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Wetting a line 01-08-10


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Spent the day with a few fisho's searching for the big boys & gals in the ponds.

Was joined by Steve_Bok who made the long drive to join us; now thats dedication.

The early morning showed promising signs of things to come with Steve hooking a nice starter fish.

 

01082010311.jpg

 

When things slowed up a bit we moved to another area and found some nice fish cruising in the early sun. A few fish were caught with Steve hooking into another respectable specimen.

 

01082010314.jpg

 

In total we got 17 fish up to about 10kg. Steve and myself also hooked into two fish that saw us both smoked. Steve's ran maybe 100 to 200 mtr's before taking a left turn and going past an island in the pond.

 

A great day with new friends - can't wait for round two.

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Well I'd like to thank Tony (prof_s_r) for the invitation to come for a fish with the Centennial Park Volunteer Group (one I couldn't pass up!). I'd been meaning to travel up to Sydney to hit the Nepean sometime soon, but Centennial Park was another location on my wishlist.

 

I had a ball, great company and great fishing. Just seeing some of the fish in there was unbelievable, some were 1 metre plus and 12-15kg at a conservative estimate. I would have been happy to walk around for the day with no rod a few bags of bread and polaroid glasses just looking at these fish.

 

The fish that smoked me was massive, it was still charging off at speed with about 100-120 metre of line out, so I turned up the drag as hard as I was game and it still ran another 70-80 metres. I thought I was going to be spooled. Definately a fish of a lifetime lost...:cry: My knees were shaking afterwards.

 

The carp in the top photo was 9.6kg (21lb) and was just under 70cm long! Definately the fattest carp I've ever seen with my own eyes. The other was just over 7kg.

 

The fish weren't as tame as you might think, it wasn't a case of shooting fish in a barrel, we only caught 17 fish all up for the day and I think I was lucky enough to get 7-8 of them. A lot were little 0.5-1.5kg Carp. The real big Carp were crafty and you got maybe one shot at them, and soon after you arrived they disappeared to a distant part of the pond.

 

Would be fantastic to get up there for another shot at them sometime soon, all fish were tagged and released, hopefully one of my fish turns up again someday.

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Great work Steve, I'm guessing that's not Canberra judging by the weather & the Palm tree's. :lol:

 

Had a look at the Hawkesbury at Windsor over the weekend, some promising looking spots up there.

 

atb,

 

Chris

 

Chris

 

It was like a beautiful sunny day in mid September by Canberra standards :D

 

BTW, I also had the pleasure of being 'slimed' by many an eel!

 

Did you have any luck up there? or were you just exploring? Must get up there to catch up and have a fish on the Nepean as we discussed.

 

Cheers

Steve.

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Alright Steve,

 

it was purely exploratory it definitely has potential but there's a limited window to fish as it will be choked with weed from bank to bank once things warm up a bit, I also found another lake that has some useful looking well fed fat Carp in it. :D

 

Were you using your session gear or your ludicrously light gear? I wouldn't mind having a crack there myself but I thought there was no fishing allowed.

 

cheers,

 

Chris

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Alright Steve,

 

it was purely exploratory it definitely has potential but there's a limited window to fish as it will be choked with weed from bank to bank once things warm up a bit, I also found another lake that has some useful looking well fed fat Carp in it. :D

 

Were you using your session gear or your ludicrously light gear? I wouldn't mind having a crack there myself but I thought there was no fishing allowed.

 

cheers,

 

Chris

 

Chris

 

No I wasn't fishing the session gear, only light gear but it was 4lb braid which I think actually breaks at over 12lb, I usually land upper doubles to low twenties on it without too much trouble. Their is a no lead/sinkers rule so I was just flicking unweighted bread around, which seemed to be the popular method. The braid set-up seemed the strongest option for this finesse style of fishing. Waggler would be ok too, I took my float rod but I quickly determined it was going to be far too light when the first fish I saw within 5 minutes was easily 25lb+:shock: Perhaps need to look at the session rod with a controller float for the really big ones, or something like that.

 

It is no fishing in the park to the general public, but Tony runs the Volunteer Group for fishing in the park, so are long as you are registered as a Centennial Park volunteer and fishing with the group it's allowed. They're no longer killing them but are tagging and releasing them to try to work out what the deal is with the population... they finished off their first 100 tags on sunday (I caught lucky 100!)

 

Seriously I can't wait to go back for another try, maybe we could organise a weekend to catch up, saturday Nepean/sunday Centennial Park, that's if Tony could fit us in.

 

Cheers

Steve

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Alright Steve,

 

it was purely exploratory it definitely has potential but there's a limited window to fish as it will be choked with weed from bank to bank once things warm up a bit, I also found another lake that has some useful looking well fed fat Carp in it. :D

 

Were you using your session gear or your ludicrously light gear? I wouldn't mind having a crack there myself but I thought there was no fishing allowed.

