Bob9863

I used to hunt up that way a lot. Anytime we were driving there we often stopped at river crossings and bridges for a flick. Pulled out a few nice ones over the years. A number of farms stock yellow belly in their dams. When there's floods the fish move from the dams into the rivers so there is always be fish in the rivers.

Sounds like a pretty good day. One thought I had was instead or putting the magnet on the rig itself, could you attach it to a snap swivel that you can clip on the line when you get a fish. That might be a way to put off the sharks and not put off the fish.

One thing I've learnt is that you can never cast too far, a long cast reel will cast in close easy enough but having that extra range can be damn helpful at times and has put a lot of fish in my freezer that otherwise would still be in the water.

I actually really like the slightly camp or old fashioned look of the old rods, they have a style that's pretty catchy.

You have to remember that budget reels are built to be as solid as they can be as cheaply as possible. They don't want to waste time with warranty work on an entry level reel. Most of their money comes from the mid tier reels so they focus mainly on them. The high end and especially flagship reels is where they test out innovation that will then get used on the mid tier stuff later on. It's all about putting their money where they can get the most back from it.

Looked like a great day out on the water.

I've had a couple for a few years now as boat jigging and bait rods. They have trolled, they jigged a lot and with bait fishing have handled really big carp and big murry cod without any problems and feel just the same now as they did when I got them. I used them a bunch fishing lead fish for trout and they have never had a problem. Not bad reels for the coin.

That might be even better, use heavy cable or rope attached to a floating 20lt container that has wire going down to a big bait. Shark takes it, fights the float and draws off the other sharks. Then rinse and repeat as needed.

That's a lotta work right there, and done pretty damn well too.

I've still got Abu Garcia Ambassadeur c4 that I have had for 15-16 years now, it's had a few upgrades since then but only because it's been such a reliable reel. I've caught everything from little redfin to some decent 2m and bigger sharks on it and an absolute ton of Barra. They are a very underrated reel, I've given a lot of thought into getting one or two left hand ones.

Definitely interesting, although I think I have a solution to the current shark VS Spanish mackerel problem here although only in a purely hypothetical/theoretical solution. When chasing SM and shark predation is a problem, catch one or two sharks of a legal size, kill them and let them drift off and other sharks should go after them for an easy meal. That helps address the shark population problem and might keep them away from a SM on the hook.

Grabbed my attention when it hit the line only 10 yards out and went for a run. They definitely fight better then the cod do.

My view is buy 1st to force you to use it. What's the saying, if you build it they will come.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

Decent fish for the area, so it's hard to complain about that, but next time put a run of good fish on.

I havent had a problem with any of the Stella's, I have with cheaper shimano's but the flagship range has been flawless IME. All the fish parks I go to run Stella's for their lure rods and bait runners for their bait rods and they definitely take a pounding. Time will tell how these hold up to some big arapima but I should find out by the end of the year fingers crossed.

I'm actually less impressed with the cod then I am the yellow belly, anytime I catch bigger yellows then cod I could it a very good day. I can be a bit weird like that.

I was thinking about adding a Shimano Calcutta Conquest to my line-up. The only problem is I want to get out of baitcasters altogether. The only overhead I want will be my two overhead game rods.

But do the 80k recreational fishermen go out after Spaniards? And of those that do how many catch? Commercial fishermen always harvest more then the recreational fishermen do, they don't have the bag limits, they don't have to use the same methods either. It's just not a fair comparison.

Popped out for a fish today, the going was slow but with a bit of perseverance and switching up methods and fishing styles I managed a beautiful eating 65cm cod on the 3kg rod and a little finesse fishing with a 3" curl tail grub. Then running along the bank with a TN80 twitch fishing managed to bag a very respectable fat 64cm yellow belly. They went 8.5lb for the cod and a very nice 9.2lb for the yellow belly.

I think what matters here is he obviously loves and looks forward to the Spaniards and has put in the time to lean their habits, learn their behaviour and can get onto the schools, then even if the loss rate is so high you can't hold chasing something he loves against him. But what I think you really have to respect is honestly stating how many the sharks take, it would be less controversial to simply say we fished until we got two in the boat and not mentioned the losses.

If you can hook up on 25 in two trips, are there really as few of them as they say? There's heaps of trout near me, but I certainly can't hook up 25 in two outings, not even fishing every day in a week. Maybe heavier gear to pull them in quicker or as mentioned earlier removing a number of sharks might be a help. There's definitely an increase in shark numbers right across Australia and nobody seems to fish for or eat the smaller ones, despite being great fighters and great eating. Whenever there's an increase in one predator then everything else down the food chain suffers. We should do what we can to limit losses for no good reason, but the underlying problem is what we should address. If we don't do something about the growing shark numbers, soon all other fish species will will be next in their sights and then what will we do? The best solution might be commercial harvesting of sharks.

Not really, but the sharks would have eaten 10 fish anyway. You can't not fish for on species just because of the sharks, whatever species you went after would have faced the same odds regardless. That's the cycle of life.

It's actually perfectly safe as they know what they are doing and don't shoot unless it is safe to do so. But if your not used to it then I can imagine it's a bit nerve racking, as people just aren't used to it any more. Growing up in the bush gunshots were as familiar as kookaburras singing, even now in duck season it's legal to shoot on Lake Hume itself. So you can be out trolling the lake or anchored up jigging and there will be people shooting all around you from both boats and on the shore. But nobody ever gets hurt, you just have to get used to the noise.

I'd be tempted to trap a few too eat.