Phil712z

They discontinued the Squidgy Stealth Prawns as well. I have no idea why - the Tiger Prawn colour was usually sold out every time I looked for them.

Are you sure it actually melted from heat? Sometimes soft plastics will break down into goo if when they're stored they come into contact with a different type of plastic and the chemicals in the two plastics react with each other. Soft plastics are best stored separate from other brands of soft plastics and in their original packaging to prevent this.

The Albright knot is a seriously good knot but you shouldn't really getting busted off at the leader knot - just use a longer leader to allow for several reties of the terminal tackle or lure.

There's definitely freshwater trout fishing locations in NSW and Victoria as well as in Tasmania at places like Falls Creek (Vic) and Lake Jindabyne (NSW). I don't freshwater fish so I don't know too much about it but there's a lot of other locations as well including commercial trout fishing farms. My mate goes fishing at one of those in Oberon which is in the Blue Mountains just west of Sydney.

I'm pretty sure the trout in Australia are the same as in the UK - in Australia we have brown trout which were introduced from the UK and rainbow trout which were introduced from the USA. Rainbow trout were also introduced into the UK and are now established in the rivers and lakes. I don't think we have sea trout like you have in the UK but they're just freshwater brown trout that have headed out to sea and the saltwater river estuaries and undergone a colour change from brown to silver in the process.

I'm on the east coast rather than the west but when I returned to Australia from living in the UK for many years I could only bring back one rod and reel combo on the plane (the rest of my gear was shipped back and wouldn't arrive for a couple of months). To cover me as best as possible for land-based fishing in estuaries around Sydney and the Central Coast until all my gear arrived, I opted for a 9 foot 4-piece 5-9kg travelling rod with a 15-35 gm casting weight and a 4000 size reel with a spare spool. It proved to be a good choice. I mainly fished bait with it but the rod was really designed for fishing lures in the casting range. The main reason I would go for the 9 foot rod rather than a 7 foot rod is that the extra casting distance the longer rod is capable of delivering can be quite useful at some locations. BTW - all these years later even after the rest of my gear getting shipped back and buying a few more rods since then, that 9 foot 4-piece rod I brought back on the plane is still one of my two favourite estuary fishing rods - the other is a 8'6" 2-piece G Loomis with almost exactly the same casting weight and line weight range.

Probably not suitable for every type of rig but for simple leaders they're great.

These neoprene Tronix rig winders are handy for carrying pre-tied rigs around in your tackle bag. You should be able to find them or something very similar online. They're not expensive and saves you having to cut up pool noodles. They're also a bit more secure because of the raised edges. You can use the different colours to colour code your rigs for different line strengths.

I didn't suggest the numbers of dusky flathead were dropping. I was just pointing out that there has been a case of a saltwater fish nearly being fished to extinction. In Canada the cod stocks were reduced to such a low level that even with a total fishing ban being put in place the remaining cod struggled to rebuild their numbers because of the toll that was still taken by natural predation.

They went pretty close to it with the collapse of the Atlantic cod fishery in the Grand Banks in Canada in the early 90's. In 1992 the cod population fell to 1% of historical levels, due mainly to decades of overfishing. Despite a ban on cod fishing being put in place, thirty years later the cod population has still nor recovered to a level where it can be sustainably fished.

The Botany Bay cruise ship terminal was proposed by the previous NSW government which was voted out of power a week ago. Both Bayside Council and Randwick Council are opposed to the proposal as is the state Labor MP for Maroubra, Michael Daley. Hopefully the incoming state Labor government will dump the proposal as it would cause a huge amount of environmental damage to the bay just as the development of Port Botany shipping terminal has done.

Beam trawlers whatever their size cause significant environmental damage to the seabed due to heavy chains on the bottom of the net being dragged across it, resulting in reduced biodiversity and productivity in the habitat. Areas that have been subject to beam trawling will see a substantial reduction in the abundance of animals living on the seabed. Even if a particular area is only trawled once the effects can be long lasting if the fishing occurs in areas which are inhabited by long-lived seabed dwelling species such as oysters and sponges.

Another good tip is to store any reels that are spooled with monofilament line or spare spools of mono line in a dark place such as a drawer or cupboard away from sunlight. Monofilament line will gradually degrade if exposed to sunlight for long periods of time.

Probably the best tip for looking after your reels is to rinse them off under the tap with cold fresh water to remove any salt residue. For conventional reels you should tighten up the drag a bit before rinsing to avoid any water getting into the drag stack. For spinning reels you can just rinse the spool by holding it it with your thumb and finger over the holes in either end to stop water getting into the drag. You can then just leave the reels to dry naturally and when dry wipe them over with an oily rag. When storing reels you should always back off the drag to avoid the drag washers being unnecessarily compressed over long periods of time whilst being stored away. I would also suggest getting some neoprene covers for your reels as it prevents them getting scratched when you're travelling to and from fishing spots. You should also rinse your rods after fishing - I find the easiest way to do this is to hold them under the shower for a couple of minutes. I also make sure I rinse my knives and pliers under the cold water tap every time they're used. If you're using lures it would be a good idea to rinse them as well.