gambit

Nice Yellowfin taken during the weekend PH100 comp. Weighed 53kg on 15kg and was caught cubing wide of the Southern Canyons. They also lost one other YFT I believe. Water is good out there; loads of bait; just need the predators to find it !! Cheers, Bob.

Sounds like a great fish Damo. You might need to get Captain Mike a GoPro for his hat to get the action captured betterer! We are heading back up by bus or train on Thursday sometime to fish Gale Force down for the Broken Bay comp. Don't really like the look of the weather forecast though... Cheers, Bob.

Unless I am confused by the photos, what you caught was actually a Shortbilled Spearfish, and not a marlin at all. That explains the apparent lack of a bill and also the lack of stripes. Great sport on the right tackle, and great eating too! They average around 20-30kg weight around these parts. I have attached a photo of one from the net at random, which is far better than the photo of one we caught aboard Gale Force last season (and tagged). We also have a cast of one on the wall at Sydney GFC clubhouse. If you are ever down there at Watson's Bay try and pop in and have a look to compare with your fish. The bronze colouring on the cast fish and your fish in one photo is pretty much the same. Cheers, Bob.

I have also had problems with Albright braid/mono connections. My solution has to been to plait a join between the two, and seems to work just fine. Goes through the guides easily as long as it is neatly trimmed. Good luck, Bob.

After watching the short video clip, I can see the problem. The skipper is far too calm & polite. He should have been yelling WIND, WIND, WIND [YOU SWINE]. Not that it would have made it different to this particular outcome, but it would have been far more normal for a first marlin situation!

Congrats on a great first effort on a marlin. They can be tricky buggers near the boat! How dedicated is Captain Mike. Out at sea with a broken collarbone and an arm in a sling. Thank heavens he did have other crew on board for this trip! Cheers, Bob.

Picture 1 is a garden variety Sawtail Surgeon ~50cm I caught recently. Pictures 2 & 3 &4 are of one I caught yesterday in the same location. It had many of the same body features [skin, tail scutes etc) but had a very different body shape. Looked sort of like a Sawtail Surgeonfish had mated with a maori wrasse [hump nose] and a luderick [thin stripes]. Any ideas appreciated. Thanks, Bob.

Managed any beakies on light tackle yet MarK ?

I would actually have called the slimey bite as being from a small shark, and probably a mako. They have very spindley front teeth, and are not all that effective at biting clean chunks out. Cheers, Bob.

Are you saving it as a swim bait for the Lizard trip Nudge ??

Why do I get the feeling that many people insist this is basically a push for "Light Line Class Fishing", when it isn't. The points bonus/advantage stops at 10kg, and the level of points advantage is actually quite slim. 10kg is just one line class lower than many people regularly fish now without any qualms. As long as the fish size is suitable (as it is for the average size fish off most of NSW for most of the year) then getting the fish on 10kg is quite realistic. With appropriate gear, boat and crew it should not involve long drawn out fights, nor should it involve exhausted fish. However, 10kg will not be for everyone (and as I explained earlier, we would not fish it if bigger fish were around). Nor will 15kg for some. That is fine - each to their own. By the way, I hope people have actually looked at how the points work. In a possible/hypothetical situation where one boat might get, say 4 fish on 10kg, one gets 5 on 15kg, one 6 on 24kg and one say 7 on 37kg, THE WINNER IS ....................???................... 6 fish on 24kg (60,000pts). At the rear of the field is the boat with 4 fish on 10kg (50,000), so that is hardly making life impossibly difficult for the people still choosing heavier tackle (with longer leaders and probably quicker fight times etc) A few years back at the Interclub, we were fishing capture and put 2 fish on 10kg on the deck. One more good fish would have had us at Champion Boat, Capture. We ended up running 3rd. In that same tournament we tagged 7 marlin (around 40-60kg models) on 8 & 10kg. The video footage of them was submitted for all to see. No issue with long fights; no issue with condition of fish. All swam away apparently healthy. Now 7 fish tagged in some years would have had us right up there. But that particular year we only placed 30th in T&R !! The leading boat had about 19 fish from memory. Ours being on 10kg would probably have made a bit of difference to our final placing under the new system, but in no way would have had us threatening anywhere near the lead being that far behind in numbers of fish. That same year we were runner-up boat in SGFC pointscore T&R with a few more fish to those above - including 1 on 6kg (~60kg striped by a junior on a Xmas tree...) and a few on 15/24kg. We recalc'd the points at the time, and we would still have been runner-up to the boat who won. They had a few more fish, and had many of theirs on 15kg anyway. We were certainly closer in points, but still would have needed more fish to hit the lead. I guess what I am saying is that I hope people at least give the new system a chance. I suspect it is not going to be such a problem once it gets underway, and most people I have spoken to reckon that they would rather a tied situation be decided on the basis of line class used, rather than time or a 25 point mahi mahi.. One day maybe we can have modifications for depth, estimated fish species and size etc, but that will not happen overnight. Cheers, Bob.

