Morsie
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Circle hooks hooks were developed by the Japanese for longline fishing for tuna. They wanted to only hook the fish in the corner of the mouth. If they gut hooked them they died on the line and sharks were often attracted making a mess of the other tuna. They also wanted the tuna to remain alive so that by the time they came back to pick them up (often several hours later) they had settled down and dispersed any lactic acid build up in their flesh. The tuna could completely swallow a bait set on a circle hook and as they swam off it would come right back out of their stomach but lodge in the corner of their mouth. The tuna would struggle then settle down and only struggle again as it was being picked up hence only a very brief time to build up any more lactic acid.
Because almost all fly caught fish are hooked in the mouth area on “j” hooks I have never seen the point in circles for fly fishing. When I’ve tried them I have missed fish because of them because of old striking habits. I think carp have such big soft rubbery mouths missing a hookup is pretty difficult, they do however (and I have observed this several times) eject a fly very quickly if you don’t strike. I don’t like circle hooks for any fly fishing.
Also if you build up any tying material in the gap the hookup rate diminishes even further. I like the strike. Only my view.
I once had a bonefish turn a normal “j” hook into a circle hook in its throat crushers.
In Australia carp are consider a noxious species and in some states its illegal to return them to the water, you have to kill them.
Morsie
Peter, Lots of great advise there, I haven’t used a strike indicator on them either. I really like the woolly worm because it sinks so slowly to their eye level so there’s no need to suspend it. Sometimes they’ll eat it on the drop and sometimes you have to tease them with it. usually once they’ve seen it they’ll eat it. natural colours are definitely best but sometimes they eat ridiculously bright flies.
Watch for the yellow lips to move, often that’s all you’ll see of the take, just those big lips shooting out.
John Haenke, producer of the Fishing DVD and Wildfish series tangling with a good carp at lake Keepit, miles of flats with tailing fish right through summer. The rod is a prototype Sage Bluegill, it was GREAT on the carp.
Morsie
Peter, a few Aussies get here and I wouldn’t say Australian fly fishing is 20 years behind the US at all, carp have been a very popular target amongst a lot of fly fishermen for a very long time. We made an episode on the Wildfish series on carp and there will be another episode coming up on the Fishing DVD as well.
Carp bite best when the water warms up, they can be very docile in winter. They spawn on November December and can get quite aggressive at that time. My favourite fly is a woolly worm, they love em and the hackle slows their sink rate, get it in their face and watch for the lips to move. They’ll eject a fly quicker than you can blink.
Standard trout equipment is fine – we’ve even used 3 weights although a 15 lb carp on a 3 weight rod is a handful. Use heavier tippets – 8lbs is fine, tie your flies on strong hooks, leaders don’t need to be long – 10 feet overall is fine. A 5-6 weight rod is good.
They are very sensitive to atmospheric noise and heavy footfalls. There’s no sense in blind casting for them, they’re best as a sight fishing target.
Morsie
These are my observations.
Make notes, use a mind map before starting out, and also consider you images as “notes” – take pics that might not be published but that will act as a reference for an incident.
Get the first paragraph right and most else will follow.
Write every day.
Review every day
Use the cut and paste function to shift around paragraphs, this will often improve a story.
Leave a “completed” story to brew for a few weeks then edit it.
It will always read better on paper than it will on the computer screen so print it out and edit the old fashioned way – with a red pen – and use it ruthlessly.
Morsie
We don’t have much in the way of youth coming up in the tennis world. When Rosewall etc dominated, tennis was huge in rural Australia – every country town had courts and it was enormously social – out of that you’re going to get stars rising – Evonne Goolagong/Cawley is a classic example of that as is Rod Laver.
We’ve won one World FF championships and always seem to place pretty well. Australians are very competetive, its our national psyche that you don’t go into any competetive sport to come second, silver medals are for the others. Our national sport is cricket, some say boring, but its actually an incredibly ferociously competed sport, its a miracle it hasn’t broken out into on field violence – its filled with psychological mind games and tactics that would leave chess masters bewildered – we have completely dominated the world of cricket for last 20 years and the No 2 team in the world – India are here at the moment. A cricket test match lasts 5 days and we won the most recent one with 7 minutes to spare – all kinds of dramas. Australian verbal mind games and jousting (which we do a good deal of is called sledging ( from sledge hammer) – if you can psyche your opponent out with a well paced verbal barb and put them off their game, well all’s fair in love and war and cricket. Here’s a classic – Australian batsmen walks in to bat and opposing English player says ‘ Geez Booney, you’ve put on a bit of weight since I last saw you” (pretty pathetic attempt to upset him) Australian player David Boon responds, “Yeah, every time I make love to your wife she gets me another beer” – who wins that round – and then there’s the game itself.
