Old Scaley

It was a great game. I watched the highlights from 8am to 10am so got to see most of it without the gaps between balls. Just have to avoid any news until 10am. I reckon watch the cricket but if we lose you will be wishing you went fishing.

I wouldn’t get too excited about Shimano’s 10 year warranty. It only covers defective parts, and you need to follow the maintenance recommendations in the manual. That includes getting the reel serviced regularly and it must be serviced by an authorised Shimano service agent. Wear and tear is not covered, so if your gears or bearings wear out, or you or someone else took the cover off it and put a bit of grease or oil around you won’t be covered. I would be interested to hear if anyone has had a successful warranty claim on a reel more than a couple of years old. Having said all that, Shimano make great reels as do Daiwa so you really can’t go wrong.

Just deep fry them. You could deep fry toe nails and you wouldn’t know what they were. I have tried deep fried insects and they were just crunchy and could have been chips. Or you could just go buy an apple.

Living the dream @tugger. No photo of you floating in a lagoon with a stubbie in your hand?

Some good looking roosters right there @Drop Bear

Congrats on the pb cod, @Dinodadog

Good work lads. I saw the title and thought “Gee, I hope this isn’t another one of those got out of bed at stupid o’clock and didn’t get a bite until 10am” stories. A few good curries in that lot.

Mrs Scaley picked up 2 of these this morning. Quality looks to be at least as good as the Burkes that I bought recently on special at Whitworths for $80 and the Marlin that I paid a lot more for a few years ago. They come with the self-service instructions. And yes, they are blue but have bright yellow bladders. Price is right and I hope never to find out how good they are, but feel confident they will do the job.

Can do mate.

I saw these advertised and thought it looks like a good deal. I have bought heaps of stuff from the Aldi special buys and the quality is usually pretty good (except maybe the electric knife sharpener which turned out to be a bit agricultural). Thinking I might grab one of these as a spare.

Lots of people will have their favourite brand or model of rod, but that doesn’t mean it is the best one for you. Your best bet would be to take your reel to your local tackle shop, tell the sales dude what sort of fishing you do and what your budget is and let him or her select a few from the huge range that is available these days. Put your reel on each one and see how it feels. Most of these guys do know a bit about fishing and they are not generally out to rip you off. BCF has a reasonable range but other than their advertised specials, I don’t think they are any cheaper than other tackle shops and the advise varies depending on which store you are in. Yours may be a good one, but it doesn’t hurt to shop around. You should get a pretty good rod in your price range, but make sure you are happy with it before you commit to buying.

Well angled lads. Made me wish I had said yes, but it was much more exciting pressure washing the neighbours paved areas, washing the fence, mowing the grass etc, etc.

It was funny watching the guy in the 4x4 stopping, then keeping beside you in reverse as you worked your way up the beach. Those choppers were really impressive, the video doesn’t really capture how low and loud they were. Good catch, mate.

Great report @Another Wazza. I think I would need a change of underwear in those winds!

Looks like a nice, neat job, Andrew. You won’t look back now!

@Angry51 you are right - our very own @Drop Bear is a legend. Not much of me in the Landline story (just the way I like it). This is a promotional video that OzFish commissioned to celebrate the launch of the project that will give people who don’t know much about it a great insight into what is happening: https://app.frame.io/reviews/6e565dfa-75bf-4fad-ad0e-ebc489a219e2/8e4e02de-1382-4609-9d45-91eccc49c6c0

Frustrating start but good finish @benno573. Gee @babybenno is growing up fast. She will be begging to go with you soon.

Hi @Kat. Here is my 2 bobs worth. Whiting are not particularly hard fish to catch and they don’t require expensive gear, although good gear is always nice to use so buy the best you can afford. There are a couple of different ways that people fish for whiting: 1. Long, slow rods with reels that hold light nylon, often Alveys. These are fished with a big enough sinker to hold the bottom in a current. The sinker runs freely above the swivel, then a longish nylon or Fluoro trace ending in a small (size 4) baitholder style hook for bloodworms, or a long shank for yabbies. The rod is rested so that it is at a low angle and the rod is not touched until a fish is hooked. The guys who use this approach seem to do really well on the big whiting. The downsides are that most fish will be gut hooked so you will be regularly retying hooks or killing fish that you may have released if they are lip hooked. Personally, though this approach seems to be effective I don’t find it to be very exciting. 2. Using the same rod that you might use for plastics or lure fishing teamed with a smallish spinning reel loaded with light braid. The terminal tackle is the same. I like to keep the rod in my hands most of the time. Sometimes the big whiting will just hit and run, but often the bite is small and tentative. Because this set up doesn’t have the same “give” as the one above, you have to create the “give” by either feeding out line or holding your Rod tip high then lowering it as the fish bites. You might not get as many fish this way, but I find it more exciting and more fish will be lip hooked so easier to release. Each to their own, and either approach will work. If you go with approach 1, you are better to have nylon main line (especially on an Alvey). The secret seems to be patience and not striking too early. Doug Burt has a good YouTube video on gear and techniques. I think it was called “How to catch whiting”. Good luck!

Nice report @AUS-BNE-FISHO. We didn’t fill the esky but the quality was there. See you next school holidays.

And the barra is undersized too. Can only assume that they were released, but if it is on FB I am sure he will be reminded many times. Congrats on the whiting. Might be the start of the run of luck you have been waiting for so long.

Great report as usual @tugger. I was just saying to @ellicat yesterday that I hadn’t been to the eastern side of Fraser for about 30 years and how I had seen a recent YouTube video of a trip someone did there around Christmas time. I could hardly believe the difference. Boardwalks everywhere and so many people and vehicles. You used to be able to go to Eli Creek and be the only ones there and you could go for hours on the surf beaches not seeing another person. I guess now that 4x4s are owned by half the population it was bound to get busier. Still looks beautiful..Thanks for posting.

The info is in this topic. Good luck, and ask any questions you have. There are a lot of people on this site who run electrics.

You should be able to easily mount an electric motor to your tinnie. You will need a plate to mount it on. If there isn’t one there already, you will need to get one welded on. That would be the time to make any adjustments you need to the bowrails. Just make sure you take it to a fabricator who has experience with these sorts of things. Your local Quintrex dealer should be able to recommend someone. I have a Minn Kota iPilot on my tinnie and I love it. Go for the longer shaft so that the prop doesn’t pop out of the water in a bit of chop. I would recommend using a separate battery. You need a deep cycle rather than a cranking battery. Bigger is better. I would also recommend cutting the power cable and connecting Anderson plugs to each end, and adding an Anderson plug to your charger so that you can leave the battery in the boat while charging it. You can get a quick release bracket so that you can take the motor on and off if you need to. I did a post on installing mine. I will find it and add it to this topic.

^^ What he said

Enjoy it mate. No more grinding it out at work on those perfect fishing days. Do it while you can.