The whole reason we live in a democracy is so that people with different views can exist side by side in harmony. If anyone would like to read a pretty much opposite view to the thrust of the one copied in above, by one of Australia's top skippers, read the article "Billson on Billfish - The rules of engagement". It Googles up readily. It is particularly well written and very thought provoking. Cheers, Bob. PS: Ross - I do not think the greenies are going to be any more cranky about what our sport does to "Sea Kittens" than they already are. As I said earlier, when sensible tackle is being used (as you are doing already), then things are unlikely to change very much at all. There is no advantage in points trying to chase things on lines below 10kg anyway, and logically no advantage in targetting fish that are too big to effectively control on the line class. You would prefer to get some points, in reasonable timeframe, than zero points for a lost fish.

Oh, and by the way, it is not as if the new NSWGFA pointscore system is some wacko thing from left field. As far as I can figure out, most other states in Australia have been differentiating T&R points between different line classes, for years. They are using our fishing licence funded NSW DPI tags, by the way, so surely it would be blatantly hypocritical for DPI/Fisheries to only oppose such a system in NSW! The GFAA JUNIOR Competition has been running that great tournament (see http://www.gfaa.asn.au/html/junior_entry.pdf for this year's entry form by the way) with differentiated T&R points per line classes since inception. (and also using NSW DPI tags...) Their system is in the rules section at - http://www.gfaa.asn.au/html/junior_rules.pdf As further comparison, prestigious tournaments worldwide often run with different T&R points for different line classes. Even better, ones like the HIBT combine the T&R and capture points to determine the overall winner. So what we now have brings us more in tune with that others are already doing. Cheers, Bob.

I am not sure whether it is the "tunicates" you see on top at Browns? Possibly so, but on the weekend (very wide off Stanwell/Wollongong area) we saw lots of things that turned out to be "salps". At one points we tangled one up on the jig, which was a chain of salps about 15-20mtrs long. Very sea-serpent like! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salp The chain we tangled up with was very much like the one in the photo. From what we could feel when we were jigging down deep, there were thousands of them around. Very strange... Cheers, Bob. (at first I thought it was a pyrosoma - as we have seen long chains of these in the past as well) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrosoma

