Little Tagger

Date: 30 December 2012
Weather: Sunny
Crew: Dave
Target Fish: Trout
Bait: Lures - Spinners 5g Brown Trout, Rapala CD5 - Brown Trout
Berley: None
Catch: None - 1 trailer only
Report: Really nice stream to fish. Started at the bridge, caught the brown very early in the session then no action. Huge potential here. Brown was smoked.
Rating: 7/10

University River

Date: 16 December 2012
Weather: Overcast
Crew: Dave
Target Fish: Trout
Bait: Lures - Spinners 5g Brown Trout, Rapala CD5 - Brown Trout
Berley: None
Catch: None - 1 trailer only
Report: Pretty quiet day. I've heard this river doesn't fish well after rain - should have listened. Very hard fishing in places. Water was very murky, lots of debris in the water and overgrown foliage on the bank. Saw a massive cray. Will hit again.
Rating: 5/10

Yea River

Date: 09 December 2012
Weather: Sunny, very windy
Crew: Dave, Ross
Target Fish: Trout
Bait: Lures - Spinners 5g Brown Trout, Rapala CD5 - Spotted Dog
Berley: None
Catch: 3 x Rainbow Trout (small) - lost another 2.
Report: Pretty nice morning. Fished the Bitwenjopit before hitting the Yea River. Yea did not produce any fish and was very dificult to wade - not worth hitting again. Ross demonstrated an appreciation of the cost of Rapala lures. All fish released.
Rating: 7/10

Bitwenjopit River

Date: 02 December 2012
Weather: Overcast
Crew: Dave
Target Fish: Trout
Bait: Lures - Spinners 5g Brown Trout, Rapala CD5 - Brown Trout
Berley: None
Catch: 2 x Rainbow Trout, 1 x Brown Trout
Report: Pretty crazy action early on. Landed a tiny rainbow on my second cast, then hooked an absolute monster rainbow - this beast was 40 cm plus. Managed to get bring it right up to my boot before snapping the line - absolutely shattered. Biggest trout I've ever seen by an absolute mile. Hooked another fish when I simply dragged the tip of my rod through the water to test the lure action.
Rating: 8/10

Exmouth WA

Date: 21 October 2012
Weather: Sunny/Hot
Crew: Hawkesy, Scott, Luke and Cory
Target Fish: Sailfish, marlin, Mackerel, tuna
Bait: Whole Gardies, Lures – Stickbait, various hardbodied lures
Berley: Nonea
Catch: 3 x School Mackerel, 1x 10kg Longtail Tuna
Report: Spent hours chasing Sails and Marlin with no success. Went to a trusty mackerel spot to catch dinner (landed 3 and had enough). On way back to boat ramp saw heaps of flying fish going crazy. Threw a stick bait at them and this thing smashed it on the surface about 10m from boat then took off. Probably my best fishing moment. On 20lb setup. Great fun. Rating below is purely based on last fish caught…
Rating: 9/10

The Royal Bird

Date: 19 November 2012

Weather: Sunny

Crew: Dave

Target Fish: Trout

Bait: Lures - Spinners 5g Brown Trout, Rapala CD5 - Brown Trout

Berley: None

Catch: 3 x Brown Trout

Report: Another first timer. Tried two spots, missed 2 good size fish at the first spot. Managed 3 at the second on Celtas and lost another 3 or so. River access at the second spot is tricky - possibly why it fished so well. Second spot is at the end of the gravel road, through the gate and along the fence. Not the nicest bit of water - but only an hour from my house.

Rating: 8/10

Fishing Tattoo

Date: October 2012
Weather: Miserable
Crew: Toon
Target Fish: Tattoo
Bait: Beer
Berley: None
Catch: 2 x tattoo
Report: Just got my leg tat done, and both tat's are fishing related so thought to chuck them on the blog...  Marlin and octopus tattoo done by Bang Bang in NYC and the skeleton one done by Gene Coffey in Brooklyn.
Rating: 10/10

The Conron

Date: 3-4 November 2012
Weather: Sunny
Crew: Dave, Kellie
Target Fish: Trout
Bait: Lures - Spinners 5g Brown Trout, Rapala CD5 - Brown Trout
Berley: None
Catch: 3 x Brown Trout
Report: First time fishing these rivers. Water was very murky and running hard in places. I managed to pick a little cray up right out of the water. Both fish caught on the walk back downstream to the car. It's always worth having one more cast. Found a Rapala CD9 brown trout in a tree. Bonus!
Rating: 8/10

Goulburn River - Thornton

Date: 20-Oct-2012
Weather: Sunny
Crew: Dave, Parko
Target Fish: Trout
Bait: Lures - Spinners, Rapala CD5 - Brown Trout, Fly - Caddis
Berley: None
Catch: 3 x Brown Trout, 2 Rainbow Trout
Report: Great day, plenty of action. Lost another 4 or so.
Rating: 8/10

