Ep.31 | Tim Farnell & Paul Willis | Beach Fishing for Mulloway, Snapper & Tailor

Rothy and Lecca sit down with Paul Willis and Tim Farnell from Red Mullet Distributors, the WA team behind some of the biggest brands in Australian fishing including Daiwa, Vexed and Assassin to name a few.

Between them, Paul and Tim have forgot more about landbased fishing than most of us will ever know. They've written articles for western angler, run tackle talks & fished the WA coast from top to bottom.

This episode covers:

• Mulloway & Pink Snapper from the beach & rockwalls 
• Landbased fishing rigs, conditions, and how to find a fishy spot
• Targeting big Tailor on lures along Perth's metro beaches and reefs

Plus, one lucky listener who submitted a question walks away with a Infeet light tackle lure pack thanks to Daiwa Australia

If you fish from the beach or the rocks, this one's a belter.

vexedfishing.com.au

TALL TAILS!

Honouring the past & acknowledging the future of Australian Fishing Culture.

DONT FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE RODCAST!

FOLLOW THE RODCAST ON SOCIALS!
🎣 Youtube
🎣 Instagram
🎣 TikTok
🎣 Facebook
🎣 Rothy's Instagram
🎣 Lecca's Instagram

 INTRO TUNE
🥩 Red Bellied Black Snake - The Beefs 🥩
Courtesy of Sam Smith
Click here to listen to The Beefs on Spotify

For all enquiries about Tall Tails Fishing Podcast, please contact jakerotham@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome back to another episode of the Rodcast. This episode is brought to you by the guys at Dowa. Rothi, when you're out there chasing big fish, one thing you can't compromise on is your line. Is it the same for small fish?

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Matter of fact, it is Lecker. J Brader and J Thread are built with Japanese P-Tech. So you're getting serious strength and consistency. Cast clean, it's smooth, and you get that sensitivity where you feel everything. There's heaps of options too. Different colours, braking strains, spool sizes. You can match it to exactly what you're doing. This is the kind of line you spool up and you don't second guess.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

Give yourself every chance, get some of this on your reel. Now let's get into the broadcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

We haven't even touched on it, but we turned a year old a couple of episodes ago, too.

SPEAKER_03 1:05

So gone quick.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Yeah, it has gone really quick. It feels like it's only been a couple of months. So thanks to everyone that's been tuning in over the last couple of years, but we couldn't do any of this without our guests. And we've got a couple of repeat guests today, two of our favourite guests that we've had on, both personally and uh the audience as well. We've had some great numbers on the listens on this these episodes. So we've got the boys from Vex. We got P Willie and Tim Farnell back in the new studio. Welcome, boys. Pleasure to have you back.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Thanks, boys. Thanks for having us again. Good to see you. What do you think of the new digs, boys?

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Cage the Ripper. All right. I really like it. This is like a little love shack. What did you want to call it? The gorilla's nest.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Couple of gorillas sitting here. Not far off. Or is there some sort of sick meaning behind that one? Tim's here.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Let's not start too early.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Yeah, so we got we got chalk and cheese here too. We got P. Willie here to misbehave and keep us entertained, and Tim to keep him in line so uh Vex doesn't get cancelled.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

Always away, boys. We start every every episode with the last fish you caught. This one's no different. Tim, I know you're just uh sitting there with a big cheesy grin on your face. Willie, what's what's the like we'll start with you though? What's the last fish you caught?

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Bit embarrassing, but it was a um probably about a 25 centimeter uh pike. Yeah, nice. Yeah, just took the little fella down um down the Frio just um, you know, marinering and rock walling, and we just caught a bunch of small stuff and I was using some micro jigs and caught a little tiny uh well, uh probably 25 centimetre pike and some little tailor and yakers and herring and just so much fun though.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

Young fella showed you up as well, hey. You just show me a picture.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got a dirty big um crab as well, the biggest one I've ever seen. Um and yeah, he's pretty uh um efficient at catching herring as well. Got bitten off by a tailor and cried, so that was the that was the that that really really. Yeah, well he he didn't like it much. Um so I didn't want to push him. I I felt I've felt that he was forced into it and didn't like it, but then his mates showed some uh just a bit of interest in it, and their dads aren't probably the best anglers around there, just haven't done it much. So I took the soccer team fishing and uh we caught a bunch of fishing just by him watching the reaction to the other kids um just you know, yeah, set a fire under him.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

So yeah, he is what's what your mates are doing, whether it's footy or soccer or fishing or whatever it might be.

SPEAKER_03 3:40

Yeah, absolutely. And when they start asking for it, it's like that's the best. My my kids are about the same, I reckon. Tim, I'm gonna ask you because you're sitting here with a little cheesy grin on your face. I don't know, you caught a good fish the other day. I don't know if it was the last one you caught, but what's the last fish you got? It was the last one.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

It's not very often they have the wood over pea willy, so I'll take that. Um 14 kilo Mulloway off the beach. Nice wicked. Now it was Saturday morning, so run us through it. Why'd you pick that day to go for Mulloway in particular? Oh, secret, secrets. Uh new moon. Was this the day after the new moon basically? And the tides were incoming and everything looked good. A little bit of swell around, water was dirty. And yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:16

Have you caught Mulloway at this spot before?

SPEAKER_02 4:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 4:19

You have, all right. Absolutely. Don't ask you too much then.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

You put a bit of influence on the tides, eh, with Mulloway? Yeah, always like that tide change.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

Always like that tide change or an incoming tide. But um, yeah, we've never caught a proper solid Mulloway in the morning. There's a bit of a fact for you. Oh yeah. Yeah, it was yeah, uh, when was it about quarter past seven? Yeah. So tide was about 10 o'clock, so it was an incoming tide, but there was a little bit of a bite time around then.

SPEAKER_03 4:45

So what what were you using for bait?

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Tailor fill it. Yeah, yeah. Singled angle, tailor fill it. Um when I rocked up, it was a bit of a Sovereign blowing. I thought, oh that's not great, makes it a little bit uncomfortable. But my spot had a bit of weed along the along the shore there. And Mulloway do like hunting just behind that weed line, although it makes it challenging to fish. Yeah. Um, if you've got the right gear, sort of 14-15 foot rods, and keep your line above that shore. Weed line, there's always fish hanging out the back. So yeah, gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

We um just for anyone that's listening that hasn't gone through our back catalogue of episodes, we did do a pretty deep dive into Mulloway um with Tim, which I think was episode four when we were I think it was episode four, I might be getting that wrong. But anyway, Tim Farnell, you can go and search it. We did a real deep dive into Mulloway for anyone that's keen to pick up on a few handy little tips there. We won't go into it today because we are short on time. But um, lads, there's a couple of lures sitting in front of you. So since um both of your episodes has obviously got our new studio and what we have behind you guys there is the lure wall of fame. So every guest that we've had on, we try to you know get a little bit of piece of their fishing history living in here, and um becomes part of the tall tales history as well. So you guys have bought two really, really special lures. Um tell us about them. So to kick off with you, Tim. You've got the um GT ice cream, the the slim one there. What's the go?

SPEAKER_02 6:09

So that's my uh two-ounce skinny GT ice cream.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Hold it up just for the uh listeners because these are one of my favourite tailor lures.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

Very simple lure, cast really well, skip along the service like a like a guardi. Yeah, um love using these when they're windy because they do cast a long way. And I that's what I got my 94 centimetre tailor up at Cow Barry on. Nice. Mate, that's epic. 7.4 kilos.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

And that's your PB.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Yes. Wow, and you're giving us the lure for your PB. Same clip, everything. It's got a harbour power twist on it.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

And wow.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Tell us about that that fish in particular. That's that's sick.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

You did give us a rundown on it, but tell us again just for the So I was on my way up to Merch and the fish up those spots, and we always drive up during the night and just camp on the cliffs to the south of town there. And crawled down, went to to get to my spot, you've got to walk about 500 metres over these nasty rocks and got there, and there's this bit of foam around. Had a few casts, had a few follows from some smaller fish, and then uh the big boy jumped on it, and when I saw it, I was like, Yeah, that's that's not a small tailor, that's a proper tailor.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

You were saying you call that spot Jurassic Park just because every fish that you've ever encountered there is massive, yeah, they're all black backs.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

Yeah. So definitely Jurassic Park of the Taylor World.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Supersedes a green back, the black back.

SPEAKER_03 7:27

Yeah, never heard of that. Mate, that must be it, that must have been a good catch because I remember we fished Murchison, it wasn't long after we interviewed you that first time, and you caught a fucking thumping tailor. And I was like, Tim, you gotta get a photo with that. And he was like, Oh no, it's not that big. And then I took a photo of it and I was like, I sent you the photo later on. You're like, actually wasn't a bad tailor, that was fucking huge.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

You get used to seeing those big ones when you're a good angler. Hey, I wouldn't know about it. But you were saying uh John O'Ellis was the same when you were fishing with him for barra, like he'd pull up a good 90. He got a 92, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:59

He got a 92 centimetre barra, and we were like, Oh, we'll get a photo. He's like, Ah, fuck, get a photo. Should chuck it back. Just threw it back. I was like, mate, let me get a video. So I'll fish with John O and I think we spoke about this on the last episode, but fizzes, all that sort of stuff, and mate, he is so dialed in. Like, I was super impressed, and I think um we missed a couple of talking to you about it before, P Willy, with the fizzes, like they they'll buff it, but quite often they don't actually hit where the lure is. You probably know more about it than me. But he went out the next night and got a 104 and a 105, and he's just that under the radar that he's like, Yep, let's keep it quiet.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Oh we'll shut the fuck up then if you want to keep it quiet.

SPEAKER_03 8:38

But I won't say where, but mate, that's epic. We'll bang that straight into the wall. But P Willie, you've got something there that is pretty iconic, really. It's pretty much changed the history of fishing throughout the state. Like that is the a pretty pivotal moment in the way that changed the way I fish, it changed the way the demersals. Yeah, for demersals, it changed the way Rothy fish. What do you got there?

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Yeah, well, that's the um it's the bottom meat I I tie it up in the shed at two o'clock in the morning. It's probably um probably not described as a lure, it's more of a a a bait-carrying implement. Yeah, like that that one there, um I just had a 500 gram head there, which was a prototype at the at the time. And I just wanted everything to be big, just so um, you know, I could take photos of it, and it uh it's a horrible looking thing. Look at that. But but that's basically where I had the idea after fishing in the um out of um two rocks that day with with Luke, and we failed dismally um on jigs and and and plastics, where we always bagged out, and it was the the full moon, the northerly wind. Uh they were not eating artificials, and they probably didn't even want to eat bait that hard. But that's when we were dropping um, it's got vests written in artline panels. Yeah, that was just a bit of an idea of some branding where I was gonna put the logo, but that's what I tied out at two o'clock in the morning in the shed. Um, and yeah, it's uh ugly. And um I had a skirt on it but disintegrated. Uh so I didn't want to put another one on because it's not original, right? So um, yeah, everything's big, and that that's what gave me the idea to to build the the bottom meat, which is a hybrid of of um using a jig to carry bait to the bottom on slow pitch outfits.