 

cheers,

 

Chris

 

Chris

 

No I wasn't fishing the session gear, only light gear but it was 4lb braid which I think actually breaks at over 12lb, I usually land upper doubles to low twenties on it without too much trouble. Their is a no lead/sinkers rule so I was just flicking unweighted bread around, which seemed to be the popular method. The braid set-up seemed the strongest option for this finesse style of fishing. Waggler would be ok too, I took my float rod but I quickly determined it was going to be far too light when the first fish I saw within 5 minutes was easily 25lb+:shock: Perhaps need to look at the session rod with a controller float for the really big ones, or something like that.

 

It is no fishing in the park to the general public, but Tony runs the Volunteer Group for fishing in the park, so are long as you are registered as a Centennial Park volunteer and fishing with the group it's allowed. They're no longer killing them but are tagging and releasing them to try to work out what the deal is with the population... they finished off their first 100 tags on sunday (I caught lucky 100!)

 

Seriously I can't wait to go back for another try, maybe we could organise a weekend to catch up, saturday Nepean/sunday Centennial Park, that's if Tony could fit us in.

 

Cheers

Steve

 

Fishing is not allowed unless you register with me for the volunteer groups. There is no charge for this and open to anyone who wants to register that is over the age of 7.

We also run guided trips for trophy fishing and corporate groups.

Would be more than happy to look at a day for a few of you to come in. I think it would be awsome to see a few different styles in action so we could all learn a little and maybe finish it off with a BBQ.

maybe have a think about dates in middle of Spring toward Summer when they are on the chew.

Anyone wanting to come earlier is welcome, just send a PM if you want.

More than enough fish to go round & i don't mind sharing.

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When these fish are being tagged, are they being measured and weighed as well?

It would be interesting to see what sort of fish these conditions are producing. I'm sure that the growth/weight charts might start looking odd towards the top end with short fatties like steve's first one showing up.

That's more like 5 kilo length.

 

And is there a running total on how often each number is caught?

 

Nice work by the volunteers, too.

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That first photograph reminds me of the early photos of redmire fish or the guy at savay im cannot remember his name baiting pyramid guy?

 

Phil smith comes to mind, but i am sure that is sally the common carp.

 

It shows what a properly managed fishery can produce will less carp in.

 

I am jealous i would love a twenty looking like that beautiful fish and a nice lloking water in the photo top angling.

 

Beutiful colours on the fish like beech leaves in autumn in england golden.

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When these fish are being tagged, are they being measured and weighed as well?

It would be interesting to see what sort of fish these conditions are producing. I'm sure that the growth/weight charts might start looking odd towards the top end with short fatties like steve's first one showing up.

That's more like 5 kilo length.

 

And is there a running total on how often each number is caught?

 

Nice work by the volunteers, too.

 

Yep they were weighed and measured, they just finished the first 100 tags so judging from the size of the ponds and the fish in there they might need a lot more tags out before they start getting regular recaptures. Hopefully it's a long term study and they can get thousands of tags out and plenty of data coming back in.

 

That fish was 695mm and 9.6kg, it was a short fat fish and full of spawn on top of that. Carp I've caught around Canberra would be roughly around 780-850mm for that weight.

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When these fish are being tagged, are they being measured and weighed as well?

It would be interesting to see what sort of fish these conditions are producing. I'm sure that the growth/weight charts might start looking odd towards the top end with short fatties like steve's first one showing up.

That's more like 5 kilo length.

 

And is there a running total on how often each number is caught?

 

Nice work by the volunteers, too.

 

All fish are weighed, measured and some have a DNA sample taken as well.

We have tagged in only 5 of our ponds and just hit the 100th tag.

Todate no tag captures yet & we have only seen 3 tagged fish swimming.

I think that says volumes for the amount of fish we have.

Steve's contibution of DNA came by way of a fish scale from a foul hook. The scale was as big as his thumb to the joint. Nice . . .

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I was out on the weekend doing some testing of some heavier tackle to take on these Centennial Park Carp.

 

Tried out my 12ft session rod running 15lb braid with freelined bread. Freelining has never really been one of my favoured methods, for no reason really other than I've always just done other things. I was a bit concerned about the potential casting distance but it turned out to be ok, it went out a lot further than I'd imagined.

 

Only about 15 minutes in I was onto my first fish which put up a bit of a fight but was alway in control at close quarters. It went 17lb on the scales. I went on to land a few others over the weekend. I'm confident now that I have the gear to give me a fair chance of landing one these beasts. I always fancy myself on the light gear but often it ends in tears. The only thing now is getting there and managing to fool one of the big old crafty carp :wink:

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Found another great spot in a Pond we have yet to fish.

