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November, 2019 Fishing Monthly G R O U P

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November 2019, Vol. 25 No.4

Contents BYRON COAST

The Tweed 28 Ballina 30 Yamba 32 COFFS COAST Coffs Harbour South West Rocks MACQUARIE COAST

34 36

The Hastings 38 Forster 40 Harrington-Taree 41 HUNTER COAST Hunter Coast 43 Erina 44 Port Stephens 45 Swansea 46 SYDNEY The Hawkesbury 12 Sydney 13 Sydney Rock and Beach 14 Sydney North 16 Botany Bay 18 Sydney South 20 Pittwater 22 ILLAWARRA COAST Illawarra 52 Nowra 53 BATEMANS COAST Merimbula 54 Narooma 54 Batemans Bay 58 EDEN COAST

From the Editor’s Desk... You don’t have to be a tournament angler to appreciate what Australian bass angler, Carl Jocumsen, achieved on the final event of the American Bassmaster Elite Series last month. I reckon all of Australia knows by now. Carl won USD $100,000 and secured his very first top-level tournament win over there. He’s become an overnight sensation after a lifetime of honing his skills and nine years of hard work in the USA, learning the habits of a fish species that we don’t have in this country. Frankly, his achievement is bordering on ludicrous. Fishing against a seasoned field of full-time professional anglers, Carl has climbed to the top thanks to a combination of sheer determination and his refusal to give up. Tournament fishing in the US is demanding and expensive – there are high

entry fees, a lot of travel and no guaranteed income – so it hasn’t been an easy journey for Carl. God knows how awful the years must have been living out of his truck and cheap motels, trying to scrape the money together to learn his craft. I reckon nearly all of us would have given up after a tough couple of years. Imagine the stress and loneliness on the road, getting beaten down time after time. All this with no friends or family within 20 hours flying time… it was a hard road. If any of you saw the

replays of Carl catching his last fish, you could see the emotions coming out. The tears washing away the stresses that he’d endured over that time. I challenge any angler or sports lover to dismiss the moment as not profound. I watched it unfold live at 2am and was shedding tears with him, and I’m proud to admit that. We met Carl as a teenage angler in 2000. His first ABT cheque was a $500 win for Big Bass at a BASS Electric event at Lake Moogerah. And we love that he has now taken his passion the highest level

possible on the planet. At the time of writing, Carl is getting married to his American fiancée, Kayla. He’s now living the dream – he’s well funded for the next season and is sharing the journey with his life partner. Congratulations on your success, Carl, and we know that it’s built on strong foundations. If you’d like to follow Carl’s progress, check out www.carljocumsen. com. You can also buy a supporter jersey at wp.fishingmonthly.com.au.

Tathra 56 Bermagui 57 Mallacoota 59 FRESHWATER

Sub-Editors: Nicole Penfold Bob Thornton Lucette Eggleton Publishers: Steve Morgan Matthew Drinkall

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Anthony Strati shows off a lurecrunching bream from Sydney Harbour.

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ING TRADE

Bream

Urban breamin’ – conquer the concrete jungle SYDNEY

Anthony Strati

With so many of us living in built-up areas these days, we’re presented

of anglers looking for the same good-sized specimens you’re after. GETTING STARTED If you live in an urban or inner city area and expect to hit the water and nail a big

the ever-reliable advice from old mate on the boat ramp, there is no better time to soak up all the different types of information regarding different fishing techniques and tackle for bream, which

Urban bream fishing is not without its challenges. These fish will use every trick in the book to win their freedom.

This big winter bruiser was hooked just enough to be dragged out from the pylons, thanks to some quick thinking and intelligent rod angling by Brett Habener. with new challenges when trying to fish. Not only are there environmental pressures like re-claimed land and water pollution issues, you also have to deal with huge numbers

fish two seconds in, you had better do the work before you get out there. Research and repetition is key. With the abundance of YouTube videos, magazine articles, forum threads and

Like the pearly gates of heaven! Getting your lure as deep as you can under the boat will have you in the right spot for bream mayhem.

are many anglers’ first fishing experience. Only a few years ago I was a novice to bream fishing in built-up areas, but nowadays I really enjoy it, and I like to share what I have picked up along the way and what has worked for me. Most of the time it’s good to keep your bream fishing techniques fairly simple, but you also need to be prepared for those tough days when you might have to lean on something you’ve seen a mate do or picked up from tournament pros. Everyone has their own style and theories of what works, and this is one of the things that makes fishing so enjoyable. Trying out new techniques and seeing success is always rewarding.

WHERE TO LOOK I live right on the Parramatta River, and when I want to escape the busy rat race of Sydney city, it’s easy to take the boat and go for a bream flick around the Parramatta River and Sydney Harbour. Growing up I was a predominantly a freshwater native fishing enthusiast, so it was enjoyable for me to take on the new challenge of urban bream, which are sometimes finicky and resilient fish. These bream have often seen every type of lure before, and will take some convincing before they make a strike. When you’re urban fishing for bream (or other estuarine species), there is always something new to learn or perhaps even a new way to approach a spot that might not have lived up to your expectations on the first attempt. Just because a spot is productive for another angler, doesn’t mean you’ll easily catch fish there. It’s the little things anglers do differently that could turn an apparently fishless spot into your newest ‘spot x’. Sometimes I have learnt more from fishless sessions than I have on days when

I’ve had a livewell full of sizable fish. Although both these situations have made me a better angler, it’s turning a shutdown bite

rock walls and wharfs. This is great because you can always switch it up and try something new, and it also gives you lots of options

Any bream over 40cm is a prized catch, but when you’ve wrangled it out of 50-year-old wooden structure you value it even more! into a success that is a truly rewarding experience. Sydney Harbour and the Parramatta River are absolutely stacked with bream and are very enjoyable to fish. This system is completely structure dominated, with artificial and natural structure ranging from pontoons to moored boats, mangroves, bridge pylons,

if there’s a crowd or the weather turns foul and you have to look for cover. TECHNIQUES Anyone who has been on my boat knows that I can’t go past throwing lightlyweighted plastics. ZMan or Prolure Grubs are my go-to, either in the bloodworm or motor oil colours on a 1/20 - 1/12oz jighead with a no. 1 light gauge hook.

RINCON

Like the California point break it was named for, the Rincon has a classic West Coast straight bridge, wrapping style lines and edgy curved temples.

GREEN MIRROR: Enhanced vision and contrast for fishing inshore and on flats. • Copper Base • 10% light transmission

NOVEMBER 2019

OPTIMAL USE: • Sight fishing in full sun • High contrast

Sydney is home to some very old artificial structures that have been holding bream for decades.

Bream Throwing plastics into vertical structure is a favourite approach for bream anglers everywhere, and there’s lots of structure like that in urban areas these days. Nothing gets the heart racing for light line fishers

few if you want to play with the big boys! The action and delivery of the lure can change from cast to cast, and on any day you should try a multitude of approaches until something works and you can figure out

Regardless of the time of year though, it’s important to adjust to variables such as the weather, tide and current. You can also do research on which spots turn on in different conditions. Being versatile like this is key to

There’s a lot of potential in this shot – old timber, early morning and hungry bream ready to steal your lures. like being connected to a brute deep in structure with your rod bent to the cork, and thinking, “Am I going to land this?” If we’re being honest, you’ll probably lose more of those battles than you’ll win. Still, there’s no glory in owning lures, and you have to be willing to donate a

a pattern. This is particularly important in winter, when the fish aren’t as keen to bite. In winter I slow my lure action right down and work on adapting my approach to the situation, and I have found this to work very well. As the weather warms up, I will adjust my fishing style accordingly.

being a successful angler; it’s the difference between getting a livewell full of fish or the dreaded donut. HOW LONG SHOULD I WAIT? If you’ve seen underwater footage of bream you’ll often notice that the bigger, smarter fish hang around at the bottom of the

schools. For that reason, you want to keep your plastic hard on the bottom if you want to dodge the undersize models and catch the better quality fish. It’s not unusual for me to let my plastic or crab imitation sit on the bottom for 10-20 seconds before I even start to work it off the bottom. Most of the hook-ups come during the long pause on the bottom where the tail on the grub is doing its thing or just as I’ve given it a twitch off the bottom. One of the biggest bream I’ve ever caught in Sydney Harbour was when I cast, let my plastic sink and realised I had to tie my shoe while the plastic was on its way to the bottom. By the time I had pulled tight on the bow, the rod was buckled and I was on! No fancy technique, just let the lure sink and sit naturally. It was enough to bring big blue-nose bream undone. Maybe I should pay less attention more often! TIMES AND TIDES Some of my favourite spots work better on the run-in and some work better on the run-out tide – it’s all about learning the ground you’re fishing. The next time you go fishing the flats for bream, fish on a very calm day with no wind and then try the same

Cranking around broken rock areas between housing estates can provide awesome results. Look for slack water areas and get your lure in there. This fish took a Jackall Chubby. spot with some wind. Wind on the flats can really turn the bite on, and long casts across the wind on the flats can produce solid fish. I usually run a shallow crank for flats fishing, or a dark coloured plastic if there is a lot of weed. Fishing an area with zero wind is particularly difficult if you’re trying to tempt bream on surface lures. Even the slightest breeze can create enough ripple to disguise your lure and convince the fish that it’s a fleeing prawn with a ‘Hi, my

name is Dinner’ sticker on it. On those times where a small amount of rain has fallen the night before a planned trip, I have had more success. My theory is that the water pushing through drains that lead into the river and harbour systems brings a change to the bream’s diet. Swapping from my normal grub style lure to a creature bait can be the difference between a donut and a photo that makes me Instafamous for a day! To page 10

NOVEMBER 2019

BLACK MAGIC

MASTER CLASS

W I T H PA U L L E N N O N

Kingfish: reigning in the royal tackle busters When it comes to fish that pull hard, kingfish are right up there with the most brutal line-busting and tackle-destroying thing that swims. While they can grow in excess of 50kg, anything over 10kg is hard work and with anything over 20kg you are in some serious trouble, no matter what gear you’re fishing with. They have a wide distribution. They can be caught by anglers fishing 200m or more of water and at the same time by land-based anglers inside bays and estuaries. Their fighting quality coupled with their willingness to eat anything from live baits to surface lures and jigs, make them an exciting prospect and accessible to practically all saltwater anglers. Perhaps the most challenging environment to catch them in is the shallow reefs in less then 30m of water. In these places they seem to know every little feature of the reef and will beeline straight towards the most gnarly drop-off or bommie

move in. Then, position the boat so your baits will drift back towards likely kingfish territory. Prime examples of areas you should be looking for is places like offshore islands and headlands with shallows bays or coves holding garfish or close by shallow bommie reefs or points holding schools of baitfish. For this style of live baiting I prefer to use a slimy mackerel or yellowtail as bait, as they tend to quickly take the float into the strike zone, more than a squid or garfish would. They also tend to move back and forth slowly, which means they will cover a lot more ground for you. I generally run two rods when fishing this method, one with a bait suspended around 1m under the float and the other around 5m under to cover the water column. The slimy is gently pinned just behind the head and above the lateral line with a single Black Magic KS hook in a 7/0-8/0, depending on bait size. I use 80-100lb fluorocarbon leader to 80lb braid on a 20,000 size reel with a stack of drag over it to have any chance of stopping the larger fish. For

When kings get to this size, it takes serious effort to land them.

As you’re trolling, try to systematically cover the ground you’re fishing and pay close attention to your sounder for schools of baitfish and keep an eye out for bust ups or bird activity. Anywhere that looks like there is a bit of action should be given looping and zig-zagging passes through until you a satisfied the area has been sufficiently worked. With both of the above methods, it can often pay to have a couple of casting spin rods rigged and ready with a stickbait or popper. You never know when or where that big bust up will happen, and sometimes it can be right next to the boat or

gives you a good chance of finding the fish. It also gives you the ability to use the boat as an aid to try drag a fish away from structure, or to drive on top of it to cut the line angle down, limiting the chance of a bust off. When fishing this way I use the same leader and braid size as previously mentioned, but bridle rig my live baits through the nose, which allows them to swim freely and last much longer while being towed. The KS range is

Even small kings pull like trains!