SPEAKER_03 10:26

Yeah. What fish have you you've got fish on this?

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Shit, no. See that front hook there? Yeah, you could flick that and it'll fall off. Yeah, right. But um, no, I haven't. That was the prototype. That was the prototype. Yeah, to to um basically get the factory to uh the factory didn't want to tie it. They said you're wasting your you know your time, no one does this. Um you sure you want to do it. So and that's because they mean they didn't want to tie it. Because they only make things that other people make. Right. They don't innovate things. And in China, anything that you do differently, they say, What the hell are you doing? Like, you know, question, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So basically trying to be innovative. Uh yeah, that's right. So um basically that's what we we started off with, and then um it's come a long way from there. But um, yeah, far out, man.

SPEAKER_03 11:11

Well, mate, even it's it's changed into now the way we fish for whiting is different as well because like you guys have obviously brought out the the whiting range and everything as well. I guess it's probably a good opportunity to, you know, there's a bit of a not an elephant in the room, but obviously demersals are shut now. You guys have a business that's you know, does it purely not purely based around demersals, but you've got a range of that is that is a big portion of it. How have you seen the shift?

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Well, the shift is participation is there. Like we're worried that participation would um would you know reduce dramatically, but the the fact is people want to get out, they want to fish, um, and they want to eat stuff, right? They want to share time on the water with their family. Um and to be honest, like um I love demersal fishing, but it's not a big part of what I do. I mean, if I'm if I've got some time to go out in the boat off off the metro area, I'm not fishing for Jewfish and snapper much, right? So um basically what we've done is we've created a little bottom meat. Um, we call it a micro meat or a bottom worm, and you you put it in place of your sinker or you can use it on its own. So basically with a padnoster rig where you've got two hooks on there, you always catch some fish on the bottom. Um your sinker's there doing stuff all apart from getting your rig to the bottom. So I've incorporated that into a a baby little micro meat, um, and you can use it as a sinker, and the fish are piling onto that because it's puffing up the sand. So that style of fishing, um, but there's many other styles of fishing which are increasing. Surf fishing's gone through, like that's just it's gone through a sort of a new phase, I think, because dronings come into it as well. But just your general beach fishing, there just seems to be so many more fish available to catch, not just snapper, which when I was doing all my club fishing in the in the 90s and early 2000s, you never caught snapper off the beach. Only during a storm, like you might you might pick one up, but you never used to catch snapper off the beach, and now there's that many snapper out there, I don't care what anyone says. Um, this is what we're seeing. And mate, you go down there and sometimes you're targeting Taylor and you're catching snapper.

SPEAKER_03 13:22

But um It's been a common theme and the common thing. Some of the last guests we've had on there saying how much like the the the snapper that old school fishermen um have said, no, we never used to get them now, now we're getting them more regularly.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Yeah, well, these are lifetime fishermen that we're having on, you know, they've been fishing for a long time in those particular areas. And um, what you're saying about the snapper, like I'll I'll say it too. Like it's so easy to catch them. And the confidence that you go to the beach with if you try and target snapper, it's it's up there now, isn't it? It wasn't really something that you go down there confident that you would catch. You're right, yeah. Confidence is a key part of fishing and people going down there and having a crack and actually targeting snapper and using rigs and and and equipment that is created for that purpose too. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

And the Mulloway fishing, uh you saw Tim's when he caught on the weekend. There would have been I saw a dozen really good Mulloway caught just last weekend. So this this is a good time of year, it's the back of the the mullet run, really. But I I think uh September-October is better personally. Off the beaches, yeah, this morning really said, yeah. Yeah, but I mean I there there's a sort of a split in in area. So um I I think closer to Perth this time of year is the best. But when you get to Geraldton um and north from there, it's definitely better September, October. Um I I don't know why, it just seems to be that's when uh like Wago, for instance, and you know, Port Gregory and Horics and all those areas, um it's better in September, October.

SPEAKER_03 14:52

With that metro area, how long will you reckon that will go on for? Through winter. Through winter. Through all of winter.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Yep. Yeah, through winter. Um and I I think summer's the worst time to fish for Mullaway, but look at those beaches um around Mandra, like you know, San Remo, um Medora, Singleton, Singleton, Golden Bay. Yeah, Golden Bay. That is a Christmas time each year. Yep. So November to um now is when that fish is the best. So it's it's really weird. And I mean, I don't know if anyone's looked into the science of it or anything, but it's just really odd.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Well, you meant you mentioned the mullet run just then. I think that's something unpacking.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

It's more more March.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

So when we talk about the mullet run, are we are we speaking about fish that are exiting the river and migrating north? Yeah, I don't I believe so.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Yeah, but there's not enough. I I just don't think there's enough in the river that that rush out into the ocean and go. Um I reckon a lot of those fish stay in the river year round. I I I don't believe in that um, you know, the run-in and the run out. Okay. That's what we all believed during um you know the early day Mulloway fishing. I I just think it's a load of shit. Yeah. There is no run-in and run-out. They they, you know, you catch more fish uh places like the Narrows, right, for instance. Um and then it's um October's the month, yeah, right, for there. And I just think it's fish coming up to the bridge for what's hanging around and the activity going on at that bridge.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

At that time, they know that you know, with that rain, it's gonna have an influx of fresh water flushing down and pushing bait and sediment and nutrients down with it, they're waiting there to ambush, aren't they, buying those piles?

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Absolutely. But also tailor fishing off the beaches because I think there's a lot more stock out there. Because back in the days, like I was saying when I was club fishing, when you used to go down to City Beach in Florida on a you know, before the internet, that's people used to go down to the beach after work right and fish in summer. Remember along there and you couldn't get a spot. Sometimes you had to walk two, three hundred metres, you'd see mustard rods, alvey's and white buckets, right? Um now I think the internet, this is my theory. I think the internet has changed that because people get home from work now and they get onto Facebook or Upon for Tim or whatever. Yeah, and they and they start scrolling and then and then before they know it, an hour's gone past, they look out the window and say, you know, I can't be bothered now. I seriously think.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

His boys can do that.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Uploaded your idea. His boys can do that. They they know how to use that stuff. So, but um, yeah, I just think it has a huge impact. And and I just don't think there's many fish being kept now. So all the youngsters are using lures and they want to catch the fish and let them go, firstly, because that's what they want to do, the sustainability, but they also can't be bothered cleaning them, right? Like um, that's a lot of a lot of people release fish because they can't be bothered cleaning them or they don't know how to cook them, all right.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

I I reckon a lot of those fishermen as well have gone. I don't know if it was like this. I talked to my old man and that about what it was like, but a lot of those fishermen have probably got boats as well, and they've gone from the beach fishing into we're not doing it at the moment, but they've become demersal fishermen and they're the they became the fish that they targeted. Yeah. And it and it got them off the beaches. And now with this closure, I feel like they're like we said, they're still keen, they're still fishermen, they're going back to their roots and going back to the fishing that they initially done. But you're spot on. Like I I I went and did a bit of filming and stuff with Goatman. Uh it's probably 12 months ago now, and we were down at Scarborough, it was a perfect day for Taylor, perfect time of year. And we there was one other guy that came down, and it was uh it was probably midweek, and Goatman does that fishing a lot, and he's like, mate, there's never anyone here. He's like, people will travel two hours to go and do this sort of fishing off you know, or an hour off Lanceland, two hours off Jurian, Savannies, and he's like, mate, it's right their doorstep, they could be doing it whenever they want.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

And that's the best, like it's you don't realize it until you do it. And when you get sand between your toes and you're casting a a Muley on a even a you know a surf rig, you know, popping it in the rod holder, or you're just holding the rod on sunset. You you always I always think like why don't I do this more often?

SPEAKER_03 19:13

It is it is mental health-wise, and like so relaxing. You go down there for two hours and it's a reset, you know. Like the I I can yeah, completely agree. And it's just a matter of getting yourself off off the couch and going out there and doing it. But between like stretches of beach, you're north of Perth, yeah, like northern suburbs, great beaches through there, Quinn's two rocks, same thing. Trig to Cottislo. Like, there's some bloody awesome fish to be caught.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

Yeah, I love my spots up at Wilbinger, you know, even Jinder Lee. Sorry, Rothi. No, that's so bad.

SPEAKER_03 19:46

That's Rothy's spots, mate.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

Oh, I don't fish that zone ever. I've got my own spots now, a bit closer to home.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

How good is it? You can like take the forby off-road up there, and we are lucky, we need to look after that, you know, treat the tracks carefully and all that. But coffee in the morning, flicking some lules around, that surface strike. Yeah, you know, put a few back when the last time I was up there, I think we got six fish.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

You know?

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Yeah, I had a good session up there last last week too, around two rocks weekend.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

But there's so many areas that that we have that you just drive past. Like you really don't understand how much area we have. Like, even uh obviously between um uh two rocks and more river, I mean there's there's a heap of areas in there, but there's so many better areas north. I mean, if you some people don't want to drive that far, right? But at the end of the day, it's an hour or two hours further, just the area between Lansland and Wedge, like it's just some of the most beautiful beaches ever seen. But then all that sort of it's kind of a dead zone, but between um sort of um wedge all the way through to the other side of Lehman before you get back to Fish Around Savannah.

SPEAKER_03 20:55

Yeah, because it's not a tricky.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

But there's not a lot of access there either.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Well, there is now with with with Indian Ocean Drive. You can pull off a hundred meters off Indian Ocean Drive in a lot of these areas, and it's not a surf beach, but there's Mulloway and Taylor there, like you wouldn't believe. And areas like Carsons and stuff like that, you know, just um this side of Dongra, there's so much area through there that just does not get fished. You don't have to fish on top of each other to find a spot to catch a Mulloway or something. People just drive past it.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

I think people are conditioned to find a surf beach too. That's a common misconception. Like, I see a lot of big Mulloway on social media. I'm not too well versed when it comes to finding them off the beach. The river's sort of been my thing. It's a goal for this year to get them more off the beach. But um a lot of guys are fishing pretty flat ground too, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Absolutely. Yeah, you don't need big waves and and current and pull and um rip to catch these fish. Um, there is a lot more um ooglies to get through in in in bay type fishing. I call it bay-type fishing. Like there's a lot more banjos and big rays and slobby gongs and all that sort of stuff. But but the the fish are there.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Um absolutely when you put the dingle-dangle on it eliminates all the bottom feeders.

