nicktoozoff

Nice work Hodgey, good to here that the sambo's are back in numbers. How do you find the ZMan placcies hold onto the jighead? I have had probs once they get pulled down, not staying put. Might be time for a session down there with you again.

Hi Guys, We've had this rod sitting around for ages. It was brought in for a new tip top, and was going to end up costing more to repair than it was worth, so they bought a new rod. I decided I liked the action for some light surf work, so A rebuild was in order. The rod is an old Daiwa 127MC 9' 2pc rated to about 3-6kg. I stripped back the grips, Reel seat, and the 5 guides. I replaced the old EVA with some nice cord grips, slapped a new reel seat on it and replaced the guides from 5 to 8 new ALPS guides with black frames and gold inserts. I went with a double foot for the stripper and single foot guides for the rest given the light nature of the rod. Given the blank was yellow, I went for a good old Green & Gold colour scheme, OI OI OI! Very happy how it turned out, and looking forward to getting stuck into some sambo's in the suds. Cheers Nick.

Mmmmmmm, Pilchards, high in "iron"

Yep, that's about right Dave 25miles, Further if going out from Bateman's Bay, about 50miles.

All my labels are printed on water slide decal paper using a ink jet printer. The decal is then sealed with an acrylic spray to stop the ink running when soaking the decal, then epoxyied over. You can't print white, golds or silver though. If you are looking for the water slide paper, search for it under online shop. Cheers Nick.

Hi All, For all of those of you who like to chase the tuna down the south coast, we have been hearing awesome reports from down Bermagui and Narooma way. Blue fin in plague proportions once berleyed to the back of the boat in excess of 100kg. Fish have been caught on everything and anything with reports of fish taking sausages', donuts, cigarette butts, coke cans basicaly anything that goes over the side,(not that I recommend chucking crap over the side). A few guys have even been hand feeding them over the side, until fingers were mistaken for a food source !! Get into them if you are able, they might not hang around too long. Nick.

Hi All, On Tuesday I headed up to North Durras to check out the opening of the lake. The lake system itself has been closed to tidal influence for the last 4 years and the water levels finally triggered the point at which council are required to help the system open. I arrived at North Durras at about 10am to find the excavator already doing it's thing ready for the high tide to peack at about 12.30pm. While I waited for the opening I set a couple of rods with bait and threw around some metals. The sambo's were willing to play ball with schools of about 15-20 fish moving along the gutter no more than 15m from the shore dump. It was just a matter of waiting for a school to cruise past and tempt them with any flashy metal. I set one rod with bait while I walked down to check out the digger getting close to opening the lake. After about half an hour I decided that I should check the rod, good thing to as the rod was doubled over and losing line at alarming rate. I upped the drag and put pressure on the fish with only 50m of braid before I hit the backing knowing what the outcome woud be, PING! The fish had headed straight for the bommie out the front and braid meeting reef was never in my favour. I retrieved about 100m of braid losing about 150m in the process !!! Never saw the fish, but it was either a shark or Jew given the two or three head shakes I felt. A lesson learned!I was lucky not to loose the whole outfit! Kept 2 sambos' to about 3kg and witnessed the rebirth of a great system. From all reports the mouth is now abpout 20-30m wide and flowing nicely. I'll head back on Monday for a return visit and see if I can exact some revenge. Cheers Nick.

Nice fish Hodgey! I really struggled on Sunday, couldn't find a sheltered spot to save ourselves let alone the fish. What you done with them all? I reckon you must be the pied piper of Tuross, hiding them all in a secret spot !! Cheers Nick.

Nice builds there mate. I like the look of the decorative work on the St Croix.

Hi All, Have just completed this one for Toby. He will be using to troll for trout using lead core line. Blank is a Rainshadow IP844F 7' 2pc Cork rear and fore grips, Gold hooded Fuji reel seat and gold Alps winding check. Guides were salvaged from one of the Toby's previous rod that was damaged. I believe they are Fuji Titanium Sic. Toby chose the colours himself, all are from the extensive Maderia Polyneon 40 range. Orange #1955, Yellow #1824, and Blue #1733. Originally this rod was going to be a std overhead rod for his Catalina C15 reel, but when static testing the guide train, I found that it really needed an extra guide to prevent line/blank contact. So it was decided to spiral or acid wrap the rod. This involves transitioniing the guides from "up top" to under the rod. So yes the guides are "crooked", something Toby is going to have to get used to hearing ! It was a fun build, and I'm looking forward to seeing some pics of cracking trout that find the pointy end of this setup. Cheers Nick.

Nice little session there mate. Nick.

It's actually a blank I stripped down and re-built. It was, in it's previous life, a Pioneer Tuna Terror rod. Cheers Nick.

Peter, I was using 6lb Fireline Excel and 6lb FC leader. I have just scaled down to 4lb Diawa braid to help with the casting of such light plastics, but will stick with 4-6lb FC leaders. Nick.

Thanks All, Got another on the go as I type, should be finished in the next week or so. Just need to get some more brushes for epoxy application. Nick.

Hi All, I've been exploring some of my local waters in the last couple of weeks in an attempt to nut out black bream on ultra light weight plastic presentations. Last week saw me put 2 5 hour sessions over consecutive days in the kayak up one of my local systems. I spent my time playing with different plastic/hook combinations and found that no lead was the way to go to keep the plastic where I wanted it (in the top 6" of water). Over the 2 days I managed 12-15 fish to 35cm's, with most of the fish taking a walk the dog surface style presentation. I found that if the bream missed the surface take, a do nothing pause as the plastic slowly sank would see a return bite usually resulting in a hook up,........or a bust up ! Any way here is are a couple of pics of the biggest from the 2 days fishing. Plastic is a Berkley Hollow belly on a Daiichi #2 worm hook, one of a couple of patterns that worked well for me. Cheers Nick.