First two hours produced 8 fish on or over 6kg with three over 8kg.

I think we'll name it Bok Corner as it will give you a challenge on that heavy gear.

We got smoked maybe 4 or 5 times and was not able to stop them on 4kg braid with 10kg leader.

Best part was we were standing there looking down on them and they just kept cruising around.

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Tony

 

Mate I can't wait to have another crack at them.

 

I'm confident of landing those mega Carp with this set-up, but time shall tell, hopefully I can hook one and find out...

 

Bok Corner hey, sounds good, I like a challenge. I'm imagining something thick with lily pads.......

 

The only thing I really need to work out is what strength leader material to go for... so they take the bait freely with 10kg leader?

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The fish that smoked me was massive, it was still charging off at speed with about 100-120 metre of line out, so I turned up the drag as hard as I was game and it still ran another 70-80 metres. I thought I was going to be spooled. Definately a fish of a lifetime lost...:cry: My knees were shaking afterwards.

 

How much line do you reckon you've got on your spools?

 

I'm thinking that I might be coming up short on the middle sized rods if I've only got 150 metres of 10 lb on them and I tangle with something on the other side of decent..

 

Mind you, the knees shaking is why I love light line fishing.

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It depends on which of my set-ups I'm using. Most would have 250m+, the heavier gear would have 400m+ (which is crazy) really but you've got to fill up your spool up with something.

 

On my small reels (Daiwa Sol 2000s) I usually run 4lb braid which is my preference, or 2lb crystal braid, or 2lb pretest mono if I'm feeling sporting, and all are extremely thin. For float or feeder work (EB40's) I usually run 6lb mono, and big reels (Okuma EB60s) I use 15lb braid.

 

I reckon 150m of 10lb should be ok 99.99% of the time if you're fishing a heavy drag. It must be a smaller reel to only take 150m of 10lb? The day you hook onto one of the long lean big headed LBG monsters that weigh around 10-12kg and go like nothing else is the day you'll really find out if it's enough.

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I'm looking forward to that day.

No small spools here. I tend to buy braid in 300m spools and then split the length between my paired rods.

 

I wind on the line, then tape over the spools with masking tape until I'm up just past the rim, then I take the tape off by winding it around a dowel, unwind the line with the electric drill back onto the plastic spool it came on, pack out the reel's spool with the masking tape as firmly as I'm game and then put the line back onto it. If you've allowed half a mil for compression, it generally works out perfectly.

 

We've been modifying our drag washers by sanding and polishing them with 1000 wet and dry and replacing the drag washers with oiled felt.

 

I've still not done mini rig breaking tests to ascertain the safety factors with the gear I've aquired, so I'm just leaving the drag set at 1/3 the breaking strain of the nominated weakest link.

 

I'm a big fan of 2lb pretest mono too. Anything you hook become rather interesting. I acquired some 1lb mono, but will wait until the neighbors restock their goldfish pond before I break that out.

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When line class fishing we never go without at least 250mtr's + of any size line.

When using 1kg pretest - my favourite, i run a 2000 Stradic or 2500 Quantum Energy with modified drag washers and the spool is full to the brim. Also have a spare spool in the bag.

On two occasions i can recall i had approx 2/3rd of the spool empty when the drag pressure in the water broke the line. So it's not always about the quantity of line you have but rather how much you need out before water tension & drag breaks the line.

We do a huge amount of line class fishing in the ponds, fly & spin, as it's a great way of teaching fishing skills.

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I've never heard of using masking tape underneath braid, interesting. I just use mono underneath, and hope it never gets that far, which it luckily never has.

 

Yeah I agree fishing for carp is a great way to learn how to master fishing light especially in open snag free waters. It requires patience we've had some Carp up here that have taken 45 minutes to an hour to land.

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Mono packing would be great insurance and would be simple to do too.... I've just never considered it. I guess I've never had extra long spools of mono.

 

When I decided that fishing on lighter gear was the way to go, I filled a spool up on my old aero baitrunner and then realised that 300 metres was going to drastically underfill the reel. So I packed it out with tape to bring it level with all the line on. I've just done it ever since.

 

I think that it's worth swapping out though when a serious amount of 6lb and 10 pound presents itself.... as eventually happens..

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Saw some interesting posts on nylon pressure on reel,a few turns of soft cotton string before spooling up with nylon really works well.Also drag washer smoothness is most important. Most important however is getting very sharp hooks or sharpening them.I used to do all these things,but alas now i am slack and lazy,but i used to do them and they realy worked.Go guys . macbilly

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