SPEAKER_03 22:07

I want to ask you, actually, this is like just something that's come up. With the beaches where you're catching Mulloway, potentially snapper, where there's not a lot of we're talking it's not a surf beach, there's not a lot of going on on the shore, but the fish are there. Is there something that you think is beneficial to look for that's offshore that that helps where the Mulloway come from?

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Like are you looking for There's nothing offshore because generally there's an outer reef which is a long way out?

SPEAKER_03 22:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

And then there's um and then there's nothing offshore. There's a few bumps and you know, lumps and stuff, but that's for droners, not for beach guys. You're looking at a a uh a weed line.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

So do you think it's important for a Mulloway beach where say there's not a lot of structure, but they come in on the right tides and all that sort of stuff. You're looking for bait, but you where are they going, you know, when they're not feeding on the beach? Do you think a a weed line out is important for that?

SPEAKER_02 23:00

I like weed along the shore, but rips for me. Rips. As soon as I see a little bit of sand pulling off the shore. Doesn't have to be a big rip, even a small one. I believe that's where like the the whiting are going to congregate a bit more. Yeah. Um the weed lines on the shore break, you got herring cruising along and eating the maggots coming out of the weed.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Yeah, so you break that down, but the weed brings nutrients, the nutrients brings herring, bait fish, the bait fish bring herring, whiting, etc. The Mulloway and Taylor come in to eat all of them. It's a big sort of you know, food chain, really. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

Like Willie was saying, like those bay beaches, you know, but a lot of that there's no weed on there. And occasionally you'll see a little rib. Yeah. So there's heaps of little whiting in there that's coming in. Yeah, ate again.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Like somewhere like Hill River, right? There's a a a parallel reef that slowly makes it closer to the shore as you get towards the river mouth, right? And then um a couple hundred metres past the river mouth, then the reef makes it to the shore. So being right up near that reef um is not um you'd think it's more productive. Um, you do get more snapper up there then, but definitely not better for Mulloway up there. Um and even tailor, like I mean, if you're casting on a in the afternoon around the reef there, you'll catch more tailor. But they cruise the beach. There's two different types of feeding tailor there. There's one that cruises the the beach generally in mid-afternoon. Um, and then um there's other ones who um halt fish into into reef sections, which is up the other end. So there's a lot of situations like that, but you can you can fish three kilometres south of Hill River, uh, and um that is much better for Mulloway than right up near the reef.

SPEAKER_03 24:45

It's it's an interesting point with the tailor and different times and different spots because I used to find that when I would trawl the beaches where I grew up, it was always I'd always catch the tailor in the sandy holes in amongst all the weed. But then when I was beach fishing, I always used to like to get out like obviously off the end of the weed, and that's when they'd come out and and sunset they'd be coming out and feeding along the the sandy edges I found. So they were in two different spots. Like I'd never trawl them up where I'd catch them beach fishing during the day. Like through that just that plain sandy section, I'd just never get tailored they're always in the str in amongst the structure.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

And now we've got this overlay of drone fishing, which there's another dynamic to it where it's not your you know, your stereotypical guy that wears a flannel and you know has a mullet and then uses his beach rod and you know, cooks a Barbie on the beach. There's nerds fishing.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Right? There's another, you know, it's a whole new kettle of fish. Like there's there's tech tech nerds who are now fishing, who have got it dialed in. They can fly a drone, they can um they're using electric reels, they're yeah, it's a whole new thing, and they're a different animal than your normal beach fishermen.

SPEAKER_03 25:58

Database fishermen, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

You're looking at me for a bit. And and these guys are uh, you know, they're doing their their research on they're using, I suppose, all the technology that that they're probably better at using than the flannel wearer, right? And they're they're using Google Earth to to to find areas where they're gonna deploy baits and look, then they look at tracks and access. And they're nerds who probably couldn't catch a herring off a jetty, right? Right. And they're and they're putting and they're putting all their technical knowledge together and they're creating a a whole new social scene of fishing, um, and they're doing well.

SPEAKER_03 26:39

Well, it's probably one thing that you guys have done a lot of, you know, shore-based snapper fishing, all that sort of stuff. We still have access to the the lamb-based snapper um with the demersal stuff that's going on at the moment. What are a couple of things that you would look for if, say, the we've got maybe we've got some nerd listeners or whatever, the someone that wants to catch a lamb-based snapper, um, because it's not as easy as just going out and being there's a lump, you know, the weather could be clear as day and there's no fish there. Like, what do you what are you looking for?

SPEAKER_01 27:07

Are we talking with a drone or casting?

SPEAKER_03 27:09

Both, bit of both.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Like I'm sure they're I'm not the guy that talked to you about the drone thing, but casting, yeah, but from from a casting thing. Run a passage. If you're interested in it, now is the time because what you want to do is get your your gear ready and and wait for the next um blow or the first blow of the year. Because what we had a couple of nights ago wasn't a blow, it was just a bit of wind. But a blow, like three days of heavy rain and blow, you just get your gear ready and just get down to your local rock wall. It doesn't matter which one it is, if it's accessible, it's a rock wall because the blow, what it does is it knocks all the rocks, all the rock crabs off the rocks, pummels them into the water, all the bait and all the shit that's built up in those rocks over summer, that all gets washed out and pumped back into the water, creates um a burly trail. It's all bird shit, I reckon, as well, on the rocks. Um, and also it's it's just bird shit and and just creates lots of bait fishing close to the rock. So the snapper are coming in to eat all that, all that bait crabs and all the bait fish that are being attracted by the bird shit and all that stuff off because bird shit's just fish, yeah. Right. So um, and you imagine how much crap builds up in those rocks over summer, you know. Every night there's people, you know, fishing for herring and tailor and yakers and whatever. Yeah, so so if you can get down there with um a very simple rig, just half a herring, that's the best bait for snapper off the rocks, um, or anything like that, scalies or pike or whatever, but half a herring's the best. And you just get down there and just watch, see what people are doing. Right? It's not rude to watch, ask some questions. It's not rocket science, it's time and knowledge. So you get down there after a blow. During a blow, if you're a snapper virgin, it might be a bit hardcore. Um, but go with them, mate. But just go down there and just have a look at what people are doing. You know, you automatically will drive right to the end of North Mole. It's not the place to fish. Um, you'll see where you you can tell people who know by looking at them.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

You can tell a Guggen from a North.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

Yeah, you'll you'll know the people that look at you funny when you're driving past don't want you looking at them, right? And they're the guys they don't want you looking at them because they know something you don't, right? So uh just go down there. Um, Tim's more, uh I suppose knows a lot more about the the the northern ones, and I'm probably more um experienced on the southern ones, like but um anywhere in the sound, south mole, north mole, all the way around there. It's good. Even Cottislow groin is like a just an absolute dynamite spot, but there's only room for a couple of people there and get a few funny looks, a lot of the hairies around there that don't want you fishing, but you can well, even even like the Sorrento rock groins, like there's a photo in that fishing in the Wild West of uh Murray Shore, and he's holding that massive pink snapper that was caught on the third groin, the groin closest to the Mat Club.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Yeah, like those Tim Um Tim Barlow spoke about those as being super productive and underrated rock groins. Like I've fished Hillary's quite a bit, seen heaps of heaps of snapper get pulled from that that south wall. You got ocean reef now's all of a sudden become quite a productive spot. What else? Uh Mindari, it's always city beach.

SPEAKER_03 30:25

Mindari's always, yeah. That Mindari's good.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

Yeah, got two rocks. There's like literally all of the the groins at Queen, all of these spots, including the beaches in between, are reliable pink snapper spots.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Absolutely. So I I reckon that's your best your best tip to start then. Um and then all through winter you'll catch snapper off the rocks there, but you're not gonna do it easily. Um you're gonna you're gonna fish the tides and fish dawn and dusk. That if if you fish the tide, the turn of the tide, dawn and dusk, and and all day after a blow, there is no um that the tides um sure will be beneficial, but just fish you get down and just fish the whole day after a blow, um, and just keep refreshing your baits. Don't leave your baits out there for two hours. Just every 10 minutes wind them in and refresh it with another half a herring.

SPEAKER_03 31:14

Well, that's one thing that I noticed with you guys. Obviously, it's helps when you you're fishing with the guys from from Vex who have the pre-made rigs. Um like it you you clip them on, clip them off, have them all ready to go. Tim, you were an absolute joy to fish with because you had my my baits pretty much ready to go when we fished at the Murchison and you you um just kept reloading us, and it makes a huge difference. What are your pre-made rigs? I'll give Vex a bit of a plug here, but what are you guys using and what products have you got out for say someone that's fishing off the rockets?

SPEAKER_01 31:45

It actually seems like you guys have gone and developed a whole new range to to make beach fishing a lot easier for people.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

Actually, I was checking them out at Luke's shot, Tanger West yesterday, and we had a bit of a plan, like so I said to Tim, like we both are pretty serious in our shore-based fishing, we because we love it, right? Um and I've got the the competitive tournament background of competition fishing. And I just said to Tim, there's I've never gone into the shop and bought a rig that I'd actually use. Right. So and no disrespect to people, other people that make rigs, but um I don't think the people that are making these rigs. I think I I might be out of my boat here, but I don't think they are fishing much.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

No, there's nuance to it.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

I just pull a rig out and I can just pick it up. It's the wrong this, the wrong that. So I said to Tim, why don't we sit down and develop some rigs that we would actually use? Right? And because tying rigs is a part of fishing, right? And I used to enjoy it so much. I don't have the time now, seriously. I I do not have the time to tie rigs. So we sat down and and and we tied rigs and we didn't have to do any testing or anything. We just tied the rigs we use, and then we got them made. We got them custom made overseas on a mass production. Yeah, um, so we've developed a rig called a rock and mole. So it's based a bit of acadaka mixed in with it's just a rock and mole rig. So it's a with it's a it's basically a very simple rig. It's just a a 360 three-way crane with um a double snail um but and um a trace to your um sinker. We've got a a special little um long cast sinker clip so you can clip your bait to it so your bait's not flopping around.

SPEAKER_03 33:25

That's that makes a wicked huge difference. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

And not that you always need distance when you're casting off the rock, but you do in the storm, I'm telling you. Um you can be too far out, and that's the other tip. Don't don't be too far out. Um, but also we've put flotation on it. Now, the flotation just picks the bait up, makes it more visible, and sure you don't get as many crabs and stingrays. So that's the dingle-dangle you can. Well, that that is a dingle-dangle, not so much on the rock and mole rig. We use that as a running flotation so that sits above the bait.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

So you and then we have a dingle-dangle rig which um you tie the bait around and and you can clip it down and it floats up off the bottom.

