Bankside musings for surface fishing

[Bazil Brush]

Very well put together mate a lot of work was put into all this info..

Baz

[3Macks]

Hey Steve, that's great and clearly comes from a thinking fisherman. Exactly what I thought Chewy (meaning the rest of us too) could do in a much shortened version on the end of his (our) reports. Alex (SuburbanfishoCairns), Steven (Spike.Cairns), myself and other crew fish totally different rigs/gear on the reef but I've never explained what and why in any report so that other would benefit.

[addicted]

Steve, few questions : Did you keep a tally on how many fish you hooked up and dropped?
Do you crimp the barbs on your trebles?
And did you have many hooks or rings fail?
Did wind direction have any effect on the fish feeding?
sorry about the probing questions, just curious and you seem like your pretty particular with detail.
Thanks again for in depth write up, great piece.

[Apollo]

Steve, few questions : Did you keep a tally on how many fish you hooked up and dropped?
Do you crimp the barbs on your trebles?
And did you have many hooks or rings fail?
Did wind direction have any effect on the fish feeding?
sorry about the probing questions, just curious and you seem like your pretty particular with detail.
Thanks again for in depth write up, great piece.

Dropped thirty two fish (all the rest hooked were landed). Four were lost to braid/leader failure, two to treble failure and the rest to pilot error and pulling hooks or inability to land tarpon. I had one session where I landed only a handful of tarpon out of 20+ hooked up. Did drop a horse barra at bankside after a lengthy battle. Just when I thought I had her beat, she had one more surprise for me and I was too complacient. Shame as it was on the light gear so would have been an epic effort to get a metre plus in on 5lb gear.
I don't crimp the barbs as I am only using fairly small trebles and they come out without issue.
No ring failures but I did have a couple of hooks on the treble break. Remember that I am only using fairly light gear so really can't muscle fish, so can't load the terminal gear that heavily. I did play around with the technique of setting the hook and then just gently leading the fish in. Worked a few times, but preferred to change up the rod work to achieve the result.
Re the wind, the wind normally dropped off at that time of night, however on the windier nights, the winds out of the NW were the toughest, but no real trend was evident.

Cheers
Steve

[darylive]

Good Work noted: Although it was a lengthy report it was not too wordy and contained a lot of facts and interesting information that kept the reader interested.

A

[Peter4]

Sh*t, are we gonna be graded on reports now?

[Shagga]

It is informative posts like this one that makes AA such a great site. Well done Steve and thanks for taking the time to share the info.

[callop]

Good Work noted: Although it was a lengthy report it was not too wordy and contained a lot of facts and interesting information that kept the reader interested.

A

bit generous Daz. B+ at best

[nipsta]

Great read grading mmmmmm B + good times with the fam why not thats the out door lifestyle we all love

[Apollo]

I would only give it a C+