highlander

I'm like Crossfire, I only need enough light for tying knots or changing lures etc. I get rather peeved when night fishing and others approach me with a damn searchlight hanging off their skull that not only blinds me, but turns the surrounding 5 acres to daylight. I do use & highly recommend the Lenser H7R as a very efficient, high performance headlight, but only use it on it's lowest output setting when fishing.

No, I'm a Queenslander - not smart enough to make up something like that. Somebody sent it to me a couple of years ago - cracked me up so much that I figured I would save it.

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting on the verandah, drinking beer and watching my wife mow the lawn. Cheryl from next door saw us and was so upset that she came over and yelled at me, "You lazy mongrel! Sitting there drinking beer while your poor wife pushes that ancient lawn mower around! Get up off your fat butt and give her a break!" I thought '$hite, women!' - took another swig from my stubby, wiped the cold foam from my lips, lifted my sunnies, stared directly at this nosey cow and told her in no uncertain terms to sod off and mind her own business. I told her my wife had green fingers and that she really enjoyed gardening. After a few days I felt really bad, so I went out and bought her a ride-on mower to show my senstive side. I'm really proud of the deal I got and also very proud that my wife can now sit down while mowing the lawn. Yes guys, we should take good care of our wives... then maybe they'll take good care of us. I've attached a picture below...hope it comes through OK Yeah, I know - I'm too bloody soft with her. She'll want gears on it next.

An interesting bit of info I came across recently was the growing concern in the world of marine biology that due to the huge harvest of sharks globally, (mainly for fins), squid will eventually become the top predator. In some waters off southern California & Mexico, sharks have been completely wiped out and a large species of squid (Humboldt) is now not only the top predator, but also a danger to man. So, on that note - get out there & into them.

G'day Col, I have heard much debate over the years in regard to what size & colour is best in squid jigs and some fishos will swear by a certain brand and others go with the cheapies. Grey nurse is partly correct in saying that big lures will catch big squid and that small lures will catch little squid and I guess that this rule of thumb applies to all fishing, no matter what you target - big bait, big fish - little bait, little fish. All my squid fishing is done in South Oz where I target the southern calamari and a lot of the time the rule of thumb is totally ignored by the squid. Like all cephalopods, they are highly intelligent and make a worthy adversary. They can be very aggressive feeders at times and quite fickle the rest of the time and it is because of this cautious nature that there is no one particular jig (size or colour) that will guarantee a hookup. I have 2 "go to" jigs that I usually start a session with. One is a gold 3.5 Gancraft and the other is what I call the qantas jig, a red & white 3.5 Yozuri. Both of these jigs are proven squid slayers, especially the qantas jig which in South Oz is the preferred jig by most pro squidders. Does size matter? Not really, I have hooked very small calamari quite often on size 4.0 jigs and conversely, I have landed thumpers on size 1.6 jigs. The secret to successful squidding is technique and knowing your target. Squid are typical ambush feeders and the ideal spot to target them is over weed beds where they like to hide and if you perfect the technique of getting your jig to just skim the top of the weeds, you will get hookups. good luck.

You could pick up a Shimano Stradic 4000FJ for about the 200 mark - maybe a bit cheaper if you shop around. I've been using the Stradics in various sizes for the past few years and they are a tough reliable reel. Jeff

I've got a couple of the Emeraldas Nude and they work just as good as the higher priced Gancraft UO-jya. I wasn't real convinced that the abalone shell gizmo on the back of the jig was really anything more than a marketing ploy to lure the buyer and not necessarily the squid, but after testing it on some very timid squid I believe that it has merit. Jeff

There are jigs pouches available, a couple of years back I think I paid under $10 for the pouch in the below pic. It was on special at BigW and came with half a dozen el cheapo jigs that I gave to a young bloke on the jetty at Smoky Bay. I wasn't real happy later when he showed me 8 thumper squid he had caught and I only caught 1 little bugger.

I'm not sure if this will work, but I will try and post a pic of my favourite jigs. The 6 on the left and the bottom right are Gancraft UO-jya. They are smooth with no cloth covering and are real squid slayers. The only cloth covered are the orange Harimitsu (2nd from top on right) and the gold Gancraft below it. Jeff

For a lot of years I only used cheapies with the occasional Yozuri and then a couple of years back I bought a top shelf Gancraft just to see if it would improve my catch rate. I do a lot of squidding and I wont use anything but the best jigs these days - they are more durable and my catch rate improved markedly. I'm not saying that cheapies won't produce squid, it's just a false economy to keep replacing them when the extra outlay will give you a jig that will last for ages and more than likely catch you more squid.

That cheap degreaser makes a good weed killer also. Jeff

Thanks for the welcome Blood Knot. There are some pretty "switched on" fishos on this forum and I think their knowledge & piscatorial expertise far surpasses anything that I have accumulated over the past 60 years. One of the negative aspects of becoming an old fart is the inability to keep up with all the young guns out there, not just in the physical side of fishing, but in keeping up with technology. When I look at some of the fishing gear of the modern era and compare it to the museum pieces from my younger days, I marvel at the ingenuity and skills of those who invent, design & produce the current crop of gear available. Jeff

Hi everyone, I'm Jeff from the Queensland central highlands. I've been fishing for near on 60 years and tried just about all aspects of the sport from sneaking up on trout in mountain streams to doing battle with some offshore monsters. These days my passion is flicking soft plastics for bream on as light a gear as possible and the occasional head to head combat with barra & jacks. For a long time I thought I knew all there is to know about fishing and then along came the internet and with it came the fishing forums and after reading some of the comments and advice from others on forums like Fishraider, I soon come to the realization that I still had a lot to learn.