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March 2020, Vol. 25 No. 8
Contents BYRON COAST
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The Tweed 30 Ballina 32 Yamba 34 COFFS COAST Coffs Harbour South West Rocks MACQUARIE COAST
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The Hastings 39 Harrington-Taree 41 Forster 42 HUNTER COAST Swansea 43 Port Stephens 44 Hunter Coast 46 Erina 47 SYDNEY Sydney 18 Botany Bay 20 Sydney South 21 The Hawkesbury 22 Sydney Rock and Beach 24 Sydney North 26 Pittwater 28 ILLAWARRA COAST Nowra 52 Illawarra 53 BATEMANS COAST Batemans Bay 56 Moruya 57 Merimbula 57 EDEN COAST
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From the Editor’s Desk... FROM FIRES TO FLOODS You know you live in Australia when you’re driving to a fishing trip through drought and bushfires, and then driving back through floods. There’s nothing abnormal about these two extremes, although it’s rarer for them to happen in consecutive months. Because this is a fishing magazine, you’re not going to get a political rant from me about it – I’ll leave that to the millions of bushfire experts on social media (who are all rapidly morphing into flood experts). You’ll just get an editorial about how the rains usually kick-start a period of solid breeding and recruitment that refreshes our fisheries in years to come. Of course, in a perfect
world we would have plenty of water to end the drought, but not enough to wash all of the stocked fish away from their homes. Still, beggars can’t be choosers and we’ll take what we can get. I think a lot of anglers were concerned about what would happen when some moderate rain washed ash into the rivers. Historically, fish don’t fare too well in
ash-filled catchments. Fortunately, it seems as though a lot of the areas got so much rain that the ash was washed well away. Wherever you are in the state, we hope that your fish benefit from the rain and that you reap the rewards for years to come. A REEL TEST It’s about time we got back into some serious tackle
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testing at Fishing Monthly. We used to do plenty of it, but more recently boat testing has taken up most of our resources. However, we’re getting back into tackle testing, starting with a major test of threadline reels in this issue – ones that cost around $200 and are in the 2500 size. We decided that we needed a broader set of opinions than just the staff here at Fishing Monthly, so we recruited some of our Facebook fans to come and quantify their opinions for us. So a big thanks to our intrepid tackle testers, who you can read about inside. You can also watch the video review on the Fishing Monthly YouTube channel to see the reels being put through their paces.
Bermagui 54 Mallacoota 55 FRESHWATER
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