SPEAKER_03 34:02

Question for you, Tim. How long did it take to convince P. Willie not to make the floats dick-shaped?

SPEAKER_02 34:11

We're gonna be called something.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Uh look at us that. Yeah, we're gonna be able to get a man with a string hanging up.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

I wanted to call the uh I mean, this is where Tim's gonna step in and and you know, daddy daddy me, but I'm not doing any editing to you. No, no, I wanted to call the dingle-dangle the manpon. Um because it is, you know.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

It looks like a tampon.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

Oh, yeah, it kind of does. And um, and um and what I wanted to do is just I wanted to try and charge him with no GST. And you know, because no, I said, listen, you know, let's try and bypass the tampon tax here. He goes, You can't be done. I said, but yeah, it'll be it'll make a huge thing. He goes, You'll be on the news. I said, that's what I wanted to do.

SPEAKER_03 34:56

It's got the built-in debate. Yeah, uh, because hanging off the back of it.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Because the dingle dangles, it's by no means. I've had a few people attack me saying, You didn't create the dingle dangles, whoa! I said, like, we did not create the dingle-dangle. There's quite a story to it.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

To be very honest with you.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

I think I touched on it before, but it's like a pummy idea where they used to put carp boilies on under the hook to give the hook nice, proud hook up right, and then the South Africans put foam around it and all of that. So, yeah, I wanted to call it the man pond. And um, Tim said no, and then uh he gave me a daddy talk again that said, You can't be doing stuff like this.

SPEAKER_03 35:30

I think it's worked out pretty well the way it came out, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it basically it pulls your bait off the off the sand, stops it rolling around the sand, gets away from crabs, pickers, makes more visible stingrays more than anything. That's the biggest pain in the ass, is when your bait gets taken by a stingray, and then 50, 50 minutes, 60 minutes of your bloody fishing time is taken up trying to get a carbonic ray in, too.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

So yeah, but there's some other things like bait thread as well, which um you know, when there's things banging your baits like little tarwine and little undersized shit fish are belting your baits off, just uh mummifying your baits with bait thread is um it just gives you so much more advantage to have actually having something on there when the fish comes along. Because sometimes your baits are gone in 30 seconds, right? A big head bait's different. I love head baits, really, really like them. But yeah, bait thread, just whack it on and keep that bait in in place.

SPEAKER_03 36:19

You can't really use too much of it, eh?

SPEAKER_00 36:21

No, well, you you probably can't. And just keeping the hook, it's not just keeping the bait on the hook or keep keeping the bait on the dingle-dangle, it's keeping the hook point in the position you need it to be. Sometimes the hook point, the bait moves around and then it fouls on the bait. So the the the hook point goes into the middle of the side of the herring, and your chances of hooking up is a lot less when that happens. So by positioning your hook into the bait and mummifying it, you get that hook point where you want it, where you need it.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

I have a quick question just before we move move on from that. Um, Tim, you're you're fishing off the beach a lot more. I've I've I've noticed just through our discussions and that you've got always got sand between your toes. Do you have a different approach for snapper from from the rocks? For me, it's always been a pretty similar sort of rigging technique and whatnot. Uh, if anything, I run a little bit more leader to my sinker from from the crane um swivel just to keep it uh out of the sinker and that's yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 37:19

So just a pattern Oster rig. You don't need the pulley rig essentially off when you're fishing for the rocks. You need a real simple rig you can get up quickly. Yeah, longer trace. If you do snag your sinker when you look at your fish in close, you can snap it off. Otherwise, we'll fish like a 40 pound liter instead of 80 pound for the rest of the rig.

unknown 37:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:37

So there's real simple. 80 pounds to your hooks and and your leader, but then down to your sinker, you're going 40 pounds. Yeah, yeah, if you snag into it. See, I don't do that.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

I I got a rule that you you don't um you don't mix different brands or braking strains. Yes. Because each each line brand or braking strain has its own style, yeah. Right? Its own style in terms of the way it wants to twist and that. So that makes a lot of sense having 80 to the hooks and 40 to the sinker. But um over time of fishing, I I run exactly the same brand and braking strain, even though you don't need leader to your sinker, you get way less tangles. And what I do is I do a sacrificial knot to the sinker. Uh I'll do a two-turn. Yes, so I'll do a two-turn blood knot. So I can pull that pretty bloody hard, but if it push comes to shove, the sinker will bust off.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

Yeah, got it.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

So that's what I do. But that just shows like Tim and I do things differently.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

They both make perfect sense. That might be something that principle behind both of them, really.

SPEAKER_00 38:42

Yeah, and and do you need to be using extra leader? You know, leaders more expensive than the 40-pound fishing line he's using. Yeah, right. Do you need to be doing that? But I just found over years um I I just get a lot less fighting when when I use the same side.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

And what what about your approach on the beach, Tim? Is is there anything different?

SPEAKER_02 39:00

You I I've fish pattern off the rigs off the beach as well. Yeah. You know, like at the moment I'm fishing two rods, so I've got a single hook circle with a dingle-dangle on.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

I love that dingle-dangle bait. I think there's a lot more work to be done in that space. But then I will run a double snail as well. So that fish on the weekend was a double snail with a dingle between it. Our South African friends won't like that because that's not traditionally the way people fish dingle-dangles. Uh I had the bait wrapped in bait thread around that, so I had two clear hook points, and that was on a pulley rig. Yeah. So there's always that Mulloway stories about you need to run a running rig so when they take it, you know, they can feel it unimpeded, and that's a big thing in the Swan River. Like running beansinker rigs in the Swan. Yeah. I run a pulley rig on one rod and I run a fixed Padenosta on another rod.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

I ran that Padenosta with the dingle-dangle in between for my my only beach Mulloway, actually. Um I can vouch for it there. But the other thing I wanted to touch on is this this could get into a deep conversation here. Two types of hooks. You got two types of fish, too. So you got snapper and you got mulway. Personally, for me, my theory is that I would a snapper prefer to run a J hook because of the way that a snapper hits the bait. But I don't think a circle hook is going to be as productive as a Mulloway that's maybe an implode feeder that's going to swish, swish, swish and swill that bait around in its mouth. What do you guys reckon?

SPEAKER_00 40:24

I I reckon I reckon you underestimate the way a snapper eats. They're a snaffler, so they just smash it and they just keep eating it. They just want to get it their mouth as full as that uh as possible. Traditionally I've always used J hooks, but I'm I'm starting to go towards the circle uh above a dingle dangle. So obviously the way a dingle-dangle's used is tie the bait around the dingle dangle and then and then uh lightly pin it um to the bottom of the circle. So that involves the fish having to eat all of that dingle-dangle and bait to get the circle in the mouth. But I I feel a snapper will keep a Mulloway will will mouth it and spit it sometimes, not always, not usually, but sometimes. But a snapper, if it if it does commit to a bait, generally um you don't use live baits for snapper, you use a just a cut bait. They just absolutely just go nuts on it. Like Tim, like in the bowl of custard. They just go for it. So they'll just keep eating and eating. And and a a lot of people have switched from Jays to um to circles, um, especially down south in that sort of area between Bunbury and um Dunsborough, that area. And um, and if you're patient with it, they will eat all of that bait and get pinned. And once you're pinned on a circle, um, the chances of it coming off is is a lot, lot less. Pretty slim.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

Yeah, you've almost got two barbs there that need to exit the fish before it gets off.

SPEAKER_00 41:48

Exactly right, yeah. So you also don't hook as many smaller fish. Sometimes it's a pain in the ass when you're trying to catch a bigger snapper and you're getting these, you know, 30, 40, 50 centimetre ones on there, they're not going to hook up as much on that 60, 8.0 circle um above the bait. Um, so so yeah, I mean it's it but you just got to go with your gut and be confident with it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

I've run probably a circle on the top of the snail and then a J on the bottom of the snail. And the idea there is that if it hooks with the um circle in the jaw, you've then got a sort of a swinging J hook that might come around and get them in the back of the gills.

SPEAKER_00 42:23

But yeah, that's the way I've always fished like in terms of fillet baits. Yeah, that is the best of both worlds because you've got a a a bait that's gonna uh if you put it in a rod holder and the fish takes it, it'll naturally just set without you having to set it. But if if a if a for Taylor, a big tailor hits that, Taylor are no good on circles generally, because they're they're an implosion hit like a mackerel, or just smash it and you're either on or you're off. Yeah. And that that bottom J hook will set a lot better.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

There's no wrong or right way to do it, really. I know Graham Dudson runs four hooks on his snails, and the top one is a circle, a smaller circle, and his his hook sizes are actually different to fit the fillet bait.

SPEAKER_00 43:01

So yeah, it just depends what sort of bait you're using as well.

SPEAKER_03 43:04

Yeah, that's a good question, as well, because you you can't always get a tailor fillet. If you're not running a tailor fillet, what are you using? So something that someone wants to go catch a snapper or a mullet will tell you.

SPEAKER_02 43:15

Mullet. Yeah, so mullet. Yeah, my last two mullet I've been, well, one on the weekend was Taylor fillet, and the one before that was on the mullet fillet.

SPEAKER_01 43:24

So are you fussy with your bait and where you get it from? You're just buying store-bought mullet.

SPEAKER_02 43:28

He's not, I am. Yeah. But that tailor I caught, the one I caught on the weekend was a tailor from the weekend before that I froze, and that's against everything that I stand for. But it was there, I filleted it, I whacked it on, caught fish.

unknown 43:40

Mm.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

I'm actually going up Mulloway fishing tomorrow with Robbie and uh Robbie Richards and Alex Carter. I've got six Taylor in the fridge from my last session. So now you've just decreased my confidence a little bit there, Tim, with froze tailor. You're going with them, you'll get 'em, mate. Yeah, whatever that'll find 'em hopefully.

SPEAKER_02 43:55

Just going back to your hook conversation quickly. So the fish I caught on the weekend was on Octopus hooks. They're our new YM hooks or plugged that quickly. They'll perform beautifully. So check them out. Fish swallowed the bait right down. So that fish didn't hit my bait and take off, and my rod didn't buckle over in the rod holder. I was watching my rod, and the linus went slack really, really quickly. So I saw a slight little knock, and then my liness went really slack and I picked it up and it swallowed it right down. So those J hooks were right down its gut, and my leader was literally hanging out of the fish's mouth. Yeah. The fish I caught before that, which was one on one of our pre-tied dingled angle rigs, was on a mutsu circle, perfectly pinned in the corner of the mouth.

SPEAKER_01 44:36

Those two are more of a square, you know, angle change coming out of the shank of the hook, aren't they?