Ross, I have known you for a lot of years, and respect your experience and expertise immensely. But I do feel the need to point out a couple of things. Firstly, the previous T&R points system was implemented in 1989, not the 1970's. I know this because I was also at the relevant NSWGFA AGM when the system was introduced. If you look at the Interclub trophies history, you will see that the first time separate team trophies for Capture and T&R were awarded was 1990. You will no doubt remember that prior to the distinct split of the divisions, in the Interclub you received "bonus" points for tagged marlin, as capture points equivalent to the minimum weight for a marlin on the line class. I would still like to have that system now, but the split into 2 sections occured despite many protests. Secondly, there is not a unanimous view that the previous system has been working well. There are many who believe that it has long past it's usefullness. T&R has certainly grown in popularity over time, but in recent years many boats have given up on competitive T&R due to it being solely a numbers game, without any regard to skills, strategy, sport, or in fact the survival of the quarry. One only has to look at some of the Interclub "Highlights" videos (eg around 2002 and 2003) to see the impact that a small fish, heavy tackle, long trace and gung-ho crew can have. At the recent NSWGFA AGM the vote to replace the pointscore system was won 34-31. While this may seem a narrow victory, when you added up the number of members of the clubs supporting the change it was (by my reckoning) about 1800-1200, or something like that. That is because the larger clubs, who are already the leading T&R clubs, were all in support. But the change did not come without careful consideration of the latest research on some of the issues you mention. Tim Simpson was one of the people who very helpfully provided some of Dr Julian's recent research, which essentially concluded that line class in itself was not the prime issue in guaging the survival of a fish. Speedy fights were often very bad for the fish, whereas fish were more settled after a reasonable fight time. Further, swimming a fish boatside was extremely important in enhancing the fishes chance of survival. The relevant articles and video supporting this were presented at the meeting. I think that we were also told that the competition with the best recapture rates (+1% higher than average) of any local (ie Australian) tournament was one of the 6kg comps in FNQ - where the usual quarry are small blacks and sailfish. This is because the size of the fish is well matched to the line class. That is also the aim of the new system in NSWGFA - ie: despite what some doomsdayers may say, the logic is not to try and catch/tag everything that swims on 10kg tackle. It is to match the [likely] size of the fish with suitable tackle. From memory your sub-committee's 1989 line class proposal had the whole T&R points scale closely mirroring the capture scale. When we started revisiting potential scoring methods over the past 5 or so years (and I have been on the equivalent subcommittee's in tha time), we made the conscious decision to group line classes 10kg and below, rather than having differential points right down to 4kg. This was done so that there is no encouragement to fish T&R with any lighter than 10kg tackle, so the people that talk of long drawn out fights with marlin on 4kg etc are shooting from the hip, without regard to the facts of the points table. Ross - I know from experience that for much of the season down here you are fishing 15kg and 24kg for the average run of stripes and blacks you expect to get fishing your usual grounds inside of the shelf. If you head out wider you may swap the 15's for 37's in case a Blue jumps on. I would not expect that situation to change. That is sensibly matched tackle for the fish likely to be encountered, and allows reasonable fight times and fish being released in good condition. However, as opposed to fishing the way you already do, one of the drawbacks with the previous system was that you were permitted (without any disadvantage in points) to fish the same grounds/ average fish with, say 37kg or even 60kg tackle. Because many, many people were doing that, and most ludicrously around areas like The Gibber, during runs of small blacks at the Interclub, it is what has turned a lot of people off even bothering with Tournaments, as it no longer involves the sporting ethics upon which this sport arose. For their financial survival, Clubs (and the Association), depend upon people entering tournaments, so making this change should help assist that, as people (who do not want to fish capture) can now enter and have a chance at being competitive without resorting to the "all heavy tackle" option to compete in T&R with those boats who have fished tournaments to the full extent of the past rules, whether heavy tackle was sensibly required, or not. There are also quite a number of "usually Capture" boats who are keen to compete in T&R on this basis, so a further change resulting from the new system may well be even fewer dead fish on the weighstation. On a final note, it intrigues me when I read (perhaps not here but on other posts elsewhere) that the new system is bad because now people even with T&R will have to present all their gear at the weighstation (if requested to) to make sure it complies. I don't know what planet some people live on, but that has always been the case. Whether a fish is captured or whether it is T&R, the tackle rule requirements are the same. eg: you must use properly rated lines, and top shots/undershots must comply. Individual tournament rules usually govern whether braid is permissible at all. I have seen plenty of times over the years, particularly at the Interclub, where people have come to the weighstation for T&R of say a dolphin fish, using a rod of say 10kg class, and been disqualified for having used a lure off one of their normal rigs, only to be told the trace is too long. "But is was OK yesterday". Maybe so, but not on this tackle class. Get to know all the rules guys !! Cheers Bob [off soap box now...]