g.t.

Thanks for the support guys and girls . The overwheling response is a testiment to this great site and its great members. We couldn't ask for more than to have so many experienced eyes looking out for the boat. Fingers crossed a miracle comes our way! Thanks again, Geoff.

G'day Raiders. I wish I was posting with happier news, but unfortunately I'm not as the as the title might suggest... My brother's boat (pictured) was stolen 2 days ago from out the front of his house in Brooklyn. He is absolutely gutted as he's been gradually fixing it up over the last year and only just got it back on the water a couple of months ago. To add to his woes, my brother has been off work for the last 8 weeks having 4 separate eye operations to try and save his eyesight due to complications with his diabetes. Getting back out on the water was a light at the end of the tunnel he was really looking forward to. Boat details: Haines Signature 1750 C Half Cabin. White with red trim. Rego- XF489N Year- Approx 1985-88 (I think) Motor- 80HP Mercury outboard Trailer- Twin Axle Boeing Trailer with electric winch I'm hoping that someone in the wonderful Fishraider community may see it turn up somewhere, and could please report it to Hornsby police (ph 02 9476 9799). Please keep your eyes peeled as this is a real kick in the guts that my brother didn't need. Regrettably the boat was not insured. Thanks for reading! Geoff.

I think it has snapper genes!

Lovely spot. Stayed in a luxury cabin there 2 years ago and it was fantastic. I could wander straight out the front door to a private jetty to wet a line... Discovered there are a shed load of flatties in that creek!

camb1988 is spot on with catching yakkas. Burley is key and bait jigs/ sabiki jigs are cheap and effective. If you do a search on this site for catching poddies, there's plenty of info in previous posts, but here's a quick summary of what works for me... I've used both the expanding mesh net type of trap and the clear plastic cylindrical type and both types work. I mainly use the clear plastic type as all my mesh net types have failed in the zippers after a few months. The homemade traps are also effective. In terms of spots, most sand flats seem to hold poddy mullet as do areas around boat ramps for some reason. Burley up with some bread first to assess whether you've found a good spot. If you don't have a school of poddies fighting over you're burley, move on to another spot. Place about half a slice of bread in your trap and then place your trap in the shallows. Thoroughly wet the other half of the slice and mush it into a milk slush. Sprinkle the milky bread around your trap as burley. Some people will tell you to put it 30cm or so under the surface. I'd disagree... In my experience you catch more when the opening of the trap is just under the surface. I find I get far more, far sooner this way. My observation is that they generally swim in the top 15cm of the water column and they're reluctant to swim into a trap any deeper than this. Good luck ! The poddies are dynamite on flatties!

Not a monster? Dude... That's a monster! Well done on an awesome catch!

Welcome Mrs Slinky! Great first post. I'm sure you know Slinky's very well regarded on this site so we're all glad to have the better half of the Slinky combo onboard. Like brickman elluded to, if all that damn tackle is cluttering up your house too much, I'll be more than happy to take it off your hands... I'll just need to hide it from my !

Nice ! Now you need some lumpy roads to test them out on... There's heaps round my suburb!

Caught a handful of undersized whiting, a stack of 30 odd centimetre flatties, and ended up with a 49cm flatty as the best model for the day. Dropped a 60+ cm flatty at the boat . The bloody thing was stubbornly just holding on to the hookless end of a big poddie and spat it when he saw my pretty face .

Congrats on what sounds like a great day. Nothing like getting smoked to feed the obsession!!! In terms of a knot for tying to a swivel, I like to first make a double in my braid using a bimini twist, then attach this doubled line to a swivel using a cat's paw. The cat's paw is a piece of piss to tie, but you might want to youtube tying a bimini twist if you haven't tied one before. They're pretty straight forward once you've been shown. Cheers, Geoff.

Awesome read . Sounds like you had a wicked trip. I'd love to do it myself someday... If the ever gives me a leave pass that is!

Saltist 4500 has my vote as well. All of the reels mentioned are great reels but I honestly don't think there's a better option than the Saltist. High speed retrieve which makes all the difference for spinning metals and man they're tough!

Great catch and a great read Do you normally spin plastics or metals to catch the tailor? Tailor and their love for the arse-end of my plastics drives me nuts!

This may be showing my ignorance, but if they're that hard to find would it not be worth considering getting the paint/ spray paint/ airbrush out and giving a chubby in an easier to find colour a bit of a "jaundice inspired" make-over?

Make sure you take your camera Ray so you can share some of your famous shots! I'd love to see it in real life but some RayR photos would be the next best thing!