SPEAKER_02 44:41

Oh, it's a circle hook with a more of a sharper bend on it.

SPEAKER_01 44:44

Sort of what you use, yeah, for King George widing, a black book. Yeah, similar to that.

SPEAKER_02 44:47

Yeah, just a heavier version of that. But I believe when you're fishing circles with the grappnel sinkers, when the fish hits the bait and turns, the grapnel sinker will help set that circle as well. Yeah. Whereas that one on the weekend with the twin octopus hooks, like swimming towards them, so like the wine line quickly set the hook. But most people would have missed it, they wouldn't have seen it. So what there's another tip. Watch your rod. Fish aren't always going to hit it and bend over and take line. Sometimes they'll pick it up, and Jewish do that. You know, we've seen that where they pick the bait up and arrow do it as well at times. Swim towards you.

SPEAKER_03 45:18

Yeah, definitely. Oh now, you mentioned Tim Eaton Custard Um Willy. Now it might seem weird, but Tim, since our last interview, you had a bit of a health scare. And um, so you had a heart attack. Yeah. Um, almost claimed you're which we're bloody very thankful that it didn't. But tell us a little bit about that experience and also how it's changed your outlook on life and fishing from from there on out because like it's a huge matter of half an hour, you may not have been here. Like tell us about what happened.

SPEAKER_02 45:52

Yeah, it was pretty scary. I was um over on in Queensland on a work trip, actually. So flew into Brisbane, did a talk night on the Gold Coast, and that was all good. But I had a bit of indigestion, what I thought was indigestion, and didn't feel right, but I had a cold couple of weeks leading into it after the tackle show and just kept pushing on. Went down to Coff's Harbour, went fishing with the boys down there and just on the beach cold and just felt a bit off. But again, I just thought it was indigestion and pushed on and drove six hours up to the Sunshine Coast for a work conference up there and just kept going on with it, but then all of a sudden just got the sweats on real quickly. And next thing I know I'm in an ambulance and strapped up and getting going straight into surgery. So had a hundred percent blockage in the main artery, which is the the widow maker, so it wasn't far off going and Ossman just landed at the airport and literally got a phone call as I was uh getting wheeled into the into surgery and yeah, pretty scary.

SPEAKER_01 46:52

I remember I called I called you that day for something brilliant. You were like, I'm on the way to the hospital. I'm fucking for for what? You told me it was like yeah, it was pretty it was pretty scary for us as well.

SPEAKER_03 47:04

For everyone, it's a bit of a wake-up call, I guess, uh uh around the symptoms. And I know you're pretty big on now trying to, you know, raise a bit of awareness if you are getting symptoms to get checked out, but you're a you know, healthy, young sort of man as well, that last person you'd expect to have a heart attack. And I think like you said, you ended up in an ambulance, but part of that was you going, something's not right here on you know.

SPEAKER_02 47:26

Yeah, yeah, I suppose it's just one of those, you know, you saying it wasn't right. It's not those heart attacks you see on the in the movies where you grab your chest and you fall to the ground.

SPEAKER_03 47:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 47:36

It was just I really thought I had indigestion and I but I couldn't burp. That was a big thing for me. So everyone out there, if you uh you're not feeling right and you got indigestion and can't burp, go go to the doctor. Even if you any sort of issue, just go get checked.

SPEAKER_03 47:51

No, doctor will be getting heaps of people going there after a big meal now. No, but seriously, it is it is um important. And they actually said to you, if it could have been the difference between half an hour or or not, you you could have not been here. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 48:04

The godsend was um I was at the airport when I got a phone call taking off. So that was the worst sort of, you know, it's not about me, but the worst five hours flying to Brizzy because as the flight my flight was taking off, I got a phone call like two or three in a row. So I was about to go into flight mode, you know, we're a bit late sometimes, and I I took the call and um and uh the guy said, I I think Tim's having a heart attack. And so I had to sort of sit in the plane and landed in Brizzy and thought shit.

SPEAKER_01 48:36

Praying what's up, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:38

So anyway, the godsend was Tim couldn't get into the room because it was under my name. So if he was able to get into the room when he was feeling off, he was gonna go in there and lay down. And that would have been lights out, curtains, yep. So fucking hell. So godsend to those pain in the ass hotels that don't let, you know. Yeah. Your mistress, your boyfriend, or your or your best mate.

SPEAKER_03 49:00

Yeah, with that would have been P Willy, what's he up to this week?

SPEAKER_01 49:03

So Tim, I I spoke to you after that, checking on you, and you said something to me. We were talking about um your priorities in life and stress and how you handle that sort of stuff. You've had a pretty big outlook change from just going off that conversation. I've noticed you've been fishing a little bit more too. How's that changed your outlook on life and and going fishing and spending time with your boys, which I know is a huge, huge thing for you?

SPEAKER_02 49:30

Yeah, I just gotta start saying yes to things. I always say no and lucky, like he really's been looked after me like a champion, you know. Like having a boss that gives a shit about you. Um but also you you reassess you've got your goals in life, and not everything's about work, you know, you gotta enjoy life and enjoy your family and all the rest of it. But it is still a battle, you know, like I I look healthy and fit and all the rest of it. But you still think in your head like I could have been gone at 41. But yeah, done, game over. So I've still got plenty of fish I've got to tick off the list.

SPEAKER_01 50:04

Yeah. It kind of reinforced for us, like that you know, we it was pretty early on in the journey that that happened, and you guys were pretty early guests, especially you Tim, and it kind of reinforced um we spoke about it before we press record that uh what we're doing here and talking to you guys and hearing your fishing stories, it's it's really important for us to do because had you have gone and had you have not been here with us still, at least we've recorded an hour and hour and a half of you sharing not only your fishing knowledge, but what it's meant to you and some, you know, you bought you brought your boys in for that first one too, and they got to sit there and spoke about Western Angler and you know, you met your wife and all that sort of thing, and through your f fishing with your father-in-law and all that sort of stuff. It was a really special thing to hear how much of a um impact fishing has had on your life. So for us to hear that, it put things into perspective and we're like, all right, we're we're actually doing something good here as minute as it was.

SPEAKER_03 51:00

Yep. I get and I guess uh when we when we started this podcast as well, it was a similar thing. It was like we need to get these stories out before they vanish, and we wouldn't have thought that you would have been as a 41-year-old, you know, we wouldn't have thought that, but it's more for us it was like the the granddad age, you gotta get these old school stories out before they vanish with the next generation. So for us, it was like, well, it gave us even a fresh outlook on what we were doing and how you know important it is to get people's stories out there. So, like I said, we're bloody pumped that you're here. I've managed to fish with you a couple of times since, which has um been wicked for me. I learnt so much that night we had on the on the river, and um, hopefully we can do a couple more, tick off that big 50-pound molloway, mate.

SPEAKER_02 51:42

That'll be the one. It's out there somewhere. Yeah, so I ain't gonna catch it. I've got plenty of years ahead of me, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 51:47

And the whole plan was to, you know, when I took Tim on, like we've been mates for years, and I took him on during COVID. The plan was to to do more fishing, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:57

And that plan has not the gross that you guys are seeing with not only Vex but the Assassin brand and all that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 52:06

But when we fish together, we killed them all right. So we fish the plan is like you know, to do more fishing, and um and I will make that happen, but and to give Tim flexibility, I think it's um, you know, as as a as one of my you know mates and one of my workers, and you know, um here's a stat for you as a 42-year-old man from Perth, he's going to Bali for the first time. Mate, I've got two years to get I've never been to Bali. No way.

SPEAKER_03 52:35

Jesus Christ. Yeah, or Darwin or whatever. But Monday there.

SPEAKER_01 52:42

I'll go ahead and say it. These days you're actually not missing out on much. It's just like going to Canada.

SPEAKER_03 52:47

But anyway, um actually before yeah, carry on. I actually wanted to touch on um some Taylor fishing because you guys that's where I was going. Yeah, good, because it I know you know everyone here has caught Taylor, but you guys have had Rothi, you've been having some good sessions lately as well, and you wanted to touch on you've been getting some questions about it as well.

SPEAKER_01 53:05

So I have, yeah. So with Taylor season coming up, obviously, you can catch Taylor literally every day of the year, uh, depending on how you target them. And um, for a lot of people, Taylor was for me, it was my first 4-A into lure fishing. It was where I was introduced introduced to lure fishing. I've got a really soft spot in my heart for Taylor. I I absolutely love him, and it's something that I'll do until the day I die. Um, but coming into winter is um from my experience when we really start to see um what we call the greenbacks or as Tim just said, the black backs. Um, the bigger fish come in and they're all fattened up, they're they're they're hungry, they're on the reefs and they're within casting distance um with sand between your toes. So it's one of my favorite styles of fishing. And um I have been getting a lot of questions ever since we started the podcast. And I apologize to anyone that does message us either through Tall Tales or Lecker on his account or or myself, even that that asks for information and and tips. I'd love to help you guys out um, you know, one-on-one, but we just get that many bloody messages and questions that we can't possibly um answer them all. So I got one from this this young lad, Charlie Newman, and um I said to him, mate, I cannot spend the time with you that I want to to get you into tailor fishing. Um, but how about you submit a listener question? And he did, but I think as part of the actual podcast, it's better to do a deep dive. So basically, what Charlie said to me, he goes, mate, I've been trying my hardest to find a Metro Taylor on lures. I've been casting um Halco Twisties and Shorcatch nights, casting medals around. He just he goes, I just can't get one on a lure. I can't nail them down. So with the the guys that we got in the room and myself and and you lecker, I thought we could do a bit of a um, you know, deep dive into Taylor to get these guys on the right track to to find a tailor. So um, as we said, the time of year. So we're coming into it now. Um feel free to chime in here, lads, too. So for me, I start fishing for Taylor in February, but it's a different type of fishery. I'm fishing mainly on the beaches around sort of um between Hillary's and Mullah there, Trig, Cotteslow. Um, it's more of like the sandier areas. Um, but coming in to April now, going this will be out in May, the reefs is where I have the most fun. And that's where you start to get those bigger fish. So um winter, mate. Winter's the best for sure. Um, so when it comes to um gear choice lads, like let's you guys are the gear nerds here, what sort of outfit should someone be running for a metro tailor um on Lewis?

SPEAKER_02 55:40

I'll start with what I fish with apparently. So I'm fishing within a minity eight foot six assassin, which is that one over there.

SPEAKER_05 55:47

Yeah, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 55:47

With a TD Black 4000 on it, with 20 pound road. Yep. Real simple, 40 pound leader, nice and light. I can cast 30, 40 gram metal, stick baits, poppers on that, no problems. Um the important thing is the clip as well, because I change laws a lot. So when I start fishing at first light, I'm fishing a surf, I'm fishing a uh a popper or a GT ice green, and then as the sun comes off, I'll I'll switch over to a stick bait as the fish drop deep in the water column. Yep. So that's the gear I'm fishing with.

