G’day lads, some submarines around, at Jervis Bay. Mark Way (President of Kiama GFC) writes:

Attached is 17kg Kingy caught by Trent Killmore fishing on Sondal Benson's boat at Banks.

Thanks Mark. If that doesn’t get the team inspired, nothing will!

Marc found gold off Ballina:

G'day Andrew, we headed out a couple of weeks ago with the aim of heading down to a reef we haven’t visited in nearly three years. It’s a great reef system as it has lots of pinnacles that hold kingies and also good ground for pearlies etc. We had our bases covered as we were loaded with the appropriate tackle, jigs, plastics, live and dead bait.  The fish were showing on the sounder as you can see in the picture but weren’t on the chew.

Kurt O passed a big milestone last weekend:

howdy mate,  myself and 2 of my mates went off the gold coast on Sunday arvo in search of our first black marlin. We raised a 8-9ft blue marlin and I caught this beautiful juvenile marlin on a tld20 2 speed spooled with 30lb pre-test and a skip bait. We got 80% of the fight on vid and will be posting it later. I was over the moon to land my first marlin and still can’t get rid of the grin on my face. We cooked it this way and highly recommend this recipe.

You deserve that sort of success, given how hard you fish.

Rod from Armidale has a boat query:

I am researching to buy a boat around 5.75 mt. If you happen to hear of anything?? The other day you were talking about differences between Merc 4 stroke and Merc Optimax but I forget what you said. What is your opinion of the Optimax please Andy. Rod

Well mate I am no expert by any means, but the change from my 175HP Yamaha to the 135HP Optimax was incredible. The big Yamaha (shown below, in the Whitsundays) required a back up 200 litre tank, for long range trips. So, 400 litres all up:

First trip with the new 135HP Optimax outboard was in 2002 to the Starcke River, about 110 klicks north of Cooktown. A wild place I can’t recommend too highly. Dingoes on the beach, big groper in the river which can be hand fed, and fantastic GT fishing at the Pethebridge Islets not far offshore:

I had arranged with one of the blokes who were driving in to our camp to bring a 200 litre drum of fuel. As it turned out, none of it was needed. Changing from the Yamaha 175 to the Optimax 135 cut fuel consumption by more than 50%. That’s an incredible drop in fuel usage and if you’re putting a lot of hours on your outboard, there’s few issues more important.

After 1400 hours on the Opti I can’t recommend them too highly. The new 4-stroke is an improvement over the Opti in terms of fuel economy, weight, reliability, and service costs. What I have found personally with things like boats, outboards and rifles is, get something a little more powerful than you think you’ll need. Because there’s every chance you’ll grow, to exploit its capabilities. On the topic of fuel I was experimenting around on Sunday, and discovered 3 x 20L K Mart jerrycans fit perfectly in a deep fish tub. Might use this idea for long runs up north, rather than re installing the auxiliary tank:

Some more pics coming in from last weekend’s White Sands Tournament, at Jervis Bay:

hi andrew here are 2 pics from my trip to King Ash Bay and 1 of my youngest son Mitch with an alby on the weekend.

Lots of alby and some small y/f/tuna on sat/sunday 25/26/nov.

You are UNSTOPPABLE. Keep us up to speed on your adventures Kevin, wherever they happen.

Dave T has a JB albie update too:

Hi Andrew, the boys on Trust in Dreams had a great day out bringing in Albacore and yellow fin. The weather for once was kind to them and the fish were biting well although they had to cover a long distance up the coast to find them. Happy days at the bay, Regards from down south Dave and Kate

Thanks Dave, so grateful for your regular reports.

While we’re talking about tuna, here’s Rossco's southern bluefin tuna lures. He told me that, when rigged like this, they can be trolled at up to 12 knots - meaning you cover a lot more ground:

Kerry Wilson is a bloke many fishos will know. Super keen fisho, kayaker, and brilliant photographer, whenever he puts a report up on the forums everyone asks what kind of camera he uses. J After I made a shocking mess of the drybox photographs he took pity on me and said I could bring them over. Here’s how they look, when someone who knows what he’s doing is behind the shutter. Keep the reels you don’t use out of the sun and spray:

These are lockable with a padlock, for security with items like ammunition:

I fit all the boat safety gear in one: backup VHF, v-sheet, flares, EPIRB, extinguisher, first aid kit too. All nice & dry until I need it:

Matt S went to the Swains and made a good call, when he took a stack of our jigs along:

Hi Andrew, a couple of pictures from my trip to Swains reef earlier in the month, the amberjacks loved your jigs and go hard when hooked. One of the deckies was impressed with their performance (and the price!) as well so I left him a couple and your contact details.

Thanks Matt, the weather looks fantastic

Kevin L sent a video link. If you want to see a rod under brutal load, click below:

Hi Andrew, this is the last bit of footage from my trip to Thailand. It was an estimated 300-350 kilo Thresher shark, the biggest I’ve ever seen. Topper is still in his boxers from being woken up, just on first light, by screaming drag and us charging around the boat to clear lines.

Amazing. What brand of rod, Kev?

 Last week’s pic of John’s nice black jewfish prompted a trip down memory lane, from Stewart:

I caught this Black Jewfish in the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1983, I was a green deck hand on a prawn trawler. We stopped for repairs and through the by-catch over board. This fish started swimming below the boat at around 10 meters, I baited a hand line and put the bait in front of the fishes nose! The fish looked up, a slowly took a big gulp on the bait. A reasonable fight ensued, luckily I had gloves on.

Blimey. A shame you were a zillion miles from certified scales Stewart, or you might just be in the record books.

Marcus from Germany sent in a pic of a big carp – and some cheeky commentary:

Hello Andrew, Australia is a large wonderfull Land, but the Fishes are very small...-)) Look at the Photo one of my biggest Carp with 20,5 Kilos.

I gotta admit Marcus, that one’s a monster. Keep in mind we have some whopper carp Downunder, if you’re wondering where to spend your next holiday?

Our man on the spot in South West Rocks has excelled himself with yet another top report:

Between endless southerlies and then raging NE’s over the past couple of weeks, it’s been difficult to get out for a fish. Conditions early this week were near perfect, so we decided to get out and give it a go. I love this transition time when the water warms, the first rumours of inshore marlin start and reports of mackerel and wahoo action at Coffs start filtering through.

Hooked up to a kingie on fly off Green Island… magic.

So we decided to troll a couple of lures down towards Fish Rock, and with the water a beautiful 23.7 degrees the anticipation was high. We managed 3 good bonito and half a dozen small kingies (one of fly rod) on our way down. We decided to have a crack a little wider and drop a jig. No kingie action but did manage a nice little jewie on a jig, then Terry hit one on bait.

Little jewie nailed one of Andy’s jigs, intended for a kingie. This is the second jewie I’ve nailed on the same jig, they must like silver!

There was plenty of action on the bottom with truck-loads of Nannygai and a mixed bag of a dozen keepers of snapper, morwong, trevally and flathead.

On the return home there was so much bird action we tossed a couple of lures over and just wide of Fish Rock. Within a couple of minutes Terry’s rod screamed, a little black marlin danced a few times before throwing the Rapala X-Rap we were pulling. Just as well really, would have been a struggle on the small gear we were using, and I can only assume it’s pretty rare to nail a marlin on a small treble hook… But what a great way to finish a session.

Exactly. Sean, you mentioned raging NEs?

From Marc:

Look what happens to the water temp off Ballina after 4 days of strong northerlies - 6 degree temp drop

Amazing. 25 degrees on the 30th November, under 19 degrees on the 3rd of December. You’d think that a northerly would push warm water south, but that’s not the case.