment.We stopped and had lunch on the bank of Five Mile Creek just off the graded bit of road south of the Cause way, it looked real fishy and saw a few people laying crab pots . We didn’t bother taking any rods in there but I’d be game to bet there’d be some nice black and gold spot cod , bream and the odd jack in there at the moment. regards Neil

Yes I’d just use about 1.5 m of flurocarbon for subsurface lures with a FG knot and loop knot , and about 40 cm leader for surface lures. The flurocarbon sinks so you don’t want a long length with surface lures .

Well done Ray. Good to see your getting a few fish . regards Neil

Very well done , there’s an art involved in catching those critters.

Got some good weather today , so a friend and I headed out about 60km in search of some red fish.We’ saw plenty of whales dolphins, sharks, turtles and sea snakes on the way out. We pulled up on an old mark that I found years ago in 12m of water and float lined some big flesh baits of hussar and iodine bream down on 40lb braid . First drop I pulled a nice trout then it went a bit slow , we moved a little and found some really fired up fish that wanted to see the inside my ice box .Ended up with a great box of fish , mainly common trout , with a few RTE’s , red emperor , and venus tuskfish thrown in . On the way home we went over a rock that looked like it had Spanish mackerel all over it , so we spun around , and trolled a yakka over it - next thing you know I’ve got a 15 kg Spanish in the kill tank and off we go again . .Fish are now well iced down , I’ll fillet ,skin and cryovac them down tomorrow once they harden up and my old body recovers.I’m going to try some of those deep fried trout skin chips , I’ll post the verdict on those in a few days.

Excellent guys . >40cm are quality fish. regards neil

Let’s just say I’m poaching a few of the northsiders fish that they couldn’t catch!

I call them Indo Snapper , they are very similar to Mangrove Jacks.

IMG_4103.mov IMG_4103.mov IMG_4103.mov IMG_4103.mov Had a bit of a break in the wind today , so went out about 4 km . After about an hour of sounding we found what appeared to be a wreck and plucked a feed off it . Then pulled a little cobe off a whale on the way home. Tuesday and Wednesday are looking good so hopefully we’ll get some good fish out wider. IMG_4096.mov IMG_4100.mov IMG_4101.mov IMG_4102.mov

Hamish was right , didn’t really matter- Ended up going , lolly pop , sandwich , lolly pop , sandwich. Neil

Just preparing tomorrow’s lunch menu . Not sure whether to go : 2 x Qld lolly pops as a starter , followed by fresh crusty white bread crab sandwiches as the main . or Fresh white crusty bread crab sandwiches as a starter , followed by 2 Qld lolly pops as the main . Drinks -are all sorted ,2 X icy cold XXXX Golds. Neil

That’s a great feed of whiting - they are hard to beat on the plate.

Nice fish well done regards Neil

Found another use for pool noodles ! Just made a rig dispenser for my bait board. Hoping it keeps my gangs and mackerel rigs easily accessible and tangle free .

Nice feed , well done

Well done Ray, back to the good old days. regards Neil

Well done , excellent fish! regards neil