Once you’re hooked up, the fight is on. in a bid to stream roll you. Without a doubt the most effective method to catch kings, especially the big ones, is live baiting. Depending on where you’re fishing and what you’re using, there are a few different approaches. If you are fishing shallow reefs in 5-10m, an effective technique is to suspend and drift baits under a float and drift them back with the wind or current. Spend a bit of time before you anchor working out what direction your baits are going to 24

NOVEMBER 2019

this style of fishing, you can’t skimp on gear, as any weakness will quickly be found by a hoodlum king. The KS range of hooks will never let you down, being super strong and razor sharp. Black Magic fluorocarbon trace will give you the best chance of surviving the often unavoidable contact with the reef from a big king. The other very popular method that you can use in this depth of water and deeper to around 25m, is to slow troll live baits around the same kind of environments. This covers lots of ground, and

again perfect for this style of fishing, with size depending on bait size. The only exception to this is when I run live squid or cuttlefish, which are lethal on kingfish. For these, two 6/0-10/0 KS hooks snelled together with one entering where the body meets the head and exiting through the underside of the head section, and the other, which takes all the weight and strain, is placed through the last few centimetres at the rear of the squid. I like to run two rods

when fishing like this, with the boat just in gear. I have one around 15m behind the boat and the other around 30m, with one completely unweighted and the other with added weight to get a little deeper. This can be easily done by attaching a sinker with an elastic band around 1.5m up your leader. The size of the sinker will depend on the depth as well as current, so use anything from a number 3-10 sized snapper lead. A downrigger is another great option, especially when you get deeper than 20m.

Squid are one of the best king baits available.

within casting distance, but can often be all over by the time you get a bait to it. The key is having a rod rigged and ready to deploy in a matter of seconds when this opportunity presents itself. Simply blind casting around is also worth a try. The surface activity created from a popper or stickbait while at anchor, or on the troll, can often rev-up shut down fish. While it’s not hard to do while at anchor, to do it while trolling requires an extra angler constantly throwing a surface lure on a forward angle ahead of the boat. I’ve had a lot of success doing this using the Ocean Born range of surface lures, especially the Flying Poppers in both the sinking and floating variants. These are the perfect size to represent a slimy mackerel or yellowtail, which are both the staple of a kingy’s diet. The green mackerel and bunker are perfect colours to match the hatch and the lures themselves are easy to work. They also come pre-rigged with 6X strong treble hooks, so they are up to the task straight out of the box.

the best by test...

Robert Bigg, 50lb Tough Trace KLT® 7/0 bottom hook, C Point 7/0 top hook, snelled rig, fresh squid strip bait, 80cm mulloway from Glenelg River.

Leigh Holtsbaum, 20lb Tough Fluorocarbon & KS 5/0 hooks, 122cm kingﬁsh caught off the Gold Coast.

Peter Flor, Snatcher® ‘KL 8/0 Original’, 12.4kg snapper, caught off the Gold Coast.

Kharis Liantro, KS 7/0 hooks, 12kg kingﬁsh, Sydney.

Paternoster rig, with strong long shank hooks, 15lb ﬂuorocarbon & red lumo tube / beads. Sizes 4, 6 & 8.

Rafﬁ Bicakcian, DX Point® 5/0 hook and 30lb Tough Fluorocarbon, 8.1kg, 98cm snapper, caught off Sydney on a cuttleﬁsh strip bait.

Follow @blackmagictackle on Facebook and Instagram to see the latest catches and enter in our competitions.

Diego Gadea, Sandy Snatcher® Size 8. “This rig is great, especially when you need to strike.”

Check out our range and ﬁnd a stockist at:

www.blackmagictackle.com

What’s NeW FIshING Storm BiScay minnow and Shad 1 Designed with long casting and fast winding in mind, but still at home fished slowly in shallow and deepwater situations, the 360GT Coastal Biscay Minnow features a slim, supple body rigged to a tapered jighead with a fixed hook. An additional chin eyelet gives the option of adding an assist hook or blade. The weighted head and body combination allow you to cast further and fish deeper, and the paddle-tail kicks with lifelike action and incredible vibration, even at slow speeds. The Storm 360GT Biscay Shad swims with a particularly realistic action compared to most other baits. The super supple body is fixed to the head by a free-swinging screw and VMC hook that rest perfectly hidden within the soft body’s weedless channel system. When attacked, the body collapses and the large hook gape is exposed for a clean hook-up. Every 360GT Coastal Biscay is extremely visually detailed with each body perfectly matched to its own jighead with a heavyduty VMC hook. Bodies are also sold separately. www.stormfishing.com.au

daiwa tierra Lt

The Daiwa Tierra has a long history of delivering class-leading performance at a great price, and the latest version, the Tierra LT, is no exception. An alloy body is where it all starts, with its rigid construction unyielding in the heat of battle. Highly resistant to corrosion and flexing, the alloy body is the foundation of the Tierra LT and its dominance as an ultimate saltwater reel. The Tierra LT boasts many innovative, performance-enhancing features, including new LT Concept, Tough Digigear, and a new Long Cast ABS spool. The Tierra LT is also gifted with a host of Daiwa’s tried and true technologies, including Air Rotor, ATD drag, CRBB bearings, EVA Knob, and Wire Bail. With striking blue livery, the Tierra LT excels whether you’re drifting baits for whiting or hopping plastics for snapper. It’s available in six deep spool sizes from 2000D to 6000D, and you can find out more at Daiwa Australia’s new website. www.daiwafishing.com.au

Lumica Puni ika Squid

Lumica Japan has released two new soft plastic squid: the 90mm Puni Ika Squid X-Wing and the 65mm Lumica Puni Ika Squid Wave. Both are built to hold a light, to provide maximum attraction. These realistic new squid imitations have been designed, developed and made in Japan. They feature an ultra-tough 10X material that is strong and stretchy. The Squid’s tantalising action is irresistible to any predatory fish that feeds on squid, cuttlefish or octopus, and the supple plastic is scent impregnated. A rigging slot makes rigging a breeze, whether you’re using a standard jighead, hidden weight or worm hook. The final key feature is a second slot that allows the angler to insert a Kemihotaru 25mm light inside the body to allow it to glow for added attraction.

NOVEMBER 2019

Product Guide

BROUGHT TO YOU BY

The Puni Ika Squid X-Wing and Puni Ika Squid Wave are available now in packs of three. www.jurofishing.com

BLack magic gift Pack

Black Magic’s gift pack range has always offered anglers a well-chosen selection of quality tackle for their specific style of fishing but equally, they provide excellent value for money. Now the range has a new entrant: the Freshwater Gift Pack. As the name suggests, this pack targets the freshwater fisheries around Australia, but the tackle is also suited to most estuaries. Included in the pack are some of Black Magic’s tried-and-true favourite lures like the BMax bibbed lures, the Spinsect and the Enticer. Also included are their latest spinning lures – the Spinmax and the Rattle Snack. Top this off there’s a Black Magic beanie and some Deception leader, giving you the perfect range of freshwater gear to get you started. www.blackmagictackle.com

daiwa J-thread nyLon

J-Thread Nylon is Daiwa’s newest addition to the J-Thread family of premium Japanese fishing line. Like all J-Family products, J-Thread Nylon is made in Japan from the finest raw materials to deliver a monofilament line that is extremely supple, with outstanding shock resistance and knot strength. J-Thread Nylon has been designed for the Australian market, where the use of straightthrough nylon monofilament line is still popular, especially along the coasts where beach fishing is prominent. J-Thread Nylon is clear in colour, and comes parallel spooled to further reduce memory, aiding in long smooth casting and tangle free use. Daiwa J-Thread Nylon is available in 6lb through to 40lb line weights in 300m spools, and 50lb in a 250m spool. Price: SRP $19.99-$24.99 www.daiwafishing.com.au

aLvey orBiter SPinning reeL

Alvey side cast reels have been manufactured for 100 years to best practice standards, and they are still as tough and durable as they ever have been. For the last two years Alvey has been running an R&D program to expand its range of products, spending over $1 million to ensure it continues to produce the very best tackle. To this end, Alvey has launched the Orbiter range of spinning reels. There are four models, SR60, SR80, SR100 and the SR200, and they have the kind of durability we’ve come to expect from Alvey. The reels are a dream to use with 9+1 stainless steel ball bearings, 5.8:1 ratio and excellent line capacity. The drag strength is incredible, and the large handle knob makes commanding the fish a breeze. Of course, the legendary side casts are still king of the beach, but these reels are set to become king of the estuaries, flats, bays and reefs! They are a must for Alvey brand lovers and spinning reel enthusiasts. Orbiter reels can be pre-ordered at Alvey authorised retailers or on www.alvey.com.au, and will be in store from December 2019. Price: SRP $199-$289 www.alvey.com.au

visit www.tacklejunkie.fish for the latest tackle news - AS IT HAPPENS!

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PRODUCT GUIDE

WHAT’S NEW FISHING

BROUGHT TO YOU BY

BLUEWATER SINKING 7 STICKBAITS 7

The new Floating and Sinking stickbaits from the popular Bluewater stable are built tough to take on the most ferocious predators when targeting bluewater species, including giant trevally, tuna, tarpon and more. The Sinking Stickbait weighs in at 98g, which is ideal to cast or troll for pelagics. Like the Floating Stickbait, this lure is hand crafted using a super clear hand-poured resin, and features a heavy-duty wirethrough construction to withstand attacks from the hardest-hitting brutes of the ocean. You can find more information on the range at the JM Gillies website, or for the latest news, catch photos and competitions, check them out on Facebook (facebook.com/jm.gillies) or follow them on Instagram (@jm.gillies). www.jmgillies.com.au

RAPALA RIPSTOP DEEP

The new Rapala RipStop Deep tail design creates a fast ripping, hard stopping, flashing swimbait action. The RipStop Deep’s forward motion stops on a dime, with a subtle shimmy before coming to a rest. Then it ever-soslightly lifts its head with a super slow rise. You just cast and wind, wind and stop, twitch, rip and suspend. The Rapala RipStop Deep is currently available in 10 colours, weighs 15g and has a swimming depth from 1.2m to 2.4m. It is the ultimate bait for a range of species and fishing scenarios, from large flathead on the flats to barramundi deep in cover, and it’s available now in all good tackle stores. For more information check out the Rapala Australia website or Like them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/rapala. australia. www.rapala.com.au

SHIMANO SPEEDMASTER LD II 9

Compact lever drag overheads with dual gears and castability — the new Shimano SpeedMaster Lever Drag II are multi-purpose reels that will slot right in to a number of offshore fishing scenarios. There are two sizes to choose from — a 12 and a 16 — and both feature Hagane gearing in two speed ratios (5.7:1 dropping down to 3.1:1), with the lower gear being handy when you have to bust a fish out of a deep-sounding mindset. Line capacities are 350m and 440m of 10kg nylon respectively, which increases dramatically if you spool up with fine diameter braid. Being a lever drag, they are also versatile enough to fish a variety of line classes and drag settings, with a maximum drag power of 18kg, which is a lot for a little reel. The single piece Hagane Body means the stresses and strains associated with higher drag settings keeps all internals in perfect alignment and meshing smoothly, assisted by the presence of four SA-RB bearings. The SpeedMaster’s S Concept Design is reminiscent of Shimano’s Talicas, and increased corrosion resistance will have them looking good for years to come. And on top of all this the new SpeedMasters are also highly castable, which is excellent versatility for a lever drag overhead. Price: SRP $399.95-$419.95 www.shimanofish.com.au

HALCO SLIDOG 125

ZMAN 2.75” TRD BUGZ

VENOM OCEAN GLADIATOR

The new Slidog 125 joins Halco’s stickbait pack just under the Slidog 150, and is sure to bark just as loud! Featuring the same highly versatile action that attracts beasts from the deep, the 125 is packed into a compact body profile that will be applicable in countless shallow and midwater situations. The lure is in its element being belted out over bubbling bait schools to entice pelagics at pace, and is just as deadly being slowly twitched amongst shallow bommies, terrorizing territorial coral trout and spangled emperor populations. Featuring the ever-reliable 1/0 Mustad trebles and Halco’s ultra tough 4xx fish rings, the Slidog 125 is equipped to fight well above its weight class. The lure is 125mm long and weighs in at 52g, allowing for epic castability with a medium casting outfit, inevitably covering more ground and finding more fish. www.halcotackle.com

The ZMan 2.75” TRD BugZ are a deadly finesse presentation for bream, bass, flathead, redfin, trout and loads more, rigged standard, weedless or combined with a TT Lures NedlockZ jighead as part of the Ned Rig system. TRD BugZ feature the texture, ribbing and appendages to represent many different aquatic and terrestrial creatures that make up the diet of a variety of fresh and saltwater species. Additional features include a hook pocket for easy weedless rigging and two larger ‘claws’ and two offset smaller ‘claws’ that come to life thanks to ZMan’s super-soft and flexible, naturally buoyant ElaZtech material. As well as a deadly finesse soft plastic presentation, TRD BugZ also make an excellent skirted jig trailer, making them a versatile addition to your soft plastics arsenal. TRD BugZ are available in eight colours (bloodworm, greasy prawn, hot craw, hot snakes, motor oil, mud bug, the deal and watermelon red) in packs of six. Price: SRP $11.95 www.z-man.com.au

