Ozzie weekend report

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Ozzie weekend report

Postby JPS » Mon Mar 15, 2010 10:38 am

Well after hitting the East side beaches for the last couple of weeks we decided to have a change and target one of the beaches on the west side of Melbourne and catch up with Lee Andrews at the same time.

Prior to heading out, Graham Smith and I decided to give a few on the new century rods that I had just taken delivery of a go on the field.

Graham was trying out my new Tip Tornado Sport matched with his ABU 6500 Ct and casting 125 gram leads. Conditions on the day were such that we had to cast both into and across the wind, also contending with dog walkers who felt the need to walk directly into our casting range. Thereby making it impossible to cast for safety reasons, it did however allow Graham to see his skills improve relative to casting directly into the head wind. After a few pointers relative to pushing the left out and allowing the lead to pivot from a locked right, we saw distance that were very pleasing.
I had my new 13’ TTR which I have been looking forward to over the last few weeks since placing the order. To say I was impressed with the look and feel of the rod would be an understatement. After a quick build with the guides being taped on with the assistance of some double sided tape under the feet of the guides and bagging tape to hold them in place, I also fitted a set of coasters and a strip of conveyor rubber to act as a thumb guard I was ready to see what I could do. I initially cast the rod with the Daiwa 7HT and 200 gram leads, the way the rod handled these weights put a smile on my face even though I snapped off the very first cast in my excitement.
After putting down a few with the 200 gram I switched reels and hit a few with the 100 gram. The shorter overall length of the rod and the speed on the tip were an absolute delight and I look forward to working more with this rod in lead up to the June championships.

After a bite to eat we headed over to Lee’s to get him and his gear together and then head down to the beach in the hope of picking up either a School Shark or a Gummy as our intended victims.
We had been expecting an onshore wind with a bit of movement on the surf but were greeted with very calm conditions and a pleasant temperature making it very comfortable on the beach, very much the opposite from last weekend.


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( Lee relaxing in the mild conditions )


Graham set up using his TTLD as well as my TT sport as he wanted to see how she performed on the beach with a 6 oz grip lead and casting out squid strips. From his feedback it worked out extremely well and even though the tip is a lot stiffer than any of the other TT range the bit detection was good.

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( Graham's TTLD and my new TT Sport matched to Penn;s 525 and 535 Mags. Reels running Ultima red ice and distance lines )

To Grahams delight he broke his Flathead run with a good sized Port Jackson shark which was later followed up with another smaller one. Even though it wasn’t what we were after it still put a smile on his face being the biggest fish taken by him in Salt water. Hopefully the coming weeks will see even better results as our plan is to head further west to the beaches closer to Portland.

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( Graham's Port Jackson )

The plan of getting into the Shark’s had seen us setting up with reasonable sized baits but lee also put out his TTLD with smaller circle hooks and pounded squid strips in the hope of getting into some of the whiting that frequent the area. Once again no such luck but he did manage to get into something that none of us had ever caught before.

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( Lee's supprise fish ???? )


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( Any calls on what this is ? )

I persisted with the big baits and had Mackeral fillets and Squid cocktails matched to a 6/0/ & 4/0 twin hook rig being launched with my TT Super match and Daiwa combination. The reel is loaded with the 18 pound Ultima Steelpower line and must say that the more I am using this line the more impressed I am with it. I will do a full field report in the near future on both this line as well as the Ultima Distance that I have a lot of my reels loaded with.
The benefit of having a great nights weather came at a cost, that being not getting what we had hoped for. After dropping a reasonable sized fish earlier in the session I ended up with a small eel , shark bait for next weekend I hope.

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( The eel destined for Shark bait )


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( Graham's Little one prior to release )

The evening slowed considerably after the top of the tide and we decided to pull the pin around 3.00 am as both Graham and I had domestic duties with the better half later that afternoon / evening.

Regardless of not getting what we had targeted we still finished the evening on a high with anticipation for our next session .
JPS
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