We love our sport. Golf is looking good at the moment but its not my game.
Raz is a great guy. It sure is a small world.
Morsie
Our days of tennis domination are well over. Raz Reid (Sage rep for the south east) is a former tennis pro and is a good friend of mine – he’s married to former Aussie open champ Kerry Melville – their daughter Kati works at Sage and was on the cover of FF in SW a few issues ago with a big permit…. I’m not a tennis fan.
We are allowed to own firearms, theres a strict examination by the police, a long cooling off period, you need to be a member of a shooting club and if you want to hunt you need letters from farm owners giving you permission. All firearms must be stored in heavy duty lockable metal containers that can’t be moved (gun safes) or stored in club armouries. They (the police) do inspect as well – I heard a story about a guy who stored his drug stash in his gun safe figuring no one would steal them from there and the police came round to do an inspection………..You need your license to purchase ammunition as well and to justify in writing each new purchase.
Commercial operators such as fishing guides in the tropical north can carry weapons for crocodile protection but crocodiles are completely protected in Australia – just about all of our native wildlife is completely protected but we have 5 species of deer, pigs, goats, foxes, rabbits, hares, cats, any amount of “game”.
Not sure what the law is in side arms – haven’t even bothered to go there.
Morsie
David, believe me we watch the events and listen to the “conversations” in great detail. Not being in the thick of it or part of the culture does give you a different perspective.
Morsie
Neal – I would consider it a little out of balance however if you can get a spool 2 for the Gulfstream – its a good deal lighter when loaded up – wicked retrieve speed for a 10.
Morsie
Not at all a comment on your gun laws – I think ours are too tight, more an observation on space, population densities, and the simple need to carry some protection – and we don’t have bears. I really feel for you guys having to carry firearms for protection when fishing – and that protection is from “humans”. We also have our fair share of loonies and serial killers, probably the worst single civilian massacre happened in Australia and that caused an immediate tightening up of the gun laws – but at least we had a reaction that wasn’t “give everyone a gun and it won’t happen again” but was “there’s too many guns in the community”. Mostly it was automatic and semi-auto weapons that were removed surrendered.
However from a distance I find it astonishing that you have all these school and campus massacres and nothing happens to your gun laws.
Morsie
Interesting thread on another chat site (Sexyloops) about the Rio Gold with Simon Gawesworth also contributing. The Specific Gravity of the line is .85 with the tip at .7. No complaints about is “floatability” there.
Morsie
Bead head Fuzzle Bugger in black with a Peacock salty chenille underbody.
Tongariro “steelhead” anyway…………
Morsie
I haven’t used the line on a fast 8 weight but I have used it a good deal on a 5 ZAxis. Its a very sweet combination, great in short
Here’s some more bird pics – a capped tern and a frigate bird on a ball of sardines.
A gannet and a mackerel on the same bait ball as the one above.
This is a big bunch of egrets that had a heap of bait trapped in a beach gutter.
Morsie
Thanks Neal, The dollar exchange rate is still very much in your favour…..
Not actually doing any sort of dancing, just a lot of prancing to keep up with the showers of prawns the threadfin and other smaller fish were causing to bust up.
Morsie
Here’s some more bird pics – I love my birds, they can add so much to a fishing day. This is a little egret. I couldn’t work out what they were at first because of the plumes but figured it was a breeding season decoration. They were feeding in the gutters that drain the mud flats – masses of what we call “jelly prawns” flushing out of the mangrove swamps (tiny shrimp – about size 6).
These are the fish that were also feeding on the jelly prawns – threadfin salmon. The big feelers are used to herd up the bait into a tight ball then they’ll lunge through the bait, mouths open. Can be an incredibly difficult fish to get a bite from but not on this day.
Morsie