The team at Venom Rods has designed a series of rods to take on the biggest predators in the ocean: the Ocean Gladiator series. There are four rods in the range: a 15kg slick butt stroker, a 24kg slick butt stroker, a 36kg slick butt stroker and a 60kg bent butt stand-up rod for when things are getting serious! All rods in the range feature ALPS Zirconium guides that are constructed from SS316 anti-rust stainless in a onestamp finish to increase strength and reduce weight. The rods also make use of the ALPS CAH reel seat, a reel seat that is built from marine grade aluminium and presents with a locking centre hood and a newly designed hexagon locking nut for the ultimate in reel security. The Venom Ocean Gladiator series is built on the high modulus Venom blank, which provides incredible lightness and unparalleled strength. This ensures that while fighting a fish, the angler is not unnecessarily fatigued from fighting the weight of the outfit, and can concentrate on using the strength in the Venom blank to dictate terms to the most stubborn of fish. www.wilsonfishing.com

Please email contributions to: nicole@fishingmonthly.com.au NOVEMBER 2019

WHAT’S NEW FISHING

TESTED

PRODUCT GUIDE

BROUGHT TO YOU BY

New arrivals from Yamashita are set to make their mark

Who doesn’t love targeting squid, whether it’s off the rocks, on the boat or a local jetty? Chasing them is on my to-do list on nearly every boating adventure, and I love to adapt with new techniques to get more strikes. New technologies are always developing, and they can change your ideas of how these animals hunt. Yamashita has updated its popular Egi Oh Live Search 490 Glow and Egi Oh K jig ranges, and earlier this year I decided to try them out. The Live Search 490 now has new colours and a tin sinker, and the Egi Oh K now has shallow and super shallow versions and new UV glow colours (called ‘keimura’ in Japanese). I’ve been using Yamashita jigs for a number of years and have found them to be reliable producers, and I wanted to find out whether these new models made a difference or if I should stick with the originals. The results were interesting. FIELD TESTING For both jigs I used a Shimano Zodias 6’8 3-5kg rod paired with 8lb braid and 10lb fluorocarbon leader on a Shimano Stradic 2500 ci4 reel. For this kind of

fishing your rod needs to have some give and flex for the action that’s needed to get the jigs moving around. I tied on the Egi Oh Live Search 490 first. The colour range is excellent, and I decided to start with the orange colour. Although the 490 picked up squid throughout the day, it really came into its own for those first light squid that were actively hunting their prey. The jig’s 600Hz rattle and glow, coupled with a sharp darting action, was deadly. However, when the squid were a bit flighty and wary, the 490’s sound/rattle tended to spook them. In that situation, I replaced the 490 with my old Egi Oh Live jig without the rattle, and sometimes dropped down a size if the conditions allowed. While I definitely will keep the 490 as my go-to for when the squid are actively feeding, I will continue to rely on my quiet jigs in most situations. The second product I tested was the Egi Oh K, which has a rear hydro fin for better stability on the sink. I selected the purple colour and tried it on a day when the conditions were a bit rougher, which is when you need a jig with a steady, natural sink rate. Squid can be easily put off by an unnatural looking bait. The Egi Oh K’s unique rear fin helped to create a natural flutter as the jig dropped down. As the day progressed

NOVEMBER 2019

and I was faced with some choppy seas and a howling southerly off South Head in Sydney, the K secured some great live baits in the nasty conditions. This model is available in sizes 2.5, 3.0, and 3.5, in regular, shallow and super shallow versions. My favourite colours are gold tape, red tape and UV body. All in all, I found the Live Search 490 and Egi Oh K to be simple to use, easy to cast and very responsive to the smallest amount of action you create by whipping or lifting the rod. They’re simple enough for the novice squid fisher and technical enough for the more advanced. I matched these with long 6’8”-7’ foot rods to really allow me to whip the jigs around. You want a fair amount of give in your rods for when a big squid decides to start pulling some drag! When it comes to the price, these jigs are middle of the range, and are great quality for the price. They retail from $15$20 at most stores, and their high quality and clever design makes them significantly more effective than cheap jigs. Overall, I have been very impressed with the continuous innovation in Yamashita’s squid jigs. If you’re looking to target a new PB calamari or just want to try out this exciting form of fishing, I highly recommend them. You can view the full range at www. ejtodd.com.au. – Ben O’Brien

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2019 2019 Local Time

SYDNEY (FORT DENISON) – NEW SOUTH WALES SYDNEY (FORT DENISON) – LONG NEW SOUTH WALES LAT 33° 51’ S 151° 14’ E

LAT 33° 51’ S LONG 151° 14’ E Times and Heights of High and Low Waters Times and Heights of High and Low Waters MARCH FEBRUARY JANUARY SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER Time m Time m Time Time m Time m Time m

Time

1 1 0329 0936 TU

SU 1531 2150

2 2

0414 1025 WE MO 1627 2241

3 3 0500 1115 TH

TU 1725 2333

4 4

0545 1207 FR WE 1827

m 0541 0.08 1208 1.64 1759 0.22 2358 1.91 0633 0.14 1310 1.66 1857 0.26 1.77 0044 0.23 0720 1.65 1400 0.34 1947 1.59 0127 0.34 0803 1.63 1445 0.42 2032

Time m 0441 1.47 1.57 0.35 0.67 0.58 0318 1100 1.49 1.28 1.33 0926 WE 1652 0.42 0.53 MO 1523 2300 TU 0.50 2135 1.57 0536 1.57 1.63 0.38 0.58 0.52 0348 1208 1.51 1.30 1.30 1000 TH 1800 0.45 0.50 TU 1601 2355 WE 2210 1.50 0630 1.69 0.51 0.42 0.45 1.69 0419 1309 1.52 1.34 0.47 1036 FR 1902 WE 1644 0.48 TH 1.30 2248 1.41 0048 0.46 0.52 0.47 1.82 1.73 0452 0722 1.52 0.33 0.42 1115 SA 1403 0.52 1.39 TH 1730 1959 FR 1.31 2330 1.32 0141 0.40 0.52 0.53 1.93 1.76 0530 0814 1.50 0.22 0.39 1159 SU 1455 0.56 1.45 FR 1823 2052 SA 1.32

1 1 0341 0959 FR

16 16 17 17

6 6

0130 0725 SU FR 1403 2051

7 7 0243 0826 MO

SA 1509 2206

8 8

0400 0932 TU SU 1615 2311

9 9

0506 1036 WE MO 1714

1.58 2114 0.50 0245 1.26 0920 0.56 1600 1.54 2152 0.55 0323 1.16 0957 0.63 1635 1.52 2230 0.55 0400 1.13 1031 0.66 1710 1.52 2306 0.52 0437 1.17 1107 0.64 1745 1.55 2344

1615 2222

2 2

18 18

0424 1045 SA 1711 2315

3 3 0508 1134 SU

19 19

0207 1.41 20 5 5 0844 0.46 20 1523

0029 0632 SA TH 1302 1935

Time

1324 2025

1529 2233

1638 2333

0541 1111 FR 1739

10 10

11 11 0042 0639 FR

11 11 0139 0745 MO

WE 1217 1844

12 12 0117 0715 SA TH 1258 1920

13 13 0149 0749 SU FR 1335 1955

14 14 0219 0821 MO SA 1410 2028

15 15 0249 0853 TU SU 1446 2100

0.60 1.59 0024 0.43 0559 1.29 1220 0.55 1900 1.62 0107 0.39 0645 1.34 1300 0.50 1940 1.65 0156 0.36 0736 1.39 1345 0.46 2024 1.66 0247 0.34 0836 1.43 1439 0.43 2113 1.65 0344 0.34 0945 1.47 1542 0.42 2205 1.62

26 26 1.31

0210 1.51

0103 0710 SU 1258 1913

1339 1950

0.17 0.54 0211 27 0812 12 0.66 0045 12 0818 27 1.52 1.51 1.53 0650 SU 1416 TU FR 1241 0.50 1901 1.32 0.70 0130 1.44 0738 MO SA 1334 0.53 1952 1.34 0.73 0215 1.37 0824 TU SU 1427 0.54 2042 1.39 0.72 0258 1.31 0911 WE MO 1520 0.55 2131

0.30 2041 1.90 0308 0.11 0921 1.63 1518 0.21 2134 1.91 0410 0.09 1037 1.71 1628 0.17 2230 1.86 0511 0.13 1152 1.77 1740 0.17 2327 1.76 0608 1256 TH 1843

28 28 29 29

30 30 31

1.62 2131 0.47 0306 1.19 0936 0.65 1610 1.54 2205 0.53 0343 1.13 1010 0.72 1642 1.48 2239 0.55 0419 1.13 1044 0.73 1713 1.45 2314 0.53 0457 1.18 1118 0.70 1745 1.47 2349

18 18 SA 1230 1.35 1909 0.51 1.74 0111 0.37 0647 WE SU 1321 1.38 2012 0.50 1.74 0215 0.37 0749 TH MO 1424 1.39 2124 0.50 1.71 0330 0.38 0903 FR TU 1535 1.40 2233 0.51 1.67 0445 0.41 1022 SA WE 1648 1.41 2334 0.54 1.60 0547 0.44 1131 SU TH 1752

20 20

21 21 22 22

23 23

SA 1416 0.45 2026 1.50 0.61 0241 1.36 0850 WE SU 1453 0.53 2100 1.51 0.63 0310 1.25 0922 TH MO 1530 0.59 2135 1.54 0.61 0339 1.21 0954 FR TU 1607 0.61 2211 1.58 0.57 1.21

13 13

14 14

15 15

0.65 1.50 0029 0.45 0619 1.33 1230 0.58 1854 1.53 0111 0.41 0707 1.41 1313 0.51 1932 1.56 0159 0.38 0802 1.47 1402 0.46 2018 1.57 0253 0.36 0909 1.53 1505 0.42 2115 1.56 0355 0.36 1028 1.58 1621 0.39 2220 1.53 0500 0.38 1144 1.62 1741 0.38 2328 1.49

1.41 0.58 0027 1.52 0640 MO FR 1233 0.48 1848 1.42 0.63 0115 1.43 0728 TU SA 1330 0.53 1942 1.43 0.66 0200 1.34 0815 WE SU 1425 0.57 2032 1.45 0.67 0243 1.27 0900 TH MO 1517 0.60 2123 1.49 0.64 0326 1.23 0946 TU 1610 0.60 2214 1.57 0.56 0408 1.25 1032 WE 1702 0.57 2304

25 25 26 26

27 27 28 28 29 30

31 0450 1117

m 0537 0.52 1230 1.76 1827 0.37 2358

m Time m 0432 1.60 1.51 0.53 0.52 0.60 0454 1124 1.77 1.27 1.19 1125 SA 1730 0.37 0.63 SA 1805 2310 SU 0.69

0049 0618 SA 1251 1946

3 3 0146 0709 SU 1342 2046

0.33 2.01 0249 0.13 0809 MO 1.61 1.57 MO 1440 2128 0.48 2145 0315 0.28 1.22 2.04 0356 0941 0.63 0.10 0919 1614 TU 1.58 1.62 TU 1545 2216 0.51 2242 0408 0.26 1.18 2.01 0457 1030 0.67 0.13 1030 1659 WE 1.55 1.65 WE 1649 2305 0.49 2331 0501 0.28 1.19 1.91 0547 1120 0.68 0.20 1134 1744 TH 1.56 1.65 TH 1745 2354 0.44 0556 0.33 1.26 1.76 0015 1210 0.63 0.31 0630 1828 FR 1.61 FR 1228 1832 0.36 0043 1.63 1.37 0.42 0052 0652 0.54 1.58 0709 1300 SA 1.69 0.43 SA 1314 1912 1915 0134 1.59 0.27 0.51 0126 0753 1.50 1.41 0744 1353 SU 0.42 0.54 SU 1355 1958 1954 1.75 0229 1.55 0.21 0.59 0158 0900 1.63 1.27 0817 1452 MO 0.31 0.64 MO 1434 2048 1.77 2031 0329 1.51 0.18 0.64 0230 1013 1.74 1.18 0851 1603 TU 0.23 0.70 TU 1513 2149 1.75 2110 0434 1.50 0.19 0.64 0301 1127 1.83 1.16 0926 1720 WE 0.18 0.72 WE 1552 2256 1.68 2149

6 6 7 7

1.66 0.46 0051 1.19 0720 0.71 1400 1.56 1958 0.52 0135 1.16 0800 0.76 1435 1.47 2033 0.56 0215 1.17 0837 0.78 1507 1.42 2106 0.56 0250 1.22 0912 0.76 1538 1.41 2138 0.53 0326 1.30 0945 0.71 1608 1.42 2210

SU 1212 1859 0.65 1.60 0103 0.49 0634 MO MO 1304 1.32 1959 0.59 1.64 0207 0.44 0737 TU TU 1405 1.38 2103 0.54 1.68 0316 0.41 0849 WE WE 1513 1.43 2206 0.50 1.70 0424 0.39 1005 TH TH 1623 1.47 2303 0.47 1.70 0523 0.38 1116 FR FR 1729 1.50 2355 0.46 1.67 0616 0.39 1222 SA SA 1828 1.53

