00ROTA

Steve, know my reply is overdue a bit. It's the avoca rocks that got me good.

I personally use a 6'10" Lox Yoshi with soft plastics.3/8-5/8 jig heads. jerk shads seem to be the go. Cast, let sink, erratic retrieve = fish. Bonito are an awesome easy feed!

Just bought another one. haha. I WAS running a pflueger patriarch 4000 which was a bit light. Changed to a Penn Conflict 5000. The extra weight of the reel makes it lovely to use!

I assume your talking about the surf 1026? One of my favourite rods until a couple weekends ago until she broke! The top section works itself loose after an hour of casting or so. I had to consistently check it was in the lower section tight. Obviously didn't check frequently enough and the top section came out on casting, snapping the rod at the join. I previously tried a few different methods to keep the join solid to no avail. I don't know if this was just some strange issue with mine. Im going to get another one regardless. They send my 40-70gm lures kilometres and have some grunt in them when you hook up something decent! Caught quite a few kingies and bonito off the rocks with it.

I live 5mins away from Bobbin head and used to fish it really frequently. There are actually quite a few sharks in that area! Have seen them cruising around as far down as Apple Tree bay under the bridge. Pretty sure they have been all bull sharks that i have seen there. Only ever had one incident where a shark thought my bream was better suited to him.

As far as squid liking to be close to the ocean, I wouldn't say that's too correct. You would be suprised how far up they will get. Clean water is very important. Sand weed and structure are the ingredients required. Clifton gardens, cremorne point, Taylor's point, Palm beach, Jeffrey st wharf, pier 2, blues point, and a heap of others are great common spots. If your happy to search, you will find some amazingly good areas to fish that have few people. Jig selection and action is what is important with squidding.

good work on the squid mate! This is the technique i use, generally in deeper waters. Will help your catch, also understand what colour jig to use where. After a while you will get the hang of it, will consistently catch squid, and know where to look!

The quality alone of the jap jigs is enough to keep me happy! Cheap ones do work but I have seriously gone through so many due to cloth falling apart and stinkers falling out, etc. Not to mention sink rates and actions as relapse said. Definitely worth spending the dollars on the quality jigs!

There is nothing wrong with the current system, and commercial fishos are against the changes too. They are restricted pretty heavily to how many days they can fish a year, and already have to buy 'shares'. The increase in shares required to fish still will put a lot out. All the hate on the commercial sector is pretty bad. They are making a dollar, AND helping us recreational fishos too. Anyone ever bought fresh hawkesbury squid from a tackle shop? These changes go through, chances are your local tackle shop will have imported squid from Thailand or Californian squid. Yuck.

Haven't been up there for almost a month now. Anyone hit it up recently and seen much going on? Tossing up going there for fish or pittwater for squid.

Thats putrid mate. I live a couple minutes away and go down very regularly. Never had an incident or seen any issues down there! There is also security down there at night. Really sorry to hear. You mean there were tossers hanging around in cars as you get sometimes or people fishing?

Not new by any means, i think that squid fishos are just starting to catch on to the higher quality jigs, such as Gancraft, Evergreen, Fish League, Breaden, etc. I LOVE my gancrafts I also personally think the Harimitsus are the best quality of the cheaper jigs.

What boat ramp did you use champ?

they are definitely around. One caught accidentally at Bobbin head, and have seen others cruising through.

Im avoiding buying more jigs until i sort a better storage solution for my day trips. I carry as little as possible with me on trips which is causing my jigs damage. Only using a small rapala tackle sling. that poison bait colour is a killer. Getting them from Japan im guessing?