My Dad once taught me a cute saying about the Arnotts Biscuits logo when I was a little boy. You know the one – it has a parrot (some would call it a polly) sitting on a tee stand eating a biscuit. Have a look here if you want to refresh your memory http://www.arnotts.com.au/corporateprofile.aspx
Anyway, the saying was “On his Tee is the best pol I see.” Say it fast enough and it becomes “Honesty is the best policy.”
Cute eh?
What I remember most about the Arnotts logo though is their motto which is usually underneath it, “There is no substitute for quality.”
I was caused to ponder that very saying tonight at Mud Island after I lost my third tailor because of equipment failure. >I mentioned this in my report about last night’s visit to Mud Island and how I had lost some fish over both the past couple of nights to equipment failure. (http://www.ausfish.com.au/cgi-ausfis...num=1149118344)
Specifically, I am referring to a cheap Chinese manufactured bait-runner reel that I bought at the Tackle and Tinnie show this year. >Better, I thought, to spend $63 on a cheapie and find that I did not like the bait-runner “gimmick” than a couple of hundred dollars.
It turns out that I love the bait-runner action. I have caught heaps of fish on this reel since I bought it just two months ago.I especially use it for tossing a speculative unweighted pilchard out the back of the boat, sometimes under a balloon, whilst I actively fish for my main target whatever that may be. In two months, it has caught heaps of tailor, school mackeral and even an estuary cod.
Well now, after two months, the winding mechanism is failing under pressure when the fish is engaged.It is very unnerving to be winding in a fish only to have the handle go loose and no more winding happening. Damn! I even started pulling in one tailor by hand tonight but alas as soon as he came alongside the boat he broke off.
It is a damn nuisance when you cannot keep the fish under pressure.
So the poor quality of the reel cost me not only those three lost fish tonight but also all of the time trying to fix the situation out on the boat. There is truly no substitute for quality.
So I shall have a look inside the reel over the weekend to see if it can be fixed but I can sense the purchase of a good quality Shimano 6500 bait-runner coming up real soon.
Not that I should be really complaining, I did alright at Mud Island at sunset tonight as can be seen in the picture below.
I also went to a bigger hook tonight. I said in last night’s report that I thought that the hook size that I was using might not be big enough for the frozen pilchards that I was using. Several people suggested that such might be a good idea. So tonight I went from using 1/0 Kirby hooks to 6/0 Mustad Big Gun hooks. They worked a treat.
I still had the problem that the frozen pilchards remained frozen all night (ie 5.30pm – 7.15pm). I mentioned in last night’s report that I suspected that the frozen baits were so hard that when a fish chomped the bait, it was too hard for them to crush the bait to drive the hook home. So I did a lot of hand warming of the pillies tonight. I might have to take some lukewarm water next time to thaw out the pillies a bit as I did lose a few fish early in the evening when the pillies were really quite hard.
Also I applied plenty of hurt when initially hooking up as suggested by a couple of people responding to my previous posts and that seemed to pay off.
Anyway, many thanks to those Ausfishers who have given me some advice regarding improving my technique.I am pretty happy with the feed that I have brought home tonight. I stopped fishing when the tide turned and I could hear that dolphin arriving.
Having just spent the past three evenings at Mud, now it is over to you weekend fishos whilst I find that paint brush and the Taubmans again..
Oops! - Seabreeze.com is showing that Saturday is not too good for you guys. Wouldn’t that tear the fork out of your nightie??!! This weekday fishing life is really great!
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by mickstar001