18 18 19 19

20 20 21 21

22 22

0401 0.49 23 8 8 1019 1.38 23 1638

9 9

10 10 11 11

12 12

13 13

0.24 1.87 0.18 1.58 0.32 1.87 0.22 1.47

0.42 1.83 TH 1755 0.29 2356 1.36

14 14 0336 1002 TH TH 1633 2232

15 15 0413 1042 FR FR 1717 2317

0.64 2243 1.45 0439 0.46 1054 1.47 1708 0.56 2317 1.46 0518 0.43 1130 1.55 1740 0.49 2354 1.47 0601 0.41 1208 1.62 1814 0.43 1.47 0034 0.41 0648 1.69 1251 0.39 1852 1.45 0120 0.42 0744 1.74 1343 0.35 1939 1.42 0215 0.45 0850 1.78 1447 0.34 2038 1.38 0319 0.48 1008 1.79 1609 0.35 2154 1.34

0.47 1.63 0044 0.41 0705 SU SU 1322 1.55 1923 0.49 1.57 0129 0.45 0753 MO MO 1417 1.56 2016 0.52 1.49 0213 0.50 0839 TU TU 1510 2108 1.56 0.56 0255 1.40 0925 WE WE 1600 0.56 2158 1.55 0.60 0338 1.31 1009 TH TH 1648 0.62 2247 1.54 0.62 0420 1.24 1053 FR FR 1736 0.67 2335 1.55 0.60 0503 1.22 1136 SA SA 1824 0.68

24 24 25 25

26 26 27 27 28 28

29 29

30 30

31 SU

Time

1 1 0024 0547 MO

16 16

0542 0633 1.55 1.29 1.26 0.54 0008 17 2 1230 1320 2 1916 0.58 0.62 17 1.26 0541 SU 1836

17 17

0536 0.50 9 24 9 1153 1.26 24 1818 0023 0630 SA 1209 1830

0516 0.48 10 25 10 1143 1.22 25 1821 0001 0558 TH TU 1131 1802

1849

5 5

8 8

24 24

1 1 0533 1203 FR

16 16

5 5 0111 0646 TU

7 7 0437 1001 TH

23 23

Time

4 4

0010 0554 MO 1227 1915

6 6 0322 0849 WE

22 22

Time m 0603 1.69 0.61 0.41 0.43 1.62 0410 1250 1.65 1.32 0.51 1029 SA 1848 WE 1646 0.39 FR 1.24 2249 1.43 0030 0.50 0.59 0.45 1.81 1.66 0442 0702 1.66 0.31 0.46 1105 SU 1346 0.41 1.41 TH 1729 1945 SA 1.28 2330 1.36 0128 0.41 0.56 0.50 1.93 1.70 0518 0757 1.64 0.20 0.41 1145 MO 1438 0.44 1.50 FR 1815 2038 SU 1.32

0222 0230 0.53 1.29 1.30 1.73 0016 19 4 0901 0849 4 1537 0.55 19 0.57 0.39 0559 TU 1527

0.52 0233 0.36 1.24 2.02 1.77 0021 0905 0.59 0.14 0.37 0615 MO 1545 1.49 1.49 SA 1249 2145 SU 1.32 1927 0.59 0.53 0326 0.32 1.17 2.07 1.77 0124 0956 0.64 0.10 0.37 0711 TU 1635 1.49 1.52 MO SU 1351 2236 1.32 2043 0.57 0.54 0419 0.32 1.15 2.05 1.75 0241 1047 0.65 0.12 0.38 0822 WE 1724 1.53 1.53 TU MO 1501 2328 1.32 2159 0.50 0.56 0514 0.34 1.19 1.98 1.72 0400 1138 0.61 0.17 0.41 0938 TH 1813 WE TU 1612 1.61 1.31 2302 0.39 0.59 0020 1.53 1.28 0.39 1.67 0506 0610 0.52 1.85 0.44 1046 FR 1229 1.72 0.26 WE 1715 1901 TH 2356 0.27 1.31 0114 1.52 1.40 0.47 0.62 0600 0708 0.41 1.68 1.60 1145 SA 1321 1.83 0.36 FR TH 1810 1950 0.47

21 21

1810

m 0020 0.20 0700 1.78 1346 0.21 1935 1.61 0108 0.31 0745 1.76 1428 0.29 2018 1.45 0151 0.43 0824 1.70 1503 0.38 2056

Local Time APRIL DECEMBER Time Time m

1218 1911

1.70 0.41 0114 1.37 0634 TU 1.74 MO 1302 0.40 2000 0017 0.54 1.26 1.81 0206 0644 0.63 0.30 0727 1325 WE 1.69 1.48 TU 1350 1930 0.42 2050 0116 0.43 1.24 1.90 0302 0739 0.67 0.22 0828 1415 TH 1.64 1.59 WE 1445 2020 0.42 2142 0212 0.34 1.27 1.95 0400 0831 0.67 0.17 0936 1501 FR 1.61 1.68 TH 1547 2108 0.40 2231 0304 0.27 1.35 1.95 0456 0922 0.63 0.17 1045 1545 SA 1.60 1.75 FR 1649 2154 0.36 2318 0357 0.25 1.46 1.88 0544 1012 0.56 0.22 1149 1629 SU 1.61 1.78 SA 1745 2240 0.32 0448 0.27 1.58 1.77 0000 1100 0.46 0.30 0628 1710 MO 1.61 1.78 SU 1244 2326 1836 0542 0.33 0.29 1.63 0039 1149 1.71 0.41 0706 1751 TU 0.36 MO 1331 1.60 1921 0011 1.74 0.29 0.42 0115 0635 1.81 1.47 0745 1239 WE 0.29 0.53 TU 1415 1831 2005 1.56 0058 1.68 0.32 0.51 0152 0732 1.88 1.33 0821 1330 TH 0.24 0.64 WE 1456 1914 1.50 2047 0147 1.60 0.36 0.59 0230 0834 1.91 1.23 0900 1428 FR 0.23 0.74 TH 1537 2003 1.44 2131 0244 1.53 0.43 0.64 0310 0941 1.91 1.17 0942 1536 SA 0.25 0.80 FR 1620 2105 1.37 2217 0348 1.49 0.50 0.65 0353 1048 1.86 1.18 1025 1652 SU 0.31 0.81 SA 1706 2219 1.31 2306 0456 1.48 0.57 0.63 0440 1149 1.79 1.23 1111 1758 MO 0.38 0.78 SU 1755 2329 2358 0556 1.51 1240 0.58 1847 1.30

2 2

3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6

7 7

m 0026 1.26 0645 0.64 1321 1.69 1928 0.45 0113 1.22 0728 0.70 1357 1.59 2003 0.51 0153 1.20 0806 0.75 1430 1.50 2036 0.55 0230 1.21 0842 0.78 1500 1.43 2107 0.56 0307 1.25 0916 0.79 1530 1.38 2140 0.55 0344 1.32 0952 0.76 1600 1.35 2213 0.53 0323 1.40 0930 0.70 1531 1.35 2148

m Time m 0524 1.78 0.72 0.53 0.33 1.55 0530 1159 1.85 1.58 0.53 1200 TU 1812 MO 1846 0.31 1.38

16 16

0.65 0005 0.47 1.33 1.83 1.59 0052 0619 0.57 0.28 0.48 0626 WE 1246 1.78 1.70 TU 1252 1900 1.45 1941 0.34 0.58 0100 0.38 1.34 1.84 1.63 0151 0712 0.60 0.27 0.45 0727 TH 1331 1.70 1.79 WE 1348 1945 1.52 2038 0.36 0.53 0154 0.32 1.37 1.80 1.64 0254 0802 0.62 0.29 0.43 0834 FR 1414 1.61 1.86 TH 1450 2030 1.58 2134 0.38 0245 0.30 0.48 1.43 1.72 1.64 0357 0851 0.62 0.35 0.42 0948 SA 1455 1.53 1.88 FR 1558 2114 1.64 2230 0.39 0.46 0335 0.32 1.52 1.62 1.62 0457 0940 0.58 0.44 0.43 1102 SU 1534 1.48 1.87 SA 1705 2157 1.68 2323 0.40 0426 0.37 0.45 1.62 1.50 1.58 0552 1029 0.51 0.53 0.46 1214 MO 1614 1.44 1.82 SU 1810 2240 1.71

17 17

18 18 19 19 20 20

21 21

22 22

0404 0.45 0516 0.51 1.52 0014 0.41 23 8 1009 1116 8 1605 1.49 23 1.72 0.50 0645 TU 1653

9 9

10 10

11 11

12 12 13 13 14 14 15 15

0.62 2226 1.36 0448 0.49 1052 1.58 1642 0.54 2307 1.37 0538 0.47 1141 1.67 1724 0.46 2355 1.37 0635 0.46 1237 1.75 1815 0.39 1.38 0050 0.46 0742 1.82 1345 0.33 1920 1.38 0158 0.46 0856 1.87 1503 0.29 2039 1.37 0312 0.48 1005 1.89 1618 0.28 2158 1.36 0422 0.50 1105 1.89 1719 0.28 2305 1.34

MO 1317 1.72 1910 0.48 1.45 0101 0.56 0735 WE TU 1414 1.71 2005 0.51 1.37 0148 0.62 0822 TH WE 1503 1.68 2056 0.54 1.30 0232 0.69 0907 FR TH 1550 2144 1.65 0.56 0315 1.26 0950 SA FR 1633 0.73 2229 1.63 0.54 0358 1.27 1031 SU SA 1714 0.73 2311 1.66 0.48 0439 1.35 1111 MO SU 1754 0.68 2353 1.72 0.41 0520 1.46 1149 TU MO 1833 0.58

24 24 25 25 26 26 27 27 28 28 29 29

30 30

0.44 1.39 0.63 0.42 1.75 2323 1.41 0609 0.52 0.42 1.30 1206 1.80 0.72 1734 0.35 1.39 0008 1.66 0.43 0.59 0704 1.86 1.24 1300 0.30 0.80 1822 1.37 0058 1.58 0.46 0.64 0802 1.89 1.21 1401 0.28 0.85 1921 1.36 0157 1.51 0.48 0.66 0901 1.88 1.23 1510 0.29 0.87 2033 1.34 0303 1.48 0.52 0.64 0958 1.84 1.28 1613 0.33 0.84 2146 1.31 0406 1.49 0.56 0.61 1048 1.78 1.35 1705 0.38 0.78 2249 1.29 0500 1.51 0.60 0.57 1131 1.71 1.44 1747 0.43 0.71 2342

31 0035 0602

1.27 0.65 TU 1227 1.62 1913 0.48

 Copyright Commonwealth of Australia 2018, Bureau of Meteorology  Copyright Commonwealth of Australia 2018, Bureau of Meteorology Datum of Predictions is Lowest Astronomical Tide Datum of Predictions is Lowest Astronomical Tide Times are in local standard time (UTC +10:00) or daylight savings time (UTC +11:00) when in effect Times are in local standard time (UTC +10:00) or daylight savings time (UTC +11:00) when in effect New Moon First Quarter Last Quarter Moon Phase Symbols Full Moon New Moon First Quarter Last Quarter Moon Phase Symbols Full Moon Tide predictions for Sydney (Fort Denison) have been formatted by the National Tidal Centre, Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Copyright reserved. All material is supplied in good faith and is believed to be correct. It is supplied on the condition that no warranty is given in relation thereto, that no responsibility or liability for errors or omissions is, or will be, accepted and that the recipient will hold MHL and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology Australia free from all such responsibility or liability and from all loss or damage incurred as a consequence of any error or omission. Predictions should not be used for navigational purposes. Use of these tide predictions will be deemed to include acceptance of the above conditions. 60

NOVEMBER 2019

Recreational Fishing Update Easy Way To Report Threatened Species

Billy’s Amazing 104cm Trophy Flattie! Gun Coffs Harbour-based angler Billy Livingston recently landed this cracking 104cm dusky flathead on a swimbait in a North Coast river system. After quickly measuring it on a wet brag mat and getting a few pics, Billy swam the fish boatside before releasing it in excellent condition. Congratulations on the fish of a lifetime, Billy! Recent research by DPI Fisheries suggests big female duskies like Billy’s trophy-sized croc are viable breeders capable of producing millions of eggs each season. Google “DPI Trophy Flathead” for tips and advice on best practice catch and release techniques for these incredible estuary sportfish – handy stuff for when you catch your own metre-plus lizard!

Surprise NSW Emperors!

NSW DPI Fisheries regularly receives information about surprising catches. A good example is this impressive red throat emperor (Lethrinus miniatus) which was caught just south of Coffs Harbour, on the NSW North Coast, by gun Coffs fisho Wayne Gordon. Red throat emperor are commonly caught in Queensland waters, particularly around the Great Barrier Reef and further south to the Sunshine Coast. They are generally not a common capture south of Evans Head in NSW, although the Australian Museum has recorded sightings of red throat emperor as far south as Sydney. And while we’re talking about Sydney, angler Kyle Hoehn recently landed this spangled emperor (Lethrinus nebulosis) while targeting snapper off the rocks on the city’s southern outskirts. Spanglies are found from southwestern WA, around the Top End and south to the NSW Central Coast. They’re certainly not common in Sydney waters, but we have heard of a few over the years, usually as a bycatch when rock fishing. Stay tuned to the NSW DPI Fisheries Facebook page for updates on surprising and unusual catches in NSW waters!

