Dr Funk

I think land based can be tough. lots of Gar and bream get caught from bonaroo point jetty. Boat or Kayak in the main lake are pretty productive for me anyway. I usually fish anywhere on the eastern fringe of the lake along the drop off from primbee to Mt warrigal depending on wind and tide. If you can get poddy's or nippers thats great, if not I've been going well on the plastics. Forget about store bought bait if you want to have any luck in the lake though, thats just from my experiance anyway. You end up getting all the little pickers or nothing at all. There have been a heap of occys in the crab traps around the drop off too lately and the crabs have been firing. There was also a school of mullet a few days ago that stretched from windang all the way to dapto! Plenty there but as I said I think land based can be tough due to the speed of the current in the channel. If I was land based I would try from the first groyne on the windang side. I sounded it the other day and its 11m with plenty of bait around it. deepest part of the lake by far!!

The before and after photo really says it all I think. From brown stagnant water to clear blue water. The lake used to smell......bad. I think a PM visited one time and said "it pongs". People have been bagging out on crabs this week in around an hour and crab numbers the last few years have been great. Prawning as I said before is not the same but the number of fish and the variety of species in the lake is at an all time high. I live right on the lake and its looking (and smelling) better than ever.....I bagged out on flatties yesterday in an hour so there are plenty of keepers there too.

The lake has been open for the last 10 years. It flushes with the tide every day. The prawning in there is now pretty hit and miss compared to past years and the crabs seem to have come on a little later in the last few years. The fishing is great but you need the right bait to be successful. Nippers and poddy mullet are a must if you want to get fish. We get a feed every time but as I said its all about the bait.

Marlin

Sounds like a top day. Live bait is the key for kings around Port. Lots around the breakwalls at the moment and there are enough rats about to keep you busy all day. the bigger ones are there but you need to work harder to find them.

yeah, top session. The yakkas were in near the refueling wharf (okay if you get there early) and we were also able to jig a few up through kings when we were on the school.

We got a heap of fish that same day out at port. Live yakkas were the key. we kept running out. we would load up with 10-15 livies and then have to head back and get more every half hour or so. Only ended up with 3 keepers among the rats but the baits were only lasting a matter of minutes each time.

Trolled out and around Bass Point on Monday afternoon for a doughnut! Nice on the north side of the point but there was a big south swell running once we poked our heads out of the wreck. Heaps of colour on the sounder but nothing even had a sniff.

Also, look for this book. It's rad and will have a large amount of content for you - The Physiology of Fishes, Third Edition, edited by David H. Evans, James B. Claiborne

There was a study in 2001 on gut morphology of reef fish. It was looking at the gut morphology of certain species of fish around lizard island with a focus on convergance of three families. The guy who did the study was Jason Elliot (I helped dispatch the fish and also prepare the slides). Claudia Pogoreutz also did similar studies. This really doesnt cover into reproductive endocrine functions but it may inform some of your assumptions. (and its a pretty interesting study) All the best.

Have you got a photo with the tail? I would say it could be a Bar Cod.....http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/fisheries/recreational/saltwater/sw-species/bar-cod.

You do have to be careful in tropical and sub tropical areas as long toms can cause Ciguatera poisoning if eaten.

Spot on. I'd say a Juvenile Smallspine Turretfish And with the seperate dorsal spines it couldnt be the humpback Turretfish

It's incredible that it got to that size. It will be interesting to see the research paper that comes from it as I believe it is the fisrt of it's kind to be documented. Sad that its dead though but good to see it picked up by fisheries.

That looks like a Euastacus spinifer or Sydney spiny crayfish. Many of the Euastacus species are on the critically endangered list. From the colour morphology on that one I assume you caught it in the national park, south of Sydney? The ones in the Blue Mountains tend to have more white on the carapace and the ones even further out in lithgow are completely red! We have about 50 species of freshwater cray endemic to Austraila and no one really take much notice of them other than yabbies, redclaw and marron.