Centrepin Reel for Blackfish

It has been a while since my last post on the blog. Been busy with a worm farming projects, hopefully some of them will be fishing related hehehe.

Winter has well settled in Australia and I got sick few times already...

With winter comes Blackfish season, now those fish can be caught all year long but in cold winter when you are not in the mood to brave the cold on a kayak and want to take a break with other species then Blackfish is a great plan. They are fun fish to catch and eat. I used to catch them off the rocks but have now moved to the estuary and fish The Entrance, by the Tuggerah Lake with the company of the locals with whom I go prawning during summer.

This year I wanted to try the Centrepin. I have been intrigued for quite a while now but never really got into it. Until I have accidentally broken my LBD reel used for my ISO rod. I wanted to get something more affordable so got an Alvey 455B XL. It is a good little reel but the inertia is not great. It requires a strong current to spin the reel. So I sold it and got an Alvey 475B instead. That was a great difference. It just great to see the slow current peel the line of the reel and fight a fish on a 1:1 ratio. Somehow fishing with an ISO rod and a centrepin reel does make sense, it is almost like an LBD without a lever, you just use your fingers to lock or unlock the spool when fighting a big fish. I had great fun with the 475B and caught some nice blackies.

After using the 475B for three weeks I found few annoying points:

- although the reel brake button on the backplate can be useful even when fighting the fish, it is also too easy to press on it inadvertently.

- the side cast feature was very helpful as I learned the art of centrepin casting. However line twists are a nightmare. I needed to tie a tiny swivel above the float for it to be effective and it annoys me that sometimes I reel in too much and the swivel get locked inside the tip guide.

- also due to the side cast, the reel foot needs to swivel and this adds extra gap between the foot and the reel itself, making the reel to far away from the rod to be able to use the thumb to control the reel spinning speed. So I need to hold the reel with the middle to pinky fingers in front of the reel and use them to palm it, but that big gap still create some strain in the hand due to the stretch between the fingers.

However, the Alvey 475B (or Shakespeare Lincoln in the US) is greatly free running and does spin for one minute with a good flick. The slowest of current peels the line allowing a drag-free drift. It use using ball bearing as opposed to brass bushing on older reels, giving it a very free running reel, but running maybe too freely and if you don't master palming while casting you will end up with 30m of bird nest, don't ask me why I know...

I heard lots of good reviews about the vintage reels such as J.W. Young Trudex. This is my next reel to test out. You can sometimes find them on ebay especially on the UK market. I would have loved something more modern machined aluminum reels like a Okuma Aventa Pro or even better one of John Milner reels, but at 400AUD and way over they are way too expensive for me. And the Trudex although older than me will continue spinning even when I'll be burried. I manage to find one for a good price and even if it does not suit me (which I doubt) I will still be able to sell it back for the same price or more on the Australian market.

 

Recent catches on Iso Tsuri

Just a quick update on my recent catches on the Iso setup. Mostly caught in the Central Coast at Woy Woy and some from Terrigal.

Tenkara or Japanese fly fishing

Interesting fishing techniques seems to usually come from Japan, to no surprise really. I lately adopted Iso Tsuri, a japanese rock fishing technique using long but light rod and gear and absolutely love it and use it not just for rock fishing but anywhere I can.

Recently I was more and more interested in fly fishing. After few months reading and watching documents about fly fishing I discovered Tenkara, the fly fishing japanese way. Tenkara uses light (more or less 100gr) but long (usually 12ft) telescopic rods with fixed line (no reel, length varies from 10ft to 20ft). So you could basically hit the water with just a rod, a line and a fly.

I've always been attracted with smaller or lighter gears such as Iso Tsuri or the Pen Fishing Rods. And those also requires more finesse skills as opposed to rough ones where you would use heavy duty rods with big lines and sinkers.

I'm still in discovery mode and reading what I can trying to understand the system before buying something. But currently I'm limited budget wise so I will probably be looking on Aliexpress for my next Tenkara purchase of a 12ft 6:4 (light to medium) action rod. Then the following strp would be to start learning fly fishing which is totally new to me. 

Bread and butter species in Woy Woy Bath

II've been fishing the public whatf in Woy Woy for quite a while but recently discovered that the bath just around the corner is very productive at good tide.

So I usually bottom fish by casting a whole worm or pilchard on a gang hook over to the opposite side and then Iso fish for luderick inside the bath.

On my first session I hooked up with a big bream and in my rush I drop my Iso landing net!! And lost the fish. It was a cold morning but I decided to dive in and find the net but gave up after half an hour. 

Not having a net on the second session I hooked up with a good blackfish on a 4lb line so had to drag it back to shore.