Why You Need To ID Fish Correctly Correctly identifying some fish species can be tricky. However, it’s important to know exactly what fish you catch as different rules may apply to different species. A handy tip if you catch a fish you’re unable to identify is to carefully release it. It’s always better to be safe than sorry ... DPI’s NSW Recreational Saltwater and Freshwater Fishing Guides provide information on commonly misidentified fish such as Australian bass/estuary perch, yellowfin bream/tarwhine, mulloway/teragalin, various flatheads, crayfish and yabbie species, golden and silver perch, shortfin and longfin eels and eastern cod/trout cod/Murray cod. You can get copies of both Guides free at your local NSW DPI Fisheries office or online at www.dpi. nsw.gov.au. The Guides are also available in digital format via the FishSmart app, which is available for download via the App Store and Google Play.

Bass Mix ups can be common between similar looking fish, such as Australian bass and estuary perch. A good way to tell these species apart is to remember that an EP’s snout is more concave than a bass’s snout.

Estuary Perch

An online tool developed by DPI makes it easier to report sightings of aquatic threatened species. Launched as part of the recent National Threatened Species Day, the reporting tool features an easy-to-use form which allows you to report any aquatic threatened species (such as the Macquarie perch pictured above) you see or accidentally catch. These reports will increase DPI’s knowledge of the status and distribution of aquatic threatened species while adding significant value to surveys and habitat mapping. Find out more at www.dpi.nsw.gov.au.

Help Protect Waterways From Pests & Disease!

Recreational fishers have a responsibility to protect and safeguard our natural assets for current and future generations. You can take the following simple steps to prevent the spread of aquatic pests and disease in NSW: • Wash and dry your boats, trailers and equipment when moving between waterways. • Report any suspected pests or disease to 1800 675 888. • Don’t use seafood meant for human consumption as bait. • Don’t use abalone as bait in order to help prevent the spread of abalone viral ganglioneuritis (AVG) to NSW. For more info on aquatic pests and disease, Google “NSW aquatic biosecurity”.

www.dpi.nsw.gov.au

Tech Tricks

Gamefishing prep BRISBANE

Gordon Macdonald masterbaitertackle@hotmail.com

With summer upon us, warmer water conditions will cause an increase in the numbers of pelagic species throughout offshore waters. Holidays are not too far away for many anglers, so now is

the time to start thinking about the gamefishing season ahead. Gamefishing is a fairly expensive yet exciting sport. With so many hours put into the actual fishing as well as money spent on boats, fuel and equipment, it pays to have everything in perfect working order for when that strike and screaming run is forthcoming.

Being prepared now for when you finally get out on the water will increase results and decrease frustration. It is not just the boat that you need to get serviced, your tackle and rigging also needs attention. Let’s look at a few items that should be checked for the upcoming gamefishing season. Prepare or despair – it’s up to you.

RODS Whatever rods you have in your arsenal, checking them will greatly reduce the chance of having frayed or broken line after that pelagic takes a screaming run. Because line runs across the guide or roller at speed, you need to check every one methodically for faults. Rollers can become stiff to the point of seizing if salt causes corrosion of the roller bush or pin. Even if the roller is running freely, it is a good idea to remove every screw and pin to lube the thread of the screw, otherwise you may go to remove it at some stage and you won’t be able to get it undone. All roller parts should be lubricated with a viscous grease or oil before reassembly. Inspect rod guides visually for cracks in the frames or inserts. A small blade can be run around the inside of the insert lightly to check for any hairline cracks. Tip runners cop a large amount of the abuse and are most likely at fault. If you have a rod with a detachable butt, cleaning the thread and applying a light coat of grease is recommended. Check over the rest of the rod to determine any additional issues.

REELS Even the best quality reels will need regular servicing to keep them in good condition. Some anglers have the time and skills to service their reels themselves but if you don’t, taking them to a store with a qualified reel mechanic is the obvious choice. Your reels will be disassembled and each part cleaned and checked for any serious wear or faults. Noisy bearings (usually slightly corroded) can be replaced and drag washers checked for wear. Before reassembly, the gears and other relevant parts are lubricated with quality water-dispersing grease and the bearings are oiled. A final check of functionality is completed once reassembly is completed. The reel should be removed from the rod so that the reel clamp nuts and area around them can also be cleaned, because this is an area where salt build up is common.

KNOTS Game fishers can use a lot of different knots, including splices, plaits, bimini twists, spider hitches and uni knots. As with your line, a knot failure can quickly disconnect you and the fish. Although you need to check some knots on a regular basis (usually daily) when gamefishing, retying all of them at the start of the season will have you ready for that first hit out. If using a hollowcore braid or Dacron backing, redoing your top shot splices is recommended. This is a little tedious but should be done at the start of every season, or at least checked and inspected thoroughly. Doubles (usually using a bimini twist, plait, Cairn’s quickie or spider hitch) should be retied and also checked for length compliance if fishing under GFAA or IGFA regulations.

LINE Due to a change in IGFA rulings a few years ago in relation to line backing and top shots, there are now numerous ways to spool your reel. Some choose straight monofilament, others do Dacron backing with a 100m or more of top shot, and others use braid backing (often hollow core) with a top shot of IGFA monofilament. Being IGFA compliant is only required if you are wishing to fish under their regulations for tournaments, club point scoring or record purposes. For the average angler, there is no stipulation on line brand, type or breaking strain. Monofilament main line and monofilament top shots should be checked for wear. If your monofilament line is becoming opaque or rough then it has deteriorated or worn out and needs to be replaced. Braided line and Dacron will also be worn if it is rough, ratty-looking or they have individual fibres protruding. Don’t skimp on line, as it’s the only thing connecting you and the fish. If you break off a fish, you are also losing an expensive lure. 72

NOVEMBER 2019

TOOLS Gaffs should be sharpened and re-shaped if necessary. Hook-out guns, pliers, crimping pliers, knives, bill-snooters, tail ropes, flying gaffs, tag poles and the like should be checked for function and corrosion. If you use outriggers or downriggers, check the release clips and the cord/wire/mono on them, replacing or adjusting any likely to let you down. Ensure you have enough tags if necessary and that your pen for the tag cards actually writes.

Tech Tricks

DRAG SETTING

WIND-ON LEADERS A well-made wind-on leader will last a good amount of time, often a season or more, but should be checked regularly to see whether the monofilament has slipped through the Dacron or whether the whipping thread that stops the Dacron from fraying at the end has begun to come undone. If both are the case then you need an entirely new leader; however, if only the whipping thread is frayed or ragged, it can be redone. Replacing all your wind-on leaders with new ones at the start of the season is a good idea. Last season’s ones can be kept for spares. Additionally, you may need to check the length of your leaders for IGFA compliance. The ball-bearing snap swivels on the end of your leaders should be checked to confirm they are spinning freely and if in doubt, replaced. Check the crimped loop attaching this snap swivel for wear, however I would always suggest cutting off the old snap off and re-crimping it or replacing with a new one.

LURE RIGGING The single or twin hook rigs in your skirted lures should be checked for wear and corrosion. Monofilament and fluorocarbon leaders should be replaced if badly chafed. Wire leaders must be corrosion free or replaced. Crimped loops should be checked for wear and redone if necessary. Hooks need to be checked for fatigue and sharpened. Anode tape may need replacing on chemically sharpened hook rigs and worn-out heat-shrink should be redone. Piano wire leaders on bibbed and lipless minnows will fatigue with numerous uses and may need replacing. Give all rigging a good check over and replace anything that is worn or in doubt.

Once your rod and reel outfit is serviced and back together with line checked or replaced, you will need to re-calibrate your drag. If you are a seasoned angler, you will have a particular drag setting that you like and will know how to do this. If you are a newbie to the gamefishing world, you can follow the basic rule of thumb with drag settings of one-third the breaking strain of the line. This means that at the full strike drag setting, the pressure needed to pull line off the spool is a third of the line’s breaking strain (i.e. 5kg for 15kg line and 8kg for 24kg line). To do this (assuming you are using the conventional lever-drag overhead) set up your rod and reel and then thread the line through the guides/rollers. Attach the line to a set of weighing scales. With the lever drag in the strike position, the scale should pull down to the desired weight as the line starts to peel off the reel. The drag adjustment knob is on the same side as the drag lever but should not be adjusted unless the lever is pulled back to the freespool position. You will probably need to do several adjustments to set the drag. Put the reel into strike and test the drag. If it’s not right, put it back into freespool to adjust tension. Repeat until you get the desired amount of drag pressure set at the strike drag position. Once the required drag pressure is set, return the lever drag to the freespool position (or just above it) so there isn’t constant pressure on the drag washers while the reels are not in use.

RIGS If you do any live baiting, you can make up extra live bait rigs that are ready for use when needed. These can be stored in a clip seal bag or a tackle wallet. You may also need to check your supply of bait jigs used to catch live baits. Other items used regularly by gamefishers such as skipping and swimming garfish rigs, rubber bands, spare hooks, an assortment of ball sinkers for live bait rigs and other rigging purposes, octopus skirts, crimps, bait stitching needles, bridling needles, waxed thread and anything else you use should all be checked and restocked. NOVEMBER 2019

FUN PAGE AND COMPETITIONS FISH THAT PUT UP A FIGHT

GIANT TREVALLY AMBERJACK BLACK MARLIN BLUE MARLIN STRIPED MARLIN LONGTAIL TUNA SOUTHERN BLUEFIN ALBACORE KINGFISH SWORDFISH

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The first correct entry at the end of each month will win the prize pack. SEND ENTRIES TO: NSW Find-a-word Competition, PO box 3172, Loganholme Qld 4129

NSW NOVEMBER 2019

Phone (day):

GEORGE & NEV by Michael Hardy

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ORIGINAL

FIND-A-WORD

Congratulations to C West, who was last month’s winner of the Find-a-Word Competition! Monthly winners receive a Fishing Monthly prize pack. Prize delivery can take 8 weeks. – NSWFM

SUBSCRIBER PRIZE

The subscriber prize winner for September is C Plunkett of Davistown, who won a Fishing Monthly Subscriber prize pack. All subscribers are entered in the monthly subscriber prize draws. Prize delivery takes up to 8 weeks. – NSWFM

B Bell of Wodonga, C Riesiuger of Pheasants Nest, W Forbes of Nambucca Heads, A Bird of Singleton, R Bland of Forster, P Bak of Monash, Z Mosessen of Wanniassa, F Bubas of Albion Park, A Todoroski of Epping, B Mannering of Blue Haven, E Howarth of Cowra, C Glenn of Gwynneville, B Ryan of Mirrabooka, S Matthews of Edgeworth, B Schnitzer of Cooma, J Paul of Inverell, R Gear of Oberon, S Banner of Buff Point, C Wood

of Penrith, I Donaldson of Cessnock, R Jones of Toronto, I Dando of Tuggeranong, P Kennedy of Raymond Terrace, G Waugh of Greystanes, I Salmon of Basin View, K Hester of Beverly Hills, C Sheedy of Sanctuary Point, J Smith of Kelso, G Auld of Quipolly, R Chown of Glendenning, K Thompson of Ermington, M Blanden of Lidcombe, D Burgess of Elermore Vale. Prize delivery takes up to 8 weeks. – NSWFM

LAST MONTH’S ANSWERS

FIND THE DAIWA LOGO

NOVEMBER 2019

This month’s Guess the Fish Answer: Yakka

The answers to Find the Daiwa Logo for September were: 10, 12, 22, 30, 36, 39, 41, 44, 48, 56, 60, 71, 79, 80, 89. – NSWFM The Find the Daiwa Logo prize winners for September were: J McLennan of Bonython, J Serra of Wilberforce, R Jones of Werris Creek, G West of Blacktown, D Spinks of Scone, D Nisbet of Tuncurry, J Page of Wingham,

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Measuring biomass in the shallows SUNTAG

Stefan Sawynok

Most months I discuss fishing competitions, monitoring and topics that surround Track My Fish. To be fair, TMF is a big part of my life, I designed the app back in 2015 and the journey to bringing the app to life was far from smooth. Last month we put through 8,500 fish and more than 4,000 competitors across a range of events here and in New Zealand. Between Tracey and myself, we have been processing catches seven days a week, there hasn’t been a weekend where we have nothing on. As odd as it might sound though, Track My Fish is not the biggest challenge I have taken on in recent years. Not long after we built the first version of Track My Fish, I took on an even

a positive effect on spawning and recruitment for key species like salmon. In many parts of Pacific North West, natural recruitment is down to 10% of what it was at its peak and given the economic and cultural significance of the species that is a big problem. In order to address that problem, massive hatcheries have been developed releasing fish into the wild and allowing them to take part in the natural growth cycle of Salmon. These hatcheryreared fish are fin clipped for easy identification and take no part in the spawning cycle. That does not prevent them from trying to do what nature intended. Each year salmon return to the place they were born to spawn, with a portion of the hatchery reared fish ending up amongst the natural spawning salmon and while they don’t breed that doesn’t mean they aren’t disruptive. As a result, there is a priority

