FishStickSteve

I'm transitioning over to using lures. had my first bit tailor and a group of 50cm squid and now I am... hooked. My misses is still a fan of prawns and pilchards and always catches us dinner.

I've used presalted pilchards a month ago becasue they didn't have the regular ones. I didnt catch a bloody thing in a place I normally leave with sore arms and a full esky. So I won't rush out and buy more.

Closest to woolies, Red spots I go with prawns and is land based. but if I can bring a kayak I'll take a soft plastic and flick around the blue circles for some flatheads. I love Narrabeen, in summer it is not rare for my misses to catch 3 to 5 45+cm flatheads using whole hawkesbury prawns.

Hi Mate, I fish Narrabeen lake heaps. I'm going there next weekend with my misses. A good all year round bait I like to use is hawkesbury prawns. You won't have much luck catching flatheads unless you land your bait really close to them. If you are going for a bit of fun, you can't go wrong around the eastern side near to the parking lot, you will catch heaps of small bream and have a fun time. but if you are looking for a feed. you will want to get a bit closer to the bridge. Try casting as close as you can to the piers as you can. Bream like solid structure. Lure fishing is generally prefered but a well placed hawkesbury prawn won't be unnoticed. I generally use a whole H Prawn and slide it along the hook (Deshelled of course).

Haha, Wasn't too hard to unhook, but it was so damn funny watching it roll off the rock, almost pissed myself laughing.

Oh yeah. I am well aware. I used the longest hook remover I had and resisted the temptation to kick it around like a football.

Today started off as any other day. A mate, my misses and I decided to go to a fishing spot that not many people go to. (It is technically private property, but the owners are cool if we drop off a fish or two.) I had bought a cheapo fishing rod from kmart the night before and thought it would be a great idea to see how it goes. We got to our spot and dropped our lines into the water. My misses as per usual was reeling in fish left right and center while my mate and I exchanged top shelf banter while pulling in snapper the length of a whole avocado... Half an hour into the session I experienced something I very rarely feel. A good solid bite and a bending rod. I fought this sucker for at least a solid 30 seconds, 30 seconds to at least a minute. When It came out from beneath the rock I saw it's head, thinking it was some sort of weird deformed flathead I squealed with excitement, but that feeling was very quickly replaced by sheer terror as it's head broke the surface of the water and I heard an unholy gasp of air. As I pulled it out the water I saw it starting to inflate itself. My mate said that it was the biggest puffer he had seen, so i grabbed my phone and took a photo to post it here. I reckon it has to be at least 35 to maybe at a stretch 40cm. I caught it on basic banana prawn from woolies. Once I unhooked it, it was around the size of a football. I used the butt end of my rod to push it back into the water. It rolled down and bounced off a small rock and plopped back into the water. I almost wet myself laughing at the sound of it rolling along. I don't think it is near to a record on the forums, but it is by far the biggest puffer I have ever seen. The rest of the day saw me catching plenty more snapper, wrasse, a few blackfish, a rock cod and a few flatheads. It was a really good day.

Haha. Already sussing out some surf rods.

I love it. Its not too far from me and I've always had fun. Well, besides 1 trip last year, but I don't speak of that trip.

My budget is flexible in the sense that I can happily drop $800+ on a rod and reel if its worth spending the cash on. But I don't want to spend $800 if a $400 rod will be just as good. If that makes any sense. And as for target fish, I am pretty much after anything besides sharks. I'm happy for the sharks to stay just where they are.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you good news! My Shiny new rod and reel had a brilliant run this last weekend. It was Saturday 17th of March, and after a long morning looking at apartments and becoming more stressed out. My wonderful misses suggested we go to Narrabeen for a quick fishing session before we headed over to the relatives for dinner. I grabbed my lures and my misses swung past our bait shop for some hawkesbury prawns. It was around 32 degrees but there was no wind. It was uncomfortably hot but the fishing was worth it. We got to our usual spot and as we approached our spot I noticed there was a lot of surface activity as there was fish going mad for prawns, So I threw on a small 04 Suicide hook and a little piece of prawn the size of my thumb nail (no sinker) I threw some prawn heads in near a fallen over tree and saw bream absolutely smashing the prawn heads. I flicked my bait in right besides the free and as the bait hit the water I hooked a 30cm bream. I squealed with excitement as my rod bent and reel screamed. I reeled it in and released. I was having so much fun that I did not notice that 2 hours had gone by, In that time my lovely misses caught a good little 40cm flathead and I lost count after my 10th Bream, I was pulling anything between 15cm up to my PB of 38cm (It seemed to be a fan of weight watchers). All Bream were released as my misses already saw to us having dinner for Sunday night. My new shiny rod and reel is awesome! I will include a picture of it once I get home. Peace and Tight Lines FSS

Cheers mate, As far as my target fish, I don't know, haha, I was going to throw a pilchard onto the hook and see what I reeled in. If I can avoid it I wont be targeting sharks, Had a run in with one when I was still in South Africa. So I am very happy for them to stay in the ocean. I'll look up that rod and reel. Cheers Mate.

Raiders! I require your wise counsel. I'm wanting to break into the beach fishing scene, but being poor I require a good bang for the buck rod, but I have no clue where to begin. For instance if I wanted to go off roading I wouldn't go buy a gold plated jeep cherokee when a cheaper toyota hilux would be far cheaper and just as good, if not better. So I have 2 questions, What would I need to spend for a solid rod AND reel for beach fishing in NSW (Around Sydney area) and which combo would you buy if you had a strict budget set out by your better half. Peace and Tight Lines FSS.

It's not a heaps fancy set up. More budget orientated but I love it. Now that I've had a good trip with it I'll type up a little report about my recent trip.

Just inland of the Pitwater road bridge. Walked along the shore and found some good large tree branches and fished around there. Found a spot and went nuts.