On my third session I finally caught that big bream. A nice 35cm specimen, along with a trevally and two mullets.

I will be trying to do some fly fishing in this area for blackfish and mullets.

Tandem kayak fishing from Davistown/South Kincumber to Empire Bay

Yesterday after work  I picked up my mate Dom at Artarmon and he stayed with us in Wyoming for an early morning kayak fishing.

For this first tandem kayak fishin trip we decided to head down to Davistown on the south side of Kincumber and paddle around to Empire Bay.

I was pretty quiet but we managed to catch a long-tom, 5 flatheads with one keeper of 42cm on soft-plastic on a pen fishing rod, a 27cm bream trolling a crank bait and two nice squids.

It also was the first trip out with my Garmin Echo 201DV fishfinder on a DIY mount I made for the yak.

Great day out!

Brassy Trevally (Carangue Mouchetee) from New Caledonia

I'm currently in New Caledonia visiting my family in Noumea.

At the same time, it's a great opportunity to do some fishing as NC is very good for this sport. I took with me a YongSung Power Carbon Alpha 3.9m cargo iso rod.

First day catching 11 garfish with my mate Thai who came with us. This spot is a little jetty at 10 minutes walk from my parent's place.

We also went camping on a remote island not far from my place. What an experience. Lots of mosquitoes but it was so good to be with friends and family out there in the nature. We caught a bream and several fingermarks. The next early morning, we even spotted a shark not far from the shore.

The day Thai's left NC flying back to Sydney, I hooked up with a big fish on a metal slice but the 8lb line was too weak and my drag was too tight, so the line broke. On the second day I hooked up with another one but the fish spat put the soft plastic Kamikaze shad.

On the third attempt, it was a quiet start, it was 3 hours before low tide and the sky was well covered but not raining. I had bought a popper and more metal slice but it was so quiet that I decided to target smaller fish using a Gulp 3" prawn. I lost all my jigheads to the snags so ended up using a regular hook with two splitshots above it. No seagulls or jumping baitfish today, I was starting to doubt I would get any results today. But after 2 hours of persistance, something took my lure. I thought it would be a local grouper but it wasn't heading back to the rocks, instead it suddenly pull my line out to the depth. I could not stop it from going deeper and deeper. The fish just peeled my line from my Okuma Lebra (lever brake reel) 2500 spool which I've upgraded with some 15lb braid line as I didn't want to loose another fish.

After 7 minutes of fight, I managed to bring the fish to the surface, it was a Brassy Trevally of a very good size. Not wanting to take any risk of loosing it, I used my DIY landing net (potatoes net bag) I safely landed the fish.

This was the fishing spot (Port Moselle), I was standing at the corner of the rocky edge on the right.

The fish measured 66cm, but as it was cut at the throat, I think it's more or less 65cm.

I hope I will get the opportunity to get more fish like this before my return.

Hope you guys had a lovely Christmas, best wish for the last days of 2014!

Update:

The brassy trevally could actually be a young bluefin trevally

Nice Drummer in Terrigal

My alarm was set at 5am, but I woke up in panic and it was 6.15am! I set the wrong alarm, weekdays instead of weekend one...

Got to Terrigal at around 7.30. I realised I forgot my bucket and burley box. That's a great start...

I soaked some bread and hand throw them. But I was too lazy today and water plus cold weather is not great. It was also raining but i was hoping it was good for drummers. After an hour walking around I finally got to the end of the first platform, my favourite location. An Iso fisherman was seen on the opposite platform he then went away half an hour later. Two other fishos came and started to burley around with bread, sweet! Free burley for me hahaha. I went around the hole and started to cast around. I was running out of time, so best for me is to chase the fish. After 10 mins I got a spat out, casted again and yoohoo!!! The rod bent as I've never seen! It's a difficult ledge because it's a sort of big amphitheatre with bit staircases and The good spot usually 20 meters away and snagging easily happens. But fortunately for me this time I managed to steer the fish away and brought it back to me. It definitely was a drummer by the feeling on the rod. After maybe 5 minutes I got the beast at my feet and used the net for the first time to land my catch.

A 40cm drummer, I estimated as the Ikiboard was too short to exactly measure it. I left the fish in a pool and went for another quiet 30 minutes before killing the fish using the Ikigun.

I did take some video footage but it was a failure, I switched off the camera in the middle to save batteries and forgot to turn it back on before the catch. I recorded the Iki Jime process but my arm was hiding the action... So next time.

Here are the pics:

Huy

Homemade telescopic burley scoop

I've been using a pen fishing rod for quite a while and just love it. Now that I discovered Iso fishing, I think of the pen rod as a mini Iso rod. It is similar in the sense that it is all about finesse and light tackle.