Queensland – the Fitzroy River in Rockhampton, St Helens Bay in Mackay, and Trinity Inlet in Cairns. Net Free Zones are hugely controversial, and their implementation came only after a lot of community angst but outside of the political questions, there was the question of how would you monitor the impact of the fishing and assess fish stocks? Of course, there were all the traditional methods such as boat ramp surveys, but ever since I stepped into the industry, I have felt there needs to be a better way to do it. At the time there was a grants system being managed by Queensland Fisheries, and after conversations with all the community stakeholders and local council the need for a technological solution to counting fish was clear. Pulling that solution together would take a lot of work, but we had the community on board for the approach and the full support of council

Fig.2 Scanning a weed bed. bigger challenge, with the net result being that not just my weekends but my whole life was consumed by Infofish. In the next two articles, I will discuss that challenge, how we met it, some of the work we are doing, the future and most importantly what it means for recreational fishers. COFFEE WITH A SPLASH OF SERENDIPITY Around three years ago, while in the US I met up with a fisheries officer for coffee. The purpose of the meeting was to exchange notes on things going on in that neck of the woods and how they approached fisheries management. There were a number of fascinating, if unconventional elements to that conversation. Take their fishing problems, among the biggest we discussed was how fisheries in Washington State were struggling to get recreational fishers to take more fish. Think about that one for a second. The nature of that problem is rooted in a situation familiar to many of our fishers. The US as with most countries has built large-scale water storage but this has had anything but 76

NOVEMBER 2019

to take out as many of these fish as possible and the conversation at the time turned to the role of recreational fishers. The interesting part of that conversation was the recreational fishers themselves were pushing back on increasing the number of fishers, there is only so much space available and it comes at a premium when the salmon runs start. There are only so many sardines you can fit in a tin. The fears were that increasing the fishers would reduce fishing quality, potentially damage stocks and end up in more conflict. These sorts of discussions are right up my alley. I love digging into the data on what motivates anglers and the ways in which anglers are complex, thoughtful and surprising. On this occasion though, there was a second even more mind-blowing part to the conversation that would lead to me going on a personal quest to tackle the problem of measuring biomass. This conversation happened in late 2016, the year a net free zone was being declared in three locations in

that this was the number one priority project in the region. I knew there would be a mountain of work to deliver, way more than we would be charging for, but some problems are worth doing that. Knowing how many fish there are in a system at a local level can only lead to better decisions and behaviours. H e a r t b r e a k i n g l y, Queensland Fisheries did not see things my way. THE GENESIS OF A TECHNOLOGY APPROACH TO MEASURING BIOMASS Among my many faults, I hate Government saying no to a well thought out idea that has real benefits. I have no problem with people saying yes to a better idea but sticking with the status quo because you don’t quite get it, that just smacks of laziness to me. Now, upfront, the failure was mine, I didn’t make the argument well enough. None the less, when Queensland Fisheries said no, I had the trigger I needed to become obsessed with developing a technology solution to assessing fish

Lake Quinault, Washington State. biomass, no matter what obstacles lay ahead. There were a lot more obstacles than I could dream of. Back to that fateful cup of coffee. When discussing the problem of increasing the recreational take the conversation went down a number of rabbit holes, as these things tend to do. One such rabbit hole was the approach of the Quinault Indian Nation to monitoring, they were using scientific echo sounders developed by a local Washington State, family run business called Biosonics. Now, I can relate to a family run business, Infofish has three generations of Sawynoks so that got my attention from the start. The use of echosounders for measuring biomass dates all the way back to the 1970s and the days of paper printouts. Fortunately, the tools have come a long way since then. The system in use by the Quinault was able to measure the size of the fish, numbers and report those details by position in the water column. Those are all key pieces of information for measuring biomass, but in the case of salmon and trout provides also a means of separating the species. In other words, here was a piece of technology that could measure a fishery, without taking fish out of the system. I ended that conversation

intrigued, but completely unaware of exactly where it would lead me. That night, I got a call from dad about the Fitzroy River. The grants program I mentioned above had just been announced and he had an idea to use sidescan imaging to look at barramundi, his thinking was to map parts of the Fitzroy River for fish using sidescan. Barramundi being a larger fish do show up on sidescan but it has to be said that in order to achieve that you need a slow moving vessel and even if you get the fish on the sounder there is the problem of how you count them. While the idea seemed feasible, a lot of manual effort was involved and the process was not very scalable. ENTER BIOSONICS INTO THE CONVERSATION The problem he enumerated sounded exactly like the problem the Quinault Indian Nation were tackling. As I would learn, sounds like is not the same as is like but at that point we were talking concepts. The first hurdle was the cost. Biosonics equipment does not come cheap, second while there was software around to process the data nothing existed to process the data in the way we needed. I have been in the software business for most my life, I wrote my

The biosonics unit in action.

first program at age 10. If you are going to write a piece of software to do a process not currently used and is based on undocumented and unknown data, take a big number and multiply by ten. That is your time and cost investment. That number came out way larger than the equipment. That is assuming that it could be done at all. There is a reason why the equipment isn’t supplied with out of the box software to do this process and the surveys active around the world came with a lot of caveats on the results. In order to make it work, we were going to have to break ground, with no guarantee that ground could be broken. Beyond that initial project application, we spent 18 months trying to get a major project up, that is, reduce the risks through a bigger funding pool. We never got past first base. In May last year, we had a small client who wanted to come on board and do a job in a hurry, that was enough for me to jump and take the risks head on. THE FIRST SURVEY Remember I said its high risk to work with an unknown process? One of the consequences of all those unknowns is change takes on a life of its own. Our data processing system for the

Biosonics has been rewritten from the ground up a dozen times since we did the first work. Some versions have not even lasted a week. Every time we went on the water, we solved a problem, which only lead to more problems to solve. Each time we uncovered a new problem invariably the processing system had to go back to the beginning. In all my time in software, including Track My Fish, which has had its share of rewrites, I have never experienced a development process quite like this. The early days were chaotic. After our first survey, we didn’t go near a client for six months as we just focused on understanding how the technology worked and how to make it do ‘something’ useful. I am well known at Fishing Monthly for essentially living in the office. I moved closer to the office in January, just so I could get home faster after midnight. None the less from the moment we started I knew what we were doing was

is a massive 30cm wide. That is not going to pick up much and as we have learned, you won’t see anything closer than three metres anyway unless it’s very big. This is where Biosonics offers a big advantage, by being able to go horizontal the range gets much larger. We have successfully pushed the range out to 200m and we regularly scan out to 150m (see Fig.1). In that first survey we pushed out to 40m, about as far as we felt safe to go, in hindsight we could have pushed the boundaries much further. Nonetheless going sideways presents new challenges. PROBLEM TWO – ALL THAT NOISE Side facing presents a new problem that down facing doesn’t. Down-facing hits the bottom roughly at right angles, the depth varies and sometimes you hit a surface but overall it’s predictable. Gravity works, the bottom is generally solid.

years, echo sounders have been used for down facing problems. This solves not just the where is the bottom problem, it largely solves the where is boat problem as well. By tracking the GPS on the vessel, you have a built-in mapping process that makes it relatively easy to work out where the fish. This also provides a simple validation mechanism. If you are doing an ocean survey and the fish are one hundred metres below, it’s not that difficult to send a camera down to check it out. The problem with side facing is the fish you are looking at are nowhere near the vessel. Not only that, when you go to three dimensions how do you know where the fish is in the water column, how do you know the bottom is the bottom? As I pointed out to one enterprising sales person, how do I mount a camera 50m away from the boat when there are trees between us and the region

Fig.1 Shallow water with trees and bottom noise. right. Even now I believe that Biosonics themselves underestimate the power of the tool they created. By the time we finished the first survey, we knew the big challenges, even if we didn’t really understand what it would take to get our heads around them. Here are five big problems. PROBLEM ONE – SHALLOW WATER The first survey was in a small lagoon about 1km long and eight metres wide. Depth wise it drops down to around 10m but mostly it’s less than two. We knew this ahead of time, and part of the reason we chose the Biosonics equipment was for its ability to scan fish both down facing and side facing. Shallow water is a real pain echosounding wise. It’s good if you do sidescan but downscan is an entirely different matter. As a rule of thumb the Biosonics system has a 1:10 ratio in terms of the beam width, that is if you are shooting 10m, the beam width is one metre wide at that point. At three metres the beam

When looking at side facing, the bottom (and for that matter the surface) acts as a boundary at the edge of the beam, not a nice wall to run up against. In side-facing gravity pushing hard things like trees to the bottom as well, which means they can end up in odd places in the beam and we are hitting them at a much different angle. What does that look like? Fig.2 presents a shot into a weed bed, which highlights exactly the problem of side facing. As you hit the weed, the whole screen lights up which makes it hard to see anything. In shallow water, you don’t even need a weed bed to lose most of the scan in this way. When shooting 150m, in 5m-deep water, things get noisy as you hit the bottom in the first third of the survey. PROBLEM THREE – GOING BEYOND THE SCREEN The next problem we encountered was the relationship between echo sounders and geography. For the most part of the last 30

we are looking? PROBLEM FOUR – WHAT ARE YOU EVEN LOOKING AT? The next problem we encountered was in assessing what we were looking at. Just taking a look at the screen, in clear water we could easily identify fish. When we exported the data that eyeball assessment turned to mush as the export contained everything – bottom noise, structure, man-made objects, fish, trees and weed. While classifying each object visually wasn’t too difficult with a little practice, that is far cry from assessing a record with a lot of numbers in it. Why would you need to? A survey we did on the Logan-Albert demonstrated the scale of the problem. In that survey we ended up with over two million tracks mostly fish but a mix of other things in there. I don’t know about you, but classifying a million of anything is beyond my sanity boundaries. Phoenix, who does a lot of the classifying and training for our fish health models can do a thousand or more fish photos in a week, so

assuming she could do the same rate, there is only 1000 weeks effort involved. Automating the classification of signals is the holy grail of echo sounders and how we solved that problem would push us the hardest of all. PROBLEM FIVE – COUNTING FISH The main reason we took on the Biosonics unit was to count fish. This should in of itself be the one thing it did well but when you take into account problems three and four that becomes a challenge – how do you know you are counting fish. The next problem was how to scale that process. The Biosonics excels in the Northern Hemisphere where the units are either fixed mounted at the edge of a river and running constantly or used for downscan. In both instances, they are looking at clean water, mapping isn’t much of a concern and in terms of counting fish, they use the bin system. The bin system cuts up the length of the beam into ‘bins’ say 5m wide and then counts the tracks in that five metre block. That approach is useful in down-scan where fish are in specific parts of the water column. In both cases, they are dealing only with clean water, no structure, so the task of fish or not fish is very simple. In our case we found even in clean water, bins were not very useful because of the size of area we were surveying. The larger the area, the less effective the bin system is as the range to the edge tends to be very variable. Also, most clients want to know something about where the fish are in the water column, so bins is not helpful at all in that case. SOLVING THE PROBLEMS We were up to our necks in it from the word go. Fortunately, this first survey was of a size and scale where we could sort out the problems manually. It wasn’t long though, in fact our very first trial survey after that where the need for automation was all too clear. We learned very early on when we got overexcited by the results that not having a good understanding of what we were looking at would bite us on the bum. Not long after the first survey we went to ground and focused on really understanding what the system was doing. We knew the potential, but we also knew that if we got the data wrong, we would end up destroying our credibility, even before we got off the ground. In the next part I will look at how we addressed some of the above challenges, what the outputs look like and how measuring biomass much faster than traditional methods provides new tools to help fishers.