SPEAKER_01 56:20

Yeah. So I'll try I'll try them in there too. So I use very similar setup rod and reel wise. Um, something that I put a lot of emphasis on with all of my fishing is the quality of the line that you're buying. So these days you can actually get a really good quality line for that's not going to burn a massive hole in your pocket, something like a J Braid Expedition. I actually really rate that for sort of a mid-tier bud, I won't say budget because it is a little bit more expensive than your standard cheaper lines. Um, but A, it's thin and B, it's got what we call a hydrophobic coating. Maybe you as Willie, I know you're the you're the Diver rep, so you could probably chime in a bit here more. But um, what that means is that if you imagine a towel, if it had a hydrophobic coating on it and you threw it in the water, the water would effectively bead off it. Um whereas if it doesn't have that coating, it's going to soak in water. Fishing line is the same. So once it gets wet, it's getting heavier, it's getting wider, um, more friction through the through the air, and it's effectively going to um minimize your casting distance, which can be really important for uh tailor fishing when you're trying to reach those further out holes and and uh gutters or whatever. Um so I put a lot of emphasis on the line, something like a uh J-Brade Expedition, if you want to go a little bit more expensive, something like a Saltiga line. Um Varivas has been a really reliable one for me too, but they are expensive. I'd spend more money on my line before I would my rod personally. Um and the other thing that Tim mentioned just there is having a clip, but also that comes down to being mobile, so being able to change on a dime. So for me, I've got a um for a long time I ran a salty crew waste pack that fit a little uh lure container in it that I've got down here. So this is a double-sided lure container. Um, you open it up, none of my lures are tangled up, they're all got their own individual spot. I can pull that out, I'm not messing around. You know, I can whack that on with a with a clip, a quick access clip. So being mobile and actually being able to move on foot, it's you don't need a heap of gear. You need your rod, your reel, couple of lures, spare leader, scissors, pliers, and uh, you know, some clips, and you're on your way.

SPEAKER_00 58:26

There's a couple of mistakes people make, in my opinion, is don't have a swivel. You you don't need a swivel unless you're using a twisty or something.

SPEAKER_01 58:35

There's a difference between a swivel and a clip.

SPEAKER_00 58:37

Yes, but don't use a swivel on your clip. Use a clip without a swivel. Yeah. Because the swivel is taking action out of your lure.

SPEAKER_01 58:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:45

People just don't realize that. I I know some really good anglers and they use a swivel with a clip on it. And I said, What are you doing? Like you should be better than this. So use a clip without a swivel. Okay, and and you don't need a swivel to attach your braid to the leader. Like a lot of old school guys will do that. If you don't know how to tie an FG or a PR, not that's the most important thing to learn to tie. So you're coming down from your braid um to a leader and don't use a long leader. So people uh again, guys who I respect massively in terms of them as an angler, uh, more than a human being, uh, they they use too much leader. Like I just don't think you need that much because when you're fishing for Taylor, the best conditions are usually uh Southwester. The wind's coming kind of across you.

SPEAKER_03 59:34

So this is what I reckon's important as well, because it sounds like the young fella's actually using some gear that would work, you know, like using Helgo, like Helgo Twisties are known to work. They're you know, there's better lures and stuff out there now. What what are the conditions and what are the some of the maybe location changes that he should start looking at? Because this is an easy one Taylor and time of day.

SPEAKER_00 59:54

So the the best time to catch Taylor on lures is uh before the sun's up in the morning, right? You will catch them all day um certain tides, and I I think the morning bite is much better than the afternoon bite for lure. So you never ever start off with a metal. So while it's still dark, you always start off with a something like this or a or a popper. Always, and that's when you've got the best chance of catching a big fish. Now, once the sun's up, stick baits and poppers um usually uh are a lot harder to catch the fish on. Once that sun comes, you know, through the the June onto the water, um, that's when you change the metals. All right. So if you're if you're starting with a metal first thing in the morning, you have to wind faster. And uh, I don't think the fish chase as well when it's dark. So you want to fish a slightly slower. That's why yeah, stick bait popper while it's still dark, and when the sun comes up, then change to a metal. That's what I always used to do. And the the fish size are generally um uh you'll generally catch bigger fish on the bigger uh hard-bodied poppers and stick baits earlier in the morning, and as the sun goes up, you you start with a an 85 gram um sort of um a large metal and then slowly go down to something to about 20 grams.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:15

U and as a young angler, the question might be fishing around the reef, do you have a preference with high tide, low tide? What should they be looking for there as well? Dawn. Yep, just dawn.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:25

So so if you start off when it's dark and you fish through the sun's up, that is your best time. Yeah. If the tide coincides, great, but uh the perfect tide in the middle of the day on most areas where you catch Taylor is like you're still doesn't matter. Yeah, I still don't think you've got much of a chance.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:42

I've I've definitely noticed a few patterns where so what what I'll start by saying is no two days are the same. I've had days where I thought, yeah, I've got it dialed in, I'm gonna nail them today, and I've gone up to my spot that's super reliable, and I've not caught a thing. So, for example, last weekend I went up um to a to a little zone that I fish with uh my mate Anton Pope works at Complete Angler in Netherlands, and we always do well when we go tailor fishing, but this one spot for some reason it wasn't working. I was there an hour before the sun came up, had a little snooze in the car, got there just as the sun was sort of cracked, like just that break of dawn, you know what I mean? Um and threw Louis around for an hour, threw the kitchen sink out, and that whole tackle box got thrown out there and I could not get a bite. But when I did notice the bite came on was actually when that sun broke the top of the dune, started getting a little bit of sunlight on the water, and it was if the tailor got, okay, the sun's coming up now, last little bit of feed that we're gonna have. And when the sun actually, my sun, my lures were in that area where the sun was hitting the water, that's when I started to get a really hot bite for 15 minutes. So maybe it was that last bit of panic, like just before they go into sort of their resting throughout the day, or whether it was the sun hitting the lure and getting a little bit of flash and sparkle, I'm not sure. But there's always little things that are going to change depending on how the fish um are feeling. And the other thing is with the tides too, it's probably not so much the tide that I'm paying attention to. Obviously, your tides are going to affect how much water you've got on top of a reef platform, um, which you know determines whether or not that particular spot is um going to be fishable or not. You don't want to be snagging up. You need some sort of water on top of that reef to be able to fish it. But that doesn't mean that the body of water next to that reef isn't gonna hold tail. They might be underneath a little shelf, they might be waiting to ambush. So you just got to change your tactics a little bit. But what I would look at more so than um, especially around the reefs, more so than the tides, is the way that the water is moving around that piece of structure. So I've got one spot in particular that I know on both on an incoming tide and an outgoing tide, the water only runs one way because of the the shape of that reef. And I know that the tailor are probably gonna be facing into the current, waiting for the bait to be pushed over the top of that reef, and they'll wait there and and smash the bait as it comes off. So if you can get your lure running with that um current, you're gonna be in with a bloody good chance.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:11

The other thing I would say through my experience, and I don't know what you boys feel about this, but we speak a little bit about reef here as well. But don't underestimate a rip and some milky water and the way the sand's moving, um, particularly in those bigger bays. If you have got a backpack on and you're walking, that they sometimes are just dynamite for Taylor.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:31

We talk about current lines and changes and that sort of thing. You spoke about milky water there, Lek. Something that I've um, sorry, Tim, I I know you were gonna chime in there. Sorry to interrupt you, but what I've found is there is a difference between dirty water and foamy water. For Taylor on lures, I will always cast first into the clear water that has foam rolling over the top of it. So if you can find an uh an area with a bit of swell that a wave is gonna wash over the top of a reef, and then you've got a clean bit of maybe blue water, but occasionally it has that foam rolling over the top. That for me just screams Taylor all the time. So it's not dirty water. The sand, I think, that gets puffed up and that really sandy, rippy section. For me, it's never really produced all that well. But the maybe the outside of that rip on the line where that rip is sort of going from the dirty water to the clean water for me has always done quite well.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:24

Some open beaches, especially a couple hours north of here. What you're saying, like uh, I've caught fish on medals like mid-morning at the back of those rips.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:34

So you cast out the back of them and they're sort of hanging around it. Um, I didn't do a lot of that sort of fishing, but there's some beaches up north. I've definitely done well mid morning on medals, but that foamy water, that's the number one tip.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:47

What about your experience there with sort of I guess the dirty water and the foamy water? There is a difference. Would you would you agree?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:53

Yeah, I think some of these foamy spots, the fish just sit in one spot, they'll sit underneath it. Whereas the the dirty, rippy water then. Moving through it in schools a bit more so they're not hanging in it. So those spots where you fish and I fish, sometimes I'll just sit underneath that foam. What in 30 centimetres or something? Just below the surface, and that's where the stick bait, sinking stick bait, getting down a little bit further.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:14

Yeah. And if you think about the way that that tailor is stationed up and it's looking for its next little bit of prey item, I think this is where these GT ice creams perform in pretty much all conditions. Because you can throw one over a hole, wind it over the reef, and as it comes over the reef into that hole, think about the tailor as looking up. If you're looking up at the sun and you put your hand in front of the sun, you don't notice the colour of your skin. You just see the silhouette. So if you think about it in that way and think of how is that lure going to contrast against the light of the sun or even the moon for that matter, if you're throwing lures at night, that's can kind of influence your lure choice, and that's where action comes into play and that sort of thing as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:57

Yeah, I've got a there's a hole up at Dirk Hartog that I fish a lot. Uh can't wait to get up there in six weeks. But uh there's a few. After Barbie.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:07

He's gonna have his bin 10 fixing he's gonna have his Dirk Hartog fix.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:11

There's a there's a hole that we fish there. It's a weird spot to describe, but it's foamy water, and I only I use big rooster 160s there, like big, big bodied lu and I work them really slowly. Like we'll do a bloop and just let it sit there. Um, because there's so much water rushing in there quickly because it's it faces southwest, so the swell rolls into it a lot of the time. And you sort of need to make a lot of noise, a lot of action quickly, and then let it pause, and then they sort of come up from underneath. But just a different zone the fish.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:42

But there's another layer as well that you haven't really touched on as much, and that's um bait. So you guys are looking, you're you're talking about looking for foam, looking for rips and stuff. Now, with bait, it's not visible, but I know where there's bait from just the experience of fish.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:02

As in where it's holding up.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:04

