Alvey vs baitcaster

I've seen few fishermen using a baitcaster for pier fishing and just one for surf fishing. As I understand there are benefits in using a baitcaster such as casting distance and accuracy. But the cons is the learning curve.

I also met couple of people using an Alvey outfit and my cousin keeps bashing around with the pros of using Alveys. He then bought some Alvey gears from an old lady whose husband was a fishermen and gave me an old 630 A1 reel. 

I managed to have my hands on a old Shakespeare Sigma Series baitcaster reel and bought a cheap rod on eBay for testing it. After a whole session practicing it, I think baitcasters are not made for me, it feels ackward with the weight on top of the rod and too troublesome to learn the cast. I also fish more often late nights or early morning before sunrise so it makes it even harder to learn.

So my next target is the Alvey. I met a friend on Fish Raider / Facebook who is an Alvey user so I could borrow his outfit for testing and I immediately felt its potential. A bit weird at the beginning but much better than a baitcaster for my type of use.

So there I went on my favorite online store and got myself an Alvey ROD650GTS. It's a 13.4 ft telescopic rod which seems very sturdy. 13.4 ft is to my opinion the high extreme for me, but their next option down is a tad too short for my liking.

So there we go:

I'll be testing it soon in real life conditions, lets hope the fish are up for some good fighting.

Any tip is welcome!

Some of the reasons why I like fishing

What is so fun about fishing? Some people find it boring, having never caught any fish. It's true you do need to be patient when fishing as fish are not always there. Very good fishermen know how to read the elements and hit the road to their fishing spot only when it's the beast time but most of us don't have that skill. But we still enjoy our hobby very much.

What thrills me is multiple things. There is the adrenaline when a big fish takes your line and give you a hell of a fight.

But when there is no hook up at all, I really enjoy being on the beach especially at sunrise when it is less crowded or at night during a bright moon lit night. Then there is also the family out day having fun with the kid and wife and at the same time waiting for the reel to go wiiiizzzzzz.

When fishing at night, I often take a folding beach chair to sit and sip some nice drink and watch the stars or meteorites. When the moon is bright, the whole beach and sea is so beautiful to look at.

Those who never saw the sun rise have missed something:

So even when the fish are hidding, I still like to go out for few casts. What about you?

Cheap ruler tape

If, like most anglers, you are proud of your catches and like to share them with others, you will sooner or later want to also share their size.

Here are couple of product I Iike:

The Alvey rulers (less than $20)

The Pelagic Vinyl Measuring Mat (around $25)

I have a fish lip gripper that has a scale and tape ruler built-in but the problem with those tape rulers is they get rusty easily. Those products above are made of plastic or vinyl so will live longer. But they have a price!

An cheap alternative is to look at the products from Hong Kong or China. Even though a lot of their cheap stuffs are crap you can find relatively decent items or at least so cheap that you don't mind buying more than once.

What I like with chinese products is they have nice design, if only they can spend as much time on quality as on design I think they can kill the market.

Anyway, here is what you can get cheap for measuring your small to big fish:

These are soft tape rulers but hey you don't need fancy stuffs to measure a fish , do you? These are made of plastic so rust free and they cost $1 including shipping... And you can measure a fish up to 1.5m, should be enough for most weekend anglers.

Winter highlights

I started fishing last summer, at the beginning I didn't have much luck except with catching bait fish... As I moved home from Cabramatta West to Artarmon, I also moved on from fishing the Georges River to fishing the sea. My first spots were Balmoral Jetty and Manly Wharf:

Summer ended with my first big Tailor:

So after a quite fun summer fishing, I experienced a quieter but still fun winter sessions. There have been a lot of going home empty handed but being out there with nature was enjoyable.

Here are my winter sessions highlights, all caught in Dee Why, Narrabeen or Mona Vale.

Mr Cat Shark goes back to the sea:

My first Australian Salmons

A nice Trevally:

My first Jewfish:

Another Aussie Salmon:

A Shovelnose Ray (released):

My biggest Tailor:

My biggest Aussie Salmon:

Berkley GULP Minnow 3"

My favorite softplastic would be the Gulp Minnow 3" in Nuclear Chicken.

I've caught many Flatheads, Flounders Leather Jacket and Trevally with them. Even big Yellowtails would sometimes grab them.