A U S T R A L I A

Margay 2017

$49,990

• 17’7” • Single axle Basscat trailer • 115 hp Mercury 4 stroke • 24v electric motor (Minn Kota or Motor Guide) • 2 x sounders (Humminbird 597cxi HD Di or Lowrance HDS 5)

Pantera II 2017

$74,990

• 19’1” • Single axle Basscat trailer • 200 hp Mercury Optimax • 24v electric motor (Minn Kota or Motor Guide) • 2 x sounders (Humminbird 698cxi HD Si or Lowrance HDS 7 GEN2)

Yar-Craft 1785BT 2017

$59,990

• 17’5” • Single axle Basscat trailer • 75 hp Mercury 4 stroke • 24v electric motor (Minn Kota or Motor Guide) • 2 x sounders (Humminbird 597cxi HD Di or Lowrance HDS 5)

Sabre FTD 2017

$59,990

• 18’1” • Single axle Basscat trailer • 115 hp Mercury 4 stroke • 24v electric motor (Minn Kota or Motor Guide) • 2 x sounders (Humminbird 698cxi HD Si or Lowrance HDS 7 GEN2)

We Build Dreams... It’s a Family Tradition

A U S T R A L I A

Phone: 0410 173 060 basscataustralia@gmail.com NOVEMBER 2019

Lismore local lands a victory Nick Anderson is a Lismore-based local and knows the Richmond River well. His knowledge of where to fish on what stage of the tide helped him secure his first ABT win and a spot straight into the 2019 ABT Sufix Bass Pro Grand Final at Lake St Clair. Nick’s Friday pre-fish was going to be spent driving for 40 minutes up Bungawalbin Creek, but he changed his mind in search of some new areas. While he found a few fish here and there, it wasn’t until he got to a spot in Swan Bay that he formulated a plan for his tournament to come. On day one Nick went straight to his spot at Swan Bay. It took him 15 minutes to get there, and he knew he had about 20-30 minutes to kill before the tide started to run in. He had time to set himself into position on a 20ft drop-off that came up to a 15ft flat. He was using an Ecogear ZX blade in colour 447 on a 6’ Millerod and a 2000 Daiwa Freams reel. Once the tide started pushing in it was on, and Nick was catching fish straight

Nick Anderson used his local knowledge to put together a winning bag on the Richmond River. away, and by watching his Garmin LiveScope he could see what type of hop of the blade the fish would react better to. Nick said you could see them getting

excited and flaring the gills the crunching his blade when he got twitched it the way they wanted. Catching a limit in an hour and a half and

BOATER RESULTS Place Name 1 Nick Anderson 2 Chris Deland 3 Keeghan Painter 4 Braden Schuch 5 Joe Allan 6 Aaron Swanson 7 Peter Phelps 8 Philip Nix 9 Brett Hyde 10 Andrew Lollback

Total Fish Total Weight (kg) 8 8.21 8 7.10 8 7.09 8 6.84 8 6.82 8 6.52 8 6.49 8 6.09 8 6.05 8 6.05

Visit www.abt.org.au for entry forms. For general enquiries phone ABT on (07) 3387 0888 80

NOVEMBER 2019

upgrading about eight times, he then headed to Bungawalbin Creek, but unfortunately couldn’t get any more upgrades. Nick finished day one

NICK ANDERSON TACKLE Rod: Reel: Line: Lure:

6’ Millerods spin rod 2000 Daiwa Freams Berkley X9 10lb and 8lb FC Rock leader Ecogear ZX Blade in colour 447 Nick also attributes his success to his Garmin Panoptix LiveScope sounder

coming to the scales with four fish for 3.75kg. On the second day Nick went straight back to Swan Bay. He had a lot longer to wait for the run-in tide that was so kind to him on day one, but the benefit of being local was that he had a run-out spot on the other side of Swan Bay. His non-boater Mitchell Rose opened the account by catching a good one on a spinnerbait, and before too long the tide started to push back in. Nick motored over to his flat and started catching them using his same technique from day one, hopping a ZX blade on the same 15ft flat, watching them on his Garmin Panoptix LiveScope. He ended up catching a limit by 11:00am and getting a final upgrade at around 12:00pm. He brought the heaviest bag that day to the scales, with four fish for 4.46kg, and a combined weight of 8.21kg, which sealed Nick’s first ABT win.

Scan the QR code to see Nick Anderson Interview.

Scan the QR code to see Richmond River Highlights.

NON-BOATER RESULTS Place Name 1 Paul Mazaroli 2 Mitchell Rose 3 Rodney Thorpe 4 Blair Shapland 5 Adrian Melchior 6 Mitchell Petty 7 Anthony Melchior 8 Angus Meyndershagen 9 Shaun Beekman 10 Ben Biggs

Total Fish Total Weight (kg) 8 7.91 8 7.39 8 7.19 8 6.81 8 6.77 8 6.42 8 6.42 8 6.39 8 6.15 8 6.13

First-timer from Forster scores second Chris Deland is a Forster local, and this area is known for having produced some champion anglers over the years. Chris really stepped up to the mark, earning 2nd place in his first ABT Bass Pro on a river he had never seen, let alone fished. For day one Chris had local angler Adrian Melchior as his non-boater, and the team headed up the Wilsons River for nearly an hour before getting to the spot. Chris started throwing a topwater rat around for half an hour for not even a boil before changing to a Vex blade. The blade caught some fish, but they weren’t coming in thick and fast. It wasn’t until he changed to a black and blue PF cover jig that he begun to work out a pattern. Pitching it into laydowns, weed, and whatever snags

and cover he could find, the fish just couldn’t resist this offering being dragged and twitched slowly along the bottom. Once the tide started to push in, he really started turning some numbers over, filling his bag by 10:00am and upgrading every so often after that. His limit of four bass for day one weighing 3.49kg had him in a strong position ahead of day two. For his second day Chris had Anthony Melchior (son of his day one non-boater) on board. Deland made the same run up the Wilsons arm and fished the same way as he had on day one, working his jig through snags and bouncing over rocks. He managed to find new snags and angles he left on day one, and found this was the key to catching his day two limit. He squeezed anything he could out of there,

early, which may have cost him first place, but he and Anthony fished hard all

Mazza finishes season strong Paul ‘Mazza’ Mazaroli made the trek all the way from Sydney, and loves any type of sport; he probably takes marbles seriously. One thing he really loves, however, is fishing, and he’s not too bad at it either! For the first day, Paul was fishing with boater winner Nick Anderson, which saw him heading to Swan Bay to fish a 20ft ledge with a rise to a 15ft flat. Mazza was at home fishing to schooling bass with blades, as he has competed for a few years on the ABT BREAM tour and uses this technique often. Once they got there and the tide started to run in, they went to work hopping blades down deep and catching plenty of fish, even upgrading eight times. Once the bite stopped

Paul Mazaroli (left) travelled up from Sydney to enjoy two spectacular days of fishing on the Richmond River, and ended up taking out the non-boater division and Angler of the Year! at Swan Bay, they spot hopped around a bit, even running right up Bungawalbin Creek, but

Winners Nick Anderson and Chris Deland display a sample of the well-conditioned bass the Richmond has on offer.

Scan the QR code to see Paul Mazaroli Interview.

Forster local Chris Deland (right) relied on his experience fishing on other rivers to secure a podium finish. It probably didn’t hurt to have father and son Adrian and Anthony Melchior (pictured) as his non-boaters on day one and day two respectively! catching four keepers by 11:00am. He also got busted off by some big fish

they only managed some small fish here and there. Paul said it was one of those days where he was in the zone and having a great day. They ended up bringing four fish to the scales for a total day one weight of 3.75kg. For day two Mazza drew Keeghan Painter, who had a totally different plan to his day one boater. They went in the other direction, going upstream. Pulling up at the first spot, Keeghan caught a 1.1kg bass first cast. Paul thought to himself that this was going to be a good day, and it turns out he was right. Between them they had caught their limit by 8:30am fishing blades on the riverbank drop offs. To have been a fly on the

wall watching this pair of clowns having a good day would have been hilarious, and certainly good viewing! The bite did slow down with the tide, so they headed to the launch point to see what was around, and even pulled up for lunch before heading back out once the tide started again. After lunch they upgraded once and caught a few 900g fish that were no help to them. When the pair stepped up to the scales everyone could tell they had enjoyed their day on the water. Their four bass came in at 4.16kg, giving Mazza a total weight of 7.91kg, which was enough to score him his first ABT BASS Pro win and also earn him the 2019 ABT Angler of the Year title!

BASS Pro Series presented by

day, upgrading gradually to finish with a limit of 3.61kg and total of 7.10kg. This

gave him automatic entry to the 2019 ABT Sufix BASS Pro Grand Final.

GARMIN BIG BASS Barry Reynolds managed to land an absolute horse for the Richmond River, weighing in a 1.95kg bass that he caught on a 3/8oz Bassman spinnerbait in white.

www.fishin.com.au TOURNAMENT TACKLE STORE

ZX BLADES ZMAN GRUBZ CRANKA CRABS

BENT MINNOWS

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0425 230 964 – info@fishin.com.au SHOP 18, 29 KIORA RD MIRANDA NSW 2228 NOVEMBER 2019

Trades & Services Directory ba Prawn Blade s” “Yam

SYDNEY

FISHING GUIDES

CLARENCE

Penrith Marine (02) 4731 6250

PORT STEPHENS

Cohoe Marine Products (Sydney) (02) 9519 3575

Fish Port Stephens Estuary Charters 0434 370 687

Blakes Marine (02) 4577 6699

MACQUARIE COAST Castaway Estuary Charters 0427 239 650

“IN THE MAIN STREET”

Watersports Marine (02) 9676 1400

EDEN COAST

02 6646 1514

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Captain Kev’s Wilderness Fishing Tours (02) 4474 3345 or 0424 625 160

CHARTER BOATS

REEL TIME FISHING CHARTERS

• Stocking all Major Brands • Experienced Local Knowledge • Tournament Bream Gear in Stock • Snorkelling gear in stock

Tweed Coast Marine (07) 5524 8877 Ballina Marineland (02) 6686 2669

Drop in to see Mick & Kelly

Manning River Marine Taree (02) 6552 2333 • 6am to 2pm $150pp • 3 boats – holds up to 30+ people • All fishing gear and bait is supplied • No fishing licence req. • Pickup from Yamba Marina or Iluka ferry wharf

COFFS COAST Compleat Angler Kempsey (02) 6562 5307 MOTackle & Outdoors (02) 6652 4611 or www.motackle.com.au Rocks Marine Bait & Tackle South West Rocks (02) 6566 6726

KAYAK DEALERS

Phone Dave today: www.fishingyamba.com.au 0428 231 962 OPEN 7 DAYS

MARINA BOAT & TACKLE, YAMBA MARINA

YAMBA’S LARGEST TACKLE STORE • Chandlery • Boat Sales • Ice & Gas • Bait & Tackle • Trailers Sales & Parts • Charter Bookings Ph: 6646 1994 or 0428 231 962 Email: dave@gaden.com.au Now Agents For

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OPEN 7 DAYS

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Phone: 0427 125 727 I Fax: (07) 4972 1759 michael@mikat.com.au

•

“The Home of Leavey Lures”

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Shop 3, 8 Yamba St, Yamba

Shannons Outboards (02) 9482 2638 TR Marine World (02) 4577 3522

Dave Gaden’s Yamba • Deep Sea

YAMBA BAIT & TACKLE “Yamba’s Leading Tackle Shop”

For all your accommodation needs, house, units & townhouses for every budget. Contact the friendly team at Crescent Head Real Estate for your free holiday brochure.

www.crescentheadholidayrentals.com.au

Email: holiday@crescentheadrealestate.com.au

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www.fishin.com.au TOURNAMENT TACKLE STORE

ZX BLADES

6 MAIN ST, CRESCENT HEAD NSW 2440

Phone: 02 6566 0500

ZMAN GRUBZ

ILLAWARRA COAST

CRANKA CRABS

Riviera Caravan Park, St George’s Basin (02) 4441 2112

BAIT & TACKLE FRESHWATER Aberdeen Fishing & Outdoors (02) 6543 7111 Loomzys Fish and Fix (Forbes) (02) 6851 1425

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MACQUARIE COAST Ned Kelly Bait n Tackle Port Macquarie (02) 6583 8318 Manning River Marine Taree (02) 6552 2333

HUNTER COAST Port Stephens Tackle World (02) 4984 2144

0425 230 964 – info@fishin.com.au SHOP 18, 29 KIORA RD MIRANDA NSW 2228

Advertisers wanting to be involved in this directory can call (07) 3387 0800 or email ads@fishingmonthly.com.au 84

NOVEMBER 2019

boats & kayaks

In the skipper’s seat

Inside story...

Sportsman Boats builds the fastest growing line of family-friendly centre console boats in-class. They are built with the latest designs, procedures and materials to give you and your family unparalleled performance with a dry, safe and comfortable ride.

Made for...

Designed to be budget-friendly, the Island Series offers the essentials for any boating family that likes to fish. These are perfect boats to earn your captain’s hat!

This month...

Gary Brown will be checking out the massive Heritage 251 powered by twin Yamaha 200hp 4-Strokes. Check it out on page 94!

86 Stay in or go out?

Sometimes as boaters we have to make this decision, and Wayne Kampe has provided some tips to help you make the right call.

88 Measuring success in the yak

Justin Willmer looks at how we gauge the success of a kayak fishing trip, and how celebrating the little things can be a good thing.

92 Kayaking for the beautiful Bello’s big bass Dayne Taylor shares some secrets of one of his favourite local bass haunts, including where to go and what to throw!