I have few spare parts provided by penfishingrods.com in case I brake something which mostly happens by human mistake (stepping on the rod...) and very rarely while fighting the fish.

For my Iso fishing I used a small cooler bag from Coles, it has a hard inside which makes it perfect for a portable burley box that I can put over my shoulder and be very mobile and have my hands free for the rod.

Until now I used a kitchen scoop to throw the burley, having lost my DIY burley scoop during a night session.

I didn't build another burley scoop because I wanted it to be able to be stored in the burley box so I can close the lid and not having an extra accessory.

The problem with the kitchen scoop is it is not great for throwing the burley further than 4 or 5 meters away or the burley will spread around.

So I bought a burley scoop head piece and used pen rod spare parts to build a telescopic scoop that would fit in the box but would also extend for distance casting.

Great end of the week with breams and drummers

I'm on annual leave since Wednesday as I have family members coming to visit us in Wyoming. Yesterday morning I went to catch some fish for our diner tonight. So I went to  to Half Tide Rocks, nearly 40 minutes drive from home! I was hoping it will be worth the effort.

After a walk to the point, I went and choose my fishing spot and started the burley ritual and did few cast right in front of me. At first there were small bites and few misses. But then big breams were coming for the burley! It was really cold, 8 degrees when I arrived. I made it 2 hours and kept 3 breams for diner.

I have recorded about 1h20 of the session but used iMovie to make some time shifts effect to fast forward boring parts.

Here is the intro video:

And this is the full version:

The keepers:

Then I went back home and took my wife and boy for a lunch and then drove the missus back home while father and son went for a ride to three different playgrounds. On the way to the third playground Thien-San, my boy, felt asleep so I drove to Narara Creek where I can park the car just one meter away from the water so I can fish and keep an eye on him.I started burleying in the middle of the creek but then nothing, not a single bite. So I decided to burley closer right in front of the little bush and bang bang bang! 4 more breams to end this awesome day, here are the two legal ones but I released them anyway:

This afternoon, I took the cousins to Terrigal beach, as the kids were playing with my wife on the beach, my cousin, his wife and I went on the tiny rock platform on the right hand side. I didn't think well of the location, but it seemed OK to the view of the weed beds and rocky bottom but we didn't want to go too far away from the kids anyway so we stayed around.

Luckily after the burley took effect, breams and Blackfish were caught one after the other until it was time to go back home as the little one was hungry.

Once back home, I posted a report on OzIsoFishing forum and the more experienced members told me the two fish I thought to be Ludericks were actually Drummers! My first pigs on my Iso setup!

What a wonderful week really! I'm not sure if it's because of the Iso fishing technique, or because Central Coast is just the fishing heaven as most are saying or maybe a bit of both, but this week has been really fun and I learned a lot about this awesome fishing technique.

I gave my wife the rod so she can have some fun fighting a large bream, but unfortunately he spat out the hook right at her feet.

Here are some more pictures of this afternoon taken by my auntie:

And of course, we had a great diner. I cleaned up the fish, my wife cooked them and my auntie did the salad, what a yummy diner:

7 hookups 1 landed

Up until today all the Iso sessions I made were just an intro to Iso fishing. What I meant by this is the fish did not put an awesome fight and I felt it was just like fishing with a regular rod. Yeah the rod did bend and all but it was not spectacular.

Until this afternoon, I went to Terrigal, first time on this platform and it looked awesome. The tide was raising and the swell was safe. Not a fisho out there, the platform was for me so I picked my spot and started burleying.

My first hookup happened 40 minutes after the first cast. Something really big was on the other side. Unfortunately my drag was not at 100% so it pulled under a rock and busted me off.

It carried on like that three times eventhough the line snapped too early to be rocks I think it was a big fish and my 8lb was too light. So I switch to 12lb and landed a nice Blackfish.

As the tide went up and sun went down, the fish went mad over the big rock step on top of which the white water was bubbling. Until 5.20pm I lost 3 other big fish. I finally got to learn how to use the lever drag. At the beginning I got busted cuz I was holding the lever and tension was too high. On next hookups, as soon as I recognised the breaking tension I released the lever and the rod straighten up allowing me to fight for around one minute but I always ended up in the rocks at the end of the rock step.

By 4pm some other fishos have been fishing around me I didn't notice them coming, too focused. The sun went down, I casted my last one but not being able to see the float I decided to hold the rod tip high and pulling the line a bit. I noticed the fish were so aggressive that I didn't need to see the float. And bang another big one and another bust off... :-(

So either the fish snapped the line or the line got stuck to deep rocks far in front of me.

Even with just a single blackie and multiple busted ones. I feel that this session was a real Iso one which I learned a lot from.

I now need to get some 16lb fluoro leader!