Yeah, and the first cast determines whether you're gonna catch fish or not. And when your lure hits the water, does the bait spray? Yeah. And it's it's a weird bait because it's not these are like I got some spots where you'd probably never cast. I probably wouldn't cast there, but sometimes you're just walking along and you're casting just to, you know, make time. And I've got some spots um where I've where I know there's bait, and they're a weird, they're not they're a small kind of a little smelt, probably a hardy head of some sort. I'm not a marine biologist, but they're a weird little bait fish. Um, and they're the ones that smell like herring, you know, that herring smell. Yeah, we we used to call them smelt, but they're probably a hardy head of some sort. Um, and when the lure hits there and they spray, and this is where I catch Taylor mid-morning and mid-afternoon, where there's bait. And um, you don't see them chopping the bait, you can't see the bait, but when your lure lands and you know there's bait, spook them. Yeah, and this is not an area you'd normally cast for Taylor.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:01

That's experience of fishing, just yeah, and and that's a good point as well, is if you have if you are walking and you you've got a backpack on, put heaps of casts in and don't walk too quick, you know, because you want to work that whole stretch. You might catch the fish as they're moving from one spot to another, or you might come across a spot that you don't you don't realize why it holds fish, but fuck they hold fish.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:21

So the best thing ever that I did for my fishing with Taylor was I hopped on my bike. But rather than driving, we have with the metro area at least, you can hop on your bike from pretty much Scarborough and ride all the way down to Mindari, pretty much Burns Beach area, and you can pull in everywhere, and you I guarantee you you'll find a spot every hundred metres. So for me, my best mate Jeeven said to me, He goes, Man, I've cast everywhere for this before we cracked it. I've gone everywhere, I've tried my hardest, like can't catch Taylor and Lures. I'm starting to think it's a myth. And I'm like, well, no, I'm gonna put a bit of a deep dive in here, and that's actually how I found so many spots. Like I've got spots every literally every hundred, two hundred, three hundred metres from Scarborough all the way up to two rocks. There, there is sections of our coast that hold Taylor all of the time. And the point that you just made is a great one. Like, I've I've got some of these spots, they might only be as big as this table that you know the tailor's gonna hold. And it might only have one or two fish in there, but I'll put five casts in just to make sure, see if anybody's home. If they're not, I'll keep walking, keep moving. So yeah, don't think that you need this spot that looks great over here and great over there. It's not, it doesn't have to be a 30-meter-long stretch that just looks amazing. It might be one little bombie or one little hole or overhang or ledge that that will hold those fish.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:41

The other thing, lastly, that I'll add to the tailor thing is um I don't have a good lure casting tailor spot that is a good bait fishing tailor spot. They're two distinct, different spots. Spot point, right? Right. So, and yeah, it's really weird because you you even when you're catching them on lures and then the you know the sun comes up or and you switch to bait, I don't have many spots where I can efficiently catch tailor on bait in the same spots as lures. Why is that? Well, they're they're feeding differently, like aren't they they're feeding differently, and and you know, a normal surf beach is the best place to catch Taylor on, let's say, a a mulley and a and a sinker, right? Um, and you're casting into a normal surf beach um and and you're just not catching Taylor. It's a different spot. You've got to look for I like looking for reef more so you guys are more into rips and stuff. I'm I'm like, you know, S-Ben Reef dude. Yeah, I like the reef too. I like that. But like for S-Ben, for example, that my my three or four best Taylor spots for lures, like you can't bait fish there, or if you can, because of the reef, um, it's it's no good. But the other thing about water on and off, like the general consensus is water on the reef is better. We got spots at S-Ben where me and Tim fish, Tim and I, and there's um spots for high tide, water on the reef, and there's spots that you cannot fish or catch fish on on high tide. It's a low tide spot. So it's just it's just down to we fish all day, and that's the most important thing. You know how people say, Oh, you gotta have this moon or this tide or this, you know, time of the day. If you fish all day, you will catch a lot more fish and you'll work the whole thing out a lot better. Yeah, so these people you know stop at you know, once the sun's up and go back and you know have breakfast. Nah, you don't go back and have breakfast. You don't cook sausages when you're fishing, right? Uh you have them made up in the in a in a sandwich or a wrap in your in your eskey, right? You just smash all day over the next and and you'll find places to fish all day um uh efficiently, you'll find areas that will fish better at the end out.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:44

We're here to fish, not fuck around.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:46

Yeah, the other thing is you'll notice you'll notice what everything else is doing too. You'll notice what birds are doing, you'll know you might see bait, you'll like you notice how it all changes and it kind of you begin to paint a picture of why that works.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:00

Well, let's before we well, let's move on from Taylor and we'll get into the should we talk about lures real quick? But I just yeah, we can talk about lures, but I just want to leave this on one tip for a Taylor fisherman. Have you got one thing that you can give?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:14

I've got one. Slow your retrieve down. The common mistake I see a lot of people make is they cast and they just ping that lure straight back or just a constant reel. Twitch, wind, twitch, twitch, wine. You can pause a little bit, do something different.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:29

Willie, I reckon when you gave yours almost just fucking fish all day. Don't be a pussy. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:34

That's exactly what I like.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:35

Tim, you got anything? The right terminal tackle, the right clips. Yeah, easy clips. Yeah, but sweep over lures and twist snaps. We've just created a few new different twists in our range that work perfectly for designed for Taylor so you can switch your lures quickly. So vexed what are they called if you want to check it out?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:53

Oh, this is a a power snap. We got one called a twist snap as well. Now, the reason why we use clips is one is because I change lures a lot. I think it's important too. But more so, um, every time you tie on a lure, you're reducing the length of your leader. So sometime during the day, once you're reduced, you're gonna have to tie an FG or a PR, right? And you know, some people are more efficient than others, but by using a clip, you're not reducing the length of your leader. So you're fishing the perfect length leader. Now don't cast the leader off your reel. Don't ever do that. You don't need that much leader. A tailor's not gonna go for the reef and bury you. So when you're like I was saying before, when you've got too much leader, you're casting across the wind, the wind is putting a bigger bow into your line because the the point uh what five zero liter, so 40 pound to 60 pound liter compared to your uh P2 braid, it's gonna have a massive impact on what your lure's doing. When you've got a belly in your line, the lure is working differently. You don't have contact with your lure. So if you reduce the length of your shock leader, I only fish a shock leader as long as my arm. Yeah, and it's outside the tip of the guide when I'm casting. You don't want a leader going through your guides, and you don't want a leader coming off your reel because when the leader leaves the reel, it changes the speed, and that's what creates a wind knot. When the when the line's changes in speed, the line behind it will catch up and overtake it, and that's what's what creates a wind knot. But there's one thing that no one's touched on, which is the best tip for tailor fishing that no one's even mentioned yet.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:29

What is it?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:30

Do not use a wire trace. Yes. That is that is the number one tip for anyone who isn't an expert that's that's getting into tailor fishing. Do not use a wire trace.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:40

You don't need to.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:41

You don't need to. And you're gonna reduce um using for Mackey though. Yeah, you're gonna reduce um the amount of tailor you catch. Um, not the Taylor don't care sometimes, sometimes they do, uh, but you just do not need a wire trace.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:56

So here's real quick, lads, your top three lures for Taylor.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:01

Mine's a skinny, a GT Ice Cream skinny, that's this one, a shiver stick um is an absolute ripper, and a 65 gram raider.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:14

What's that?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:15

It's just a metal, it's a very simple, it's flat-sided with metals, they need to be flat-sided. Um, yeah, they not round twisties work, they're a fantastic lure. I've always done a lot better with a with a with a raider or the helco slice, which is such an underrated lure. Like, um outcast? No, just the simple Helco slice. Tim will tell you more about it because he used to sell them for years. But in my opinion, the simple silver or chrome helco slice with no twists or anything on it, I've caught so many more fish on them than than twisties personally. And they're not a popular seller for Helco, but mate, if you haven't used the Helco Slice before, get on it. And they used to have little red taggy things like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:59

Oh, I know the ones with the hole in them.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:00

Yeah, but but yeah, nice Tim. So my top three lures, uh no particular order skinny, GT Ice Cream Skinny, Shiverstick, and Rooster 105 from Halco. And I'll add quickly to Willie's metal conversation. So those Halco slices with the red tag on it. You can get it in Streaker as well, which got a hole in the middle. All their medals are that little red tag. Check them out because there's something about that tag that Taylor cannot resist. They've been around for donkeys years.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:30

And it's a good West Australian brand.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:33

Halco's been around longer than us, and that's a West Donkey brand.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:36

So we've got we've all got two lures in common. So mine is definitely GT ice cream, again, no particular order. I love a pink and I actually like the thicker version. So I'll use it.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:47

Tim Tim likes it pink and thick too. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:49

So I I go the pink one if it's really foamy or really dirty, and I'll go the clear one on a clean day. I find that to be really functional. Um, my second one again would be a uh it's between a shiverstick in the 38 grade. Is that 115?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:06

125 is a 38 grade.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:08

125, yep. So shiverstick 125 in the mullet colour, real natural, nice bait fish colour, and then a secret one, and I'm gonna have to get straight off this podcast and go and buy a shitload of them because they're hard to get as it is, but it's the zip bait SSM 120. I think they're a great lure. They don't sink that quick, but they've got a nice little wobble over the top of the surface, so you can pretty much get a surface bite on them, even though they are sinking stick baits. So um, yeah, Charlie, mate. I hope you got a big one. If I met a tip there or Taylor, I'll catch a cunts on anything, mate. Pretty fucking simple. That's the other thing. Catch them on a spoon with a homemade. You're fucking not that bloody lure. But yeah, Charlie, hopefully you get one, mate. If you do get one, please send us a photo. So uh yeah, we can check it out. But good luck.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:50

Bit of a deep dive, but pretty technical there as well, which is cool. I think we are pushing for time here. You boys have got somewhere to be. So we're gonna wrap things up here with the Daiwa listener questions before you go. If you've got another 10 minutes to spare for us, we've got the Daiwa man here.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:06

So, Willie, to your right there, I strategically placed that bag next to you. That is an epic in-feet light tackle pack that Daiwa have provided for us. And I thought you could give us a real quick 20-second rundown of all the you know, the lures that are in there and what they can be used for. So there's a couple of bait junkies thrown in there for good measure, but what are we working with? What are we giving away this week?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:26

Well, they've given you the right staff, mate, because you've got the three-inch prawn, which is a terrific flat-head lure, very, very good for flatties and everything up north as well. Um, Skippy love them too. Uh, you've got some oh, these are waving though. So it's just like a grub with an extended long tail. Uh, really good for brim and flathead and skippy. And I saw down the bottom here. Man, you've got everything in here. You've got slippery dogs for the um widing flats.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:55