NOVEMBER 2019

WHAT’S NEW BOATING FORMOSA SRT PLATE HULL

The new Formosa SRT Plate Hull combines the best boat designs from the Sea-Rod and Tomahawk brands, packaging them into one skilfully engineered plate boat. The new plate hull features excellent levels of performance, handling and stability, with a stronger Lock-Cell hull and deck structure with a Quad4 Water Ballast option available across the whole range. An increased deadrise, custombuilt cambered strakes and large reverse chine create hydrodynamic lift and superior traction. In addition, the SRT hull uses the Formosa Step Down Active Transom design, delivering smart storage solutions, easy on-board battery access, and flush-folding door and seating systems. The transom door and lounge fold down to create more sitting areas or fishing platforms, and fold away flush against the side of the boat when not in use for a clear deck area to move around. The folding lounge is also removable. There are four Active Transom designs to choose from, with optional extras available. www.formosamarineboats.com.au

BUILD YOUR FISHING WEAPON

Australian plate aluminium boat builder Bar Crusher has pushed live the latest version of its website – and with it, v2 of the brand’s online boat builder. Launched several years ago, Bar Crusher’s online build-and-quote system allows website visitors to review the huge list of standard features in every model and personalise each boat by selecting options such as hull colour, engine horsepower and additional factory-fitted accessories. Bar Crusher’s 26-model range spans 4.9-7.8m and is available in a number of configurations – cuddy cabin, hard top, hard top pilothouse, centre console, open hard top, walk around, and bow rider. Renowned for quality construction, superior performance and maximum fishability (with a range of standard fishing-related features other manufacturers charge as extras), every Bar Crusher boat is factory-packaged on a customdesigned trailer to ensure towing, launching and retrieving is a breeze. Self-centering and aligning perfectly every time, Bar Crusher’s innovative Bar Catch system also allows for single-handed launch and retrieve. The new boat builder function is now online and ready to go, so head to the Bar Crusher website and get started on building your fishing weapon. barcrusher.com.au

ACR REMOTECONTROLLED LIGHT 3 The new RCL-85 LED searchlight from ACR was designed for the boater who wants to ditch the hassle of halogen searchlights, but still wants their affordability. With an impressive 240,000 candelas using six High Flux (30W) LEDs, you have visibility over half a nautical mile to light the way to your destination. The simple installation only requires running your 12-24V power to the searchlight, and all operations are completely wireless. The RCL-85’s sleek design makes it an attractive and cost-effective choice for small to medium sized vessels. The searchlight comes with a wireless handheld remote to rotate the light 350°. With an 8° beam angle, the light can tilt an impressive 90° degrees to make lighting structure a breeze. There is also a strobe function to signal for help. The RCL-85 is weather resistant with the electronics located in the IP68 water-resistant light head instead of the base for increased protection. The ASA housing and lens are 90

NOVEMBER 2019

PRODUCT GUIDE

sealed against the elements for years of troublefree operation. Price: SRP approx. $700 www.acrartex.com

TOHATSU MFS60A

The new VFS60A outboard from Tohatsu weighs only 98.5kg, which is 7kg lighter than its nearest competitor and 15% lighter than Tohatsu’s renowned M60C 2-stroke. Tohatsu are fully aware of the implications that weight has on a boat’s performance, and this is for those boaters who are re-powering from a 2-stroke. The MFS60A has a proven pedigree, with its core being based on the popular MFS40 and MFS50A. However, this model features some interesting developments to pistons, intake valves, manifold and camshaft design, along with introduction of Roller Rocker Arms. The end result is responsive performance, superior fuel economy within a sleek and environmentally designed outboard. It’s available in aquamarine and white, forward control or large multi-function tiller, and retains all of the core features of the smaller MFS40/50A such as: Tohatsu Onboard Communication System (optional cables required); Trolling Assist; 21 amp charge system; electronic fuel injection; and Easy Flush System. www.tohatsu.com.au

MERCURY FOURSTROKE DEALS 5 For the first time, Mercury is offering a trio of great deals across its FourStroke range from 3.5-150hp. With Deal 1 you can save up to $800 on 3.5-60hp FourStroke engines. With Deal 2 you get free SmartCraft rigging on 75-150hp FourStroke engines (SmartCraft gauges bring all your vessel’s information together onto one simple-to-navigate device – including speed, rpm, trim, depth, alarms, water pressure, fuel flow etc – as well as allowing control of specialist systems such as Mercury’s Active Trim). And if you take advantage of Deal 3, you get the benefit of 3.99%* Mercury Finance on 40-150hp FourStroke repower. Even better, the mighty 150hp ProXS is included in Mercury’s summer deals for the first time, as are all SeaPro and ProXS models in the relevant horsepower categories. All three deals end on 18th November 2019, so you’ll have move fast if you want to secure your saving. *For full terms and conditions visit the Mercury Marine website. www.mercurymarine.com.au

FUSION FM SERIES

Fusion FM Series flush mount marine speakers and subwoofers are engineered to deliver high-quality acoustics. The lowprofile, near-flat installation allows for a visually appealing finish never before seen on a marine speaker or subwoofer. Combining optimized speaker drivers with aluminium dome tweeters to produce highquality audio at any volume, the FM Series also give you the ability to create a 2.1 audio zone. A new mounting system allows for nonintrusive, easy installation. You simply place the unit in the cutout, tighten the screws and the speaker legs will tighten against the panel without creating any screw holes. The FM Series complies with ISO12216 Annex D1.1 for Areas II, III and IV, due to its strength and watertightness. Available in round or square models and white or black colour options, they come in two sizes, 7.7” 200W and 6.5” 120W. Matching 10” 400W FM Series subwoofers are also available. www.fusionentertainment.com.au

Please email contributions to: nicole@fishingmonthly.com.au

SCAN THE QR CODE!

Built to perform. Built to last.

More Power, Performance and Reliability â€“ Insist on Mercury MerCruiser.

See your authorised Mercury MerCruiser Dealer today. SYDNEY SOUTH GO BOATING

HORNSBY SHANNON OUTBOARD SERVICE

SYDNEY NORTH WEST TR MARINE WORLD

3/48 Anderson Rd, Smeaton Grange Phone: (02) 9601 3022 Email: info@goboating.net.au Website: www.goboating.net.au

3/41 Leighton Place HORNSBY Phone: (02) 9482 2638 Email: sales@shannonoutboards.com.au Website: www.shannonoutboards.com.au

44 Curtis Road McGRATHS HILL Phone: (02) 4577 3522 Email: sales@trmarine.com.au Website: www.trmarine.com.au

CENTRAL COAST INSINC MARINE

MID NORTH COAST DISCO MARINE

SYDNEY WEST PENRITH MARINE

160 North Street GRAFTON Phone: (02) 6643 1199 Email: sales@discomarine.com.au Website: www.discomarine.com.au

4/133 Coreen Avenue PENRITH Phone: (02) 4731 6250 Email: sales@penrithmarine.com.au Website: www.penrithmarine.com.au

20 Dell Road WEST GOSFORD Phone: (02) 4324 4300 Email: troy@insincmarine.com.au Website: www.insincmarine.com.au

DUBBO DUBBO MARINE & WATERSPORTS 36 Bourke Street DUBBO Phone: (02) 6882 2853 Email: bbeandel@bigpond.net.au Website: www.dubbomarine.com.au

NEWCASTLE ENDEAVOUR MARINE 1 Nanda Street MARMONG POINT Phone: (02) 4958 4588 Email: sales@endeavourmarine.com.au Website: www.endeavourmarine.com.au

Sportsman Heritage 251 with twin 200hp Yamaha

the one under the seat for ice and drinks. Whether you stand or sit while driving at the helm, the designers of the Sportsman Heritage 251 have your

SYDNEY SOUTH

Gary Brown gbrown1@iprimus.com.au

With its sleek lines, powerful outboard and so many standard features in the Sportsman Heritage 251 package from Marina Bayside at Taren Point in Sydney, I couldnâ€™t wait to get on board and have Brock put the rig through its paces. The morning was one of those very calm days with not many other boats on the water, so there was no wake jumping or rough seas to put this beast through, even though I could just imagine how it would perform out on the open water. The outfit tested on the day came with two 200hp Yamaha outboards and idled at 700rpm, came onto the plane at 16-knots/3000rpm and

PERFORMANCE

Main: With the hammers down, this great package made it to 78km/h, with both 200hp Yamahas working hard. Above: With its deep hull and its sleek lines, the Sportsman Heritage 251 will give you a very smooth ride. at 5000rpm it travelled at 30 knots, at 5200rpm it comfortably travelled at 40 knots and when run flat stick it ran at 5800rpm and 42 knots. I would, however,

SPECIFICATIONS Length.......................................................7.67m Beam........................................................2.79m Max.hp .....................................................425hp Draft.(up) ...............................................450mm Deadrise.at.Transom ................................... 21Â° Approx..Dry.Weight............................... 1860kg Capacity .......................................... 12 persons reached a travelling speed of approximately 27-knots/4000rpm in five seconds. Seeing what the Sportsman Heritage 251 powered by the two 200hp Yamaha outboards could do, I found out that 94

NOVEMBER 2019

bring in a fish. You slide your toes under the bar and in conjunction with the bolster cushion, it provides a sturdy brace for your legs, even if the deck is wet or slippery.

run it at this speed, as you would find also that you would use a lot of fuel. Marina Bayside are offering the Sportsman Heritage 251 with a single Yamaha F300XCA V6 outboard package, and after doing some research of

how it would perform with a 300hp Yamaha F300XCA V6, I learned it could achieve a top speed of 79km/h, or 42.6 knots, at 5900rpm. As there are so many features that come with this package, you can view a full list of them by visiting the Sportsman website. After talking to many different boaties, one thing that they find tiresome is lowering and retrieving the anchor. Dropping the anchor is a breeze on the Sportsman Heritage 251, you just push a button to lower and retrieve your high-grade stainless-steel anchor with ease. Just imagine driving to your favourite fishing or picnic spot while listening to music from the 6 JL Audio M3-650X Gloss White Sport Grille Speakers and having some of your guests lounging around on the wrap

around seating cushions and removable backrests at the bow of the boat. Instead of using the two large insulated fish boxes at the bow to store your catch, you could use the infloor one to put your esky in and

RPM.......... Speed.(km/h)........ Economy.(km/L) 1000 ......................... 7.24 ........................... 1.20 1500 .......................11.43 ........................... 1.16 2000.......................14.00 ........................... 0.77 2500 ...................... 21.08 ........................... 0.81 3000...................... 35.57 ........................... 1.15 3500 ...................... 44.58 ........................... 1.24 4000...................... 54.23 ........................... 1.05 4500 ...................... 62.60 ........................... 0.93 5000...................... 69.04 ........................... 0.79 5500 .......................76.28 ........................... 0.63 6050 ...................... 86.90 ........................... 0.56 comfort in mind, with the individually adjustable flip-up bolsters and the flipdown footrest. Located under the gunwale rod racks, the toe rail is designed as a brace point when heeling over the side of the boat to gaff or

Marina Bayside at 1/13 Mangrove Lane in Taren Point offer a few packages for the Sportsman Heritage 251, which start from $197,995 when fitted with a Yamaha F300hp ECA outboard. For more information visit www. marinabayside.com.au.

The Sportsman Heritage 251 measures in at 10.4m overall (trailer and boat) and 4.1m in height with the outriggers folded down. If you buy one, you will have to think about what vehicle you are going to tow it with.

The fibreglass leaning post with flip-up bolsters is very comfortable and has been designed with versatility in mind. It can accommodate two adults comfortably. The individually adjustable flip-up bolsters offer the convenience to allow you to stand or sit and include a flip-down footrest.

Brock and the author couldn’t wait to get out on the water and put the Simrad electronics through its paces. Check out the number of switches – there is one for just about everything!

Due to the height of the boat on the trailer, it’s a good idea to keep the outriggers and aerial down until you get the boat on the water. Where this rig was launched, there were low overhead wires.

On the day of testing the Sportsman Heritage 251 had two 200hp Yamaha outboards fitted.

The bow of this boat is designed with entertainment and versatility in mind. It features wrap around seating with all the cushions, removable backrests, two easily accessible large insulated fish boxes, drink holders and speakers to play your favourite tunes. At the rear of the boat you will find a bench seat complete with a cushion set, live well tank and a rear access door. Imagine sitting here as you were taken on a ride in the Sportsman Heritage 251.

Above: The Sportsman Heritage 251 has a deadrise of 21° and a draft of 45cm. The fibreglass hard top will give you plenty of protection from the glaring sun. Below: The author was quite amazed at the small turning circle the Sportsman Heritage 251 had when putting it through its paces.

The rear total access hatch gives you the ability to have large storage that’s still incredibly easy to access. It’s the perfect place for your life jackets, extra anchor, safety equipment, scuba gear and anything else you may need. When empty, it offers best-in-class access to your essential pumps and seacocks.

The fibreglass hard-top is packed with convenient features. The tested rig was equipped with JL Audio speakers, LED anchor light, map reading light, spreader light, rocket launchers and Taco outrigger plates. NOVEMBER 2019