Mary and Steve's

Date: 14-Oct-2012
Weather: Sunny
Crew: Dave
Target Fish: Trout
Bait: Lures - Spinners, Rapala CD5 - Brown Trout
Berley: None
Catch: 2 x Brown Trout, 1 Rainbow Trout
Report: Absolutely sensational afternoon. Action on right from the start, lost another 5 or so. Need to strike more aggressively. Both browns took Celtas, rainbow hit the Rapala.
Rating: 9/10

Scissor Hands Creek

Location: Scissor Hands Creek

Date: 06-Oct-2012
Weather: Overcast, Rain
Crew: Dave, Kellie
Target Fish: Trout
Bait: Lures - Spinners, Rapala CD5 - Brown Trout
Berley: None
Catch: 1 x Brown Trout ~ small
Report: First trout session for the season, 15 mins past Bitspere. Had a cooked breakfast next to the river before starting. Water is still very high. Wading was very difficult/dangerous. Sections of still water were few and far between. Waders leaked like a sieve. Little guy hit the Rapala. Had another little brown trail the rapala. Looking forward to getting back up there in a couple of weeks.
Rating: 7/10

Santas Pond

Location: Sugarloaf Reservoir
Date: 01-Jul-2012
Weather: Sunny
Crew: Dave, Ross
Target Fish: Golden Perch,Red Fin
Bait: Lures -
Catch: Zilch
Report: Beautiful spot ! This reservoir is massive and looks like you'd be able to go canoeing whilst flicking a lure around. Kangaroos everywhere and the odd bogan here and there. We new this place to be unproductive in winter but... how could we resist
Rating: 6/10

Artillery Rock

Location: Artillery Rock
Date: 28-Jul-2012
Weather: Overcast
Crew: Dave, Randoms
Target Fish: Salmon, Tailor
Bait: Lures - Halco Twistie 20 g
Berley: None
Catch: 15 x Salmon up to 40 cm
Report: Fished 330 - 530pm. High tide at 530pm. Was on right from the start, lost another 10 or so. Solid session - Next time Rossco
Rating: 8/10

The Canyons, NJ

 
Location: The Canyons, 85 miles offshore 
Date: 28th July 2012 
Weather: Spotted showers, but mainly fine 
Crew: Gary, Toon, Ben, Ian, Jason 
Target Fish: Marlin, Tuna, Mahi Mahi 
Bait: Trolling ballyhoo and various albacore and tuna lures 
Berley: None 
Catch: 1x Tuna 40-50lbs and 1x small mahi mahi 
Report: Headed out from Manasquan Inlet around 4am, and took the 2.5 hour journey out to 600-1000ft+ of water and into the canyons. Got there about 6:30 am and immediately set up the rods, hooked up the outriggers and chucked out teasers. 
Within 5 minutes of pulling up the boat and setting up rigs the first rod went zzzzzzzzzzzz. We were at about the 600-700ft mark. One of the green lures was smashed by a smallish tuna, and after 10 minutes or so he was landed. We were just a little too pumped!!! As soon as it was landed, we cut its neck, tied its tail and threw it overboard to bleed it. Once completed it was gutted and chucked on ice. Since then it was a pretty quiet day. 
Heaps of boats out in the canyons but few were landing much. We bypassed floating debris a few times, and chucked out some lures to see if any mahi mahi were chilling underneath. As we passed a decent sized piece of board, one was chilling out, and we hooked up to it. We dragged him on board pretty quickly as he was only about 50-60cm long.
We did get another big smash on one of the rods about 5 hours into the trolling session, but unfortunately the crimp failed and we didn't even get to fight it. The fish took the lure away and unfortunately we didn't catch him. Could have been a monster tuna...who knows?? 
At times we saw some mahi mahi chasing the lures, but they werent too interested to really strike, so we didn't hook them unfortunately. One of the highlights was that there were heaps of whales out in the ocean, a bunch of minke whales and a couple of sperm whales which was friggin' cool to see. Shit loads of dolphins too. Overall we trolled for about 9 hours along the drop off of the canyon, and burnt a crazy 220 gallons of boat fuel! 
At 4pm we headed back to the inlet, and that was yet another long 2.5 hour cruise, but the twin 300hp engines certainly helped cut time! At the dock we cleaned up, and cut up the tuna and mahi mahi. There was so much meat from the fish it was incredible, and the following day some sesame encrusted tuna steaks were on the pan as well as some fantastic sashimi as a side. Heaps still sitting in the fridge/freezer for another meal (or 10). 
Rating: 9/10 - doesnt get a full 10 as we didnt land a heap of tuna, lost 1 from the bad crimp, but overall it was one of the best fishing trips had!

Santa's Pond

Location: Santa's Pond
Date: 09-July-2012
Weather: Sunny
Crew: Dave and Kellie
Target Fish: Reddies, Yellow Belly, Trout
Bait: Soft plastics -  Lunker City Shakers with 7g blade spinner jig head
Berley: None
Catch: Nil
Report: Rumour has it this place in unproductive in winter. Will hit again when it heats up again. Very nice scenery, kangaroos everywhere.
Rating: 4/10