Fishing Tip of the Week:
- When determining the strength of line to use on your rig for the fish you intend on catching, always select a heavier grade line for your trace. When fish take the bite, they always exert more poundage force than their actual body weight. With a heavier line rig, it's more elastic and can take the initial shock and strain of a huge bite or a run.
- Before applying the final pull to tying knots, moisten the knot with saliva so as to lubricate it and make easier the final coiling of the line. Always make sure you do gradual pulls, rather than fast, jerky pulls, as this may lead to line degradation.
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When playing with fish that jump out of the water, such as Aussie Salmon, always dip your rod down to slacken the tension of the line and hook as they jump. Fish will use the tension of a tight line to try and dislodge the hook from their mouth. So it doesn't pay to always have "tight lines" !
- Standard nylon and monofilament line exhibit an elastic characteristic and can be inefficient when trying to set a hook in a fish in 40 metres of water. When striking at a bite, the elasticity of the nylon absorbs a high percentage of the strike action and subsequently the hook may only move a couple of centimetres. When striking, strike well !
- When spooling fresh or new line onto your reel, place the new line spool into a bucket of water. The drag generated by the water as you are spooling your new line onto your reel will partially stretch the line allowing it to set nicely onto your reel, and secondly, lubricate the line. Line that isn't set on a reel can cause problems by creating potential bird's nests when casting, especially on overhead reels.
- Use chemically sharpened hooks. Even though they're a little bit dearer that the standard hooks, there is nothing worse than a blunt hook. A sharp hook offers a better chance of a hookup than a blunt one.
- When fishing for a particular species of fish, take along a variety of bait with you. For example, if you're restricted to only using gents, and other anglers are catching Tommies and garfish using tube worms, you could deny yourself a reasonable catch.
- When catching Salmon, gut and gill the fish straight away, snap the spine at the base of the head and invert it head down into the sand. The flesh tends to be dark if a Salmon is not bled straight away.
- Should a hook be set deep in the throat of a caught fish, just cut the line and re-rig. Don't bother wasting time trying to retrieve a 20¢ hook, especially when the fish are on the bite for a short period of time. If releasing a deep throat hooked fish, don't worry about the hook, for the fish's stomach acids will eat the hook completely in about 4 days.
- Use Polaroids when inspecting a fishy spot. Besides eliminating up to 80% UV rays and cutting much of the surface glare off the water on a bright day, it enables you to look deep into the water and comes in extremely handy when trying to locate sand patches and other bottom features.
- Recycle some of your left over bait and fish offal by adding some pellets and tune oil, mincing it all up and freezing it in margarine containers. It's ideal for a standard berley bucket, and will last quite a while, thawing out slowly to disperse the berley. Prior to freezing, you could also add some sand, the extra weight making it ideal as a berley bomb. Perfect for boat fishing, where the berley slowly disperses directly under the boat.
- Some fish become easily spooked when exposed to bright lights during night time. If your using a tilly light while beach fishing to work around in the dark, place it in a deep hole with the high mound on the front lip, closest towards the shore line. This will provide you with ample light, and reflect most of the light back away from the shore, and upwards.
- Fish have a keen sense of smell. If you have used any insect spray on your hands, or handled fuel etc, always smother or wash your hands with you berley or a bit of tune oil, then wash your hands in sea water, before you handle your fishing equipment. Foreign smells can take fish off the bite.
- Berleying, whether it be from a boat, shore line or jetty, is the key to attracting and holding fish in one area. It is also critical to ensure that it is distributed sparingly, so as not to disinterest the fish away from your bait. More importantly, constant berleying is essential. Hence, the standard black berley buckets are a must.
- Caught fish should be put on ice as soon as possible. If on a boat, use a large bin filled with crushed ice and sea water to make a cold slurry. If the above is not available, a hessian bag soaked in cold sea water should suffice for a short period of time.
- If you have a tucker box freezer, save all your empty milk cartons, and three weeks before you go fishing, start freezing water in the cartons. On a 5 day fishing trip, you could easily save yourself $60 on crushed and blocked ice from the petrol stations.