Um, perfect colours as well. Uh, and you've got some spikes for brim, really, really nice brim with those little spikes. Yeah, the kidachis as well. Yeah, you've got kidachis. Oh, and you got the metal vibes. Yeah, there's there's a bundle of really good estuarine stuff in here as well. These little vibes, you can catch anything on them, just burly up and you can get skippy on them as well as your brim and buddies and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:15

So, if you're listening and you want to be in the run and win these um Doa tackle packs that we give away every episode for the listener questions, you've got to be following us on Instagram and keep an eye on our stories. We put a little question box when we announce that a guest is going to be on and you guys can fire them a question relative to their fishing experience. So um we got a bunch today. Uh, these questions just keep growing every bloody time. So I'll let you kick it off with one that stood out to you, mate.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:40

Yeah, so I've got one here. Willie, any tips? This is from Chris WA Fishings. Uh, it's his response. Willie, any tips on locating and chasing Perth Metro land-based sambos?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:52

Um it's it they're a tough fish metro because there's real big ones and there's real small ones. So the real small ones are really good on those downstream river structures like around Aquarama Swan Yacht Club. And kicked off there a number of a number of times before. Uh, and they're little ones up to sort of three kilos. Um, and then there's big sambos, and they're they hang around the the traffic bridge generally, they have done for years there, been stitched up uh more than I've caught there, but it's a bit of construction going on there at the moment, so I'm not gonna uh I'm not gonna recommend you go around there, but but that and they're massive sambos, like up to uh 20 odd kilos.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:32

You gotta throw P10 just to have a chance.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:34

Gotta um and Sambos aren't the smartest fish, they're big and powerful, uh, but they're not that smart like like a king. So it's hit and mix. I've hooked them there and they've thrown straight out. Whereas a king wouldn't do that. But if they go the wrong way, then you're done. But the Samsung fish isn't um it's not a viable target off the metro rock walls around Perth. You catch them as a bycatch to Mulloway or or snapper fishing. Uh so from from the metro area, I wouldn't be recommending you um you target Samsung fish because you're probably not going to catch any. Um, so you're better off going out of town a bit and Lanceland jetty, uh Savanni's jetty. No, there's none there. But there's not the same fishing from the room. There's some marinas as well where they come inside the rock walls, is probably not bad. So so actually, yeah, and two rocks, but the problem is access and and the places you want to be, you're not allowed to be and stuff like that. So you can just pop the the two rock marina. Tim's a lot more um experience with that before, but I know Barry Taylor, he's um up in Exmouth now working working for Gatesy, but uh I think he's hooked and landed some real big ones in the two rocks marina.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:46

So pretty much you can make a choice. You can go snap a fishing in the storms on the outside, or you can go popping for sambos on the inside.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:52

The kids have caught some thumping, thumping um sambos in one of the local marinas here as well. Hillary's is always good. We could just see the kids stretching their arms on some of those fish too.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:02

So you're best to drive. Uh buso jetty is good, but it's different sambo fishing, it's not real sambo fishing. Real sambo fishing is off the rocks down south, slide baiting or throwing big sticks is hard, but slide baiting and balloon balloon life baiting under a balloon, that's real sambo fishing. So go down to Chains Beach, Denmark, uh, all these sorts of areas, uh, Walpole. Um, that's proper sambo fishing.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:27

Um, so next one from Nathan M1 on Instagram. What are some of your most important fishing life lessons you've passed on to your kids?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:36

Oh, good question. Um patience, you know, my bo having twin boys and trying to teach them to fish at the same time has been a huge challenge for them. Um bigger challenge for you. Huge challenge, but um getting to slow down a little bit. Like so I take they've learned up chasing Taylor and Lewis, so whining quickly. But then I've been doing flathead fishing the last two or three years with them and slowing down that plastic or that that buck of ujig or whatever we're fishing with. Learn to slow down the retrieve, that's been a challenge for them. That's a big one. Um tying knots. But these days they just jump on YouTube and watch and they're tying better knots than me almost. So um, but patience is the big one.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:21

Stocks down. Preparation for me. It's uh preparation's the most um important thing of fishing. So um um it's it's good to know and it's good to ask questions, like I touched on my other podcast. Ask questions, look, look at who's doing what you want to do, and ask questions and figure out why, and put everything you've learned off that guy to the next one that you ask who does it totally different. But preparation's more important than any of that. So having um your tackle, like like you just showed me then, that's preparation. Having the right backpack, having the right footwear, having the right tackle for where you're gonna go. So you're you're you're efficient. You're efficient and you're fishing the maximum amount amount of time and casts in the space that you've got to fish, in the in the time space you've got to to fish. Having your rigs pre-tied, really important. Having the right clips in, so in that in that box there, you need to have the right clips in there, so you're not getting out a different tackle box if you get busted off to put a clip on. Tiny little things like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:23

I'll just chime in there as well because I took my kids fishing recently and it's mate, teaches them problem solving and independence as well. I had a couple of times where we were just fishing for redfin in a lake, but it was like my boys would get a knot or they'd you know, something would happen, they'd catch a fish, and I'd be like, We didn't come here to whinge. It's like you can you can figure that out. I'm gonna give you some time to figure it out. And the difference between the start of a session and the end of a session, it's fucking night and day. It's it's literally one of the best things you can do for you with your kids.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:55

Yeah, just on on preparation, you know how many times I've rocked up with my mate, whoever I've gone fishing with, whether it's on his boat or uh or land base, you know how many times I've caught a fish while he's still pulling the line out of his guides.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:10

It seems to be the case where you're on Luke's boat or that's the first one to hook up.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:14

Because he's you know, um recovering the the next morning. He's usually been out in the town smacking it right. I mean, I've been up all night um tying FG knots onto spare spools. So if I get busted off, I can pop pop it on, getting all my lures ready, and that happens a lot. So yeah, so a lot of the fish you catch are caught from the preparation done the night before you go fishing.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:34

Yep, great tip. You got another one? I got one WA Flatty Adventures. Uh, what structure do you look for when chasing big brim? And what's your favorite lure choice for brim?

SPEAKER_00 1:26:45

Uh, for me, um, it's there's no particular structure, it's a lot of structure. So, I mean, um, if you're in a boat, you're fishing uh as much structure as you can possibly cast to. So you're looking for everything rocks, jetties, boats, um, um, weed on flats. But I'm not a brim boat fisherman. I'm a shore-based fisherman, and most of my best work has been done on flats, fishing flats, and that's covering area, simple as that. So, my some of the biggest and best brim I've ever caught um is been up to my nuts in water, casting at nothing.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:21

So that's and favorite lure?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:23

Uh for me, my favorite lure is a sazanami, a Dio Sazanami, um, in the AU colour, because I called the 49th centimetre brim down south on that lure.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:34

So yeah, that was in one of those those random pools.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:38

No, no, no, no. That was in an estuary system around rocks. Um it was on one on Luke's tackle west. So I hooked this massive brim and we saw it come out and it's around these big stacks of like um oyster encrusted bommies. And I hooked it and I thought, There's no way I can get that brim to the boat. So I'm I'm nervous and I'm fighting it and and I said to Luke, I said, Oh my god, that's a 50. And I said, Help. And he goes, What do you want me to do? And I said, just jump in. That's what I said to him. I I wanted him to jump in and just go and get it for me. And then yeah, so that was the that was the best brim I've I've ever caught on a lure. I've caught bigger ones over 50 on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:16

Shallow running double clutch, pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:18

Yeah, so a Sazanami is a a a Dawah. Um uh yeah, exactly right. It's a shallow running double clutch, but great fatty lure. But but there is no one good lure for brim because there's so many situations and so many structures and depths that you need to fish. So the best brim lure is to have 150 of the bastards, and you need three of each of your of your favourites, because if you lose one and you you land one to your mate, then you don't have one.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:45

I've got one here. Uh um there was one for annual movement and Mulloway and the swan, but we've talked enough about Mulloway, we'll save that for another time. Um Luca B4. What is the biggest fish on the smallest lure you have caught? Biggest fish on the smallest lure you have caught. Gee, I've I've Elephants eat peanuts, so this is a great one.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:07

I mean, the the one that comes to mind wasn't a particular small lure, I guess. So I was using a Barra Classic uh 125. I was up the back of the rail or the Mingel River in the on the Admiralty Gulf with Blue Yvonne, and I hooked something next to a rock cast retrieving with a little bait caster and a I had a like a very light bass rod with a barra reel with 30 pounds on it. I hooked up and um you know 20 minutes later I landed a hundred pound um Queensland groper that just wolfed this lure right down. So so it was a large lure, but but it was a a big fish.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:44

You probably shouldn't have landed, yeah. Tim. Uh mine's not that exciting, but uh 13 kilo Spanish mackerel on a 20 gram black twisty.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:52

Oh, really? That's pretty sick.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:54

Fishing with Steve Riley up at Exmouth. We went out to Peak Island just casting in the bait school spare back, no wire. But the Mackeys up there just they just snip the small tiny lures. So that was it.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:05

Nice. Alright, I got one here, Riley Kennett. What's your favourite dial reel of all time?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:10

Alright, question. Can I have a guess? I reckon it's either gonna be the millionaire or the Catalina.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:20

Geez, they're they're two it's actually a really hard question. But my favorite ever Saltiga reel, it's not a current model, but was uh uh one the first model, the Saltiga Z 4500. Because uh I could only afford to buy one. I was working at Blue Water at the time, I got a good deal on it, but I could only afford one Saltiga. I couldn't get the big boy because I wanted the 45 for spinning off the rocks at Steep Point and Quadra and places like that. Were they red? Uh no, that was the so the red Saltiga came out um as a Z on the back of uh the original Z, and they were called S Extreme and Maverick. So S Extreme was your standard gear ratio Salt Tiger, and they were light red. Yeah, and then the Maverick was a dark red, and that was your high speed one, and that was an Australian-only um project, and it actually kind of flopped to be honest.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:13

I know someone with a Maverick Bung and bought a Maverick, I bought a dog fight with the bigger ones, and I lost one of those S Extremes out of a rod holder on my fucking polycraft. It was in the rod holder in the front, and I was driving around onto a lump and I just saw the rod and reel just like slowly it was for heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:28

Well, the reason it kind of flopped is because when people are buying a Saltega, they wanted it as Japanese as possible. But because we advertised this is um this in 200, I don't know, five, six or seven, um around there, I think it was. We advertised the fact that these were an Australian design model. So it was just different colours for the Australian market, right? And and a whole fleet of sizes. We actually sold the silver original ones better, but afterwards, when they were discontinued, then everyone wanted them. And I remember Carartha Adventure Sports, Adam, he bought a whole shitload off me up there once. And then I went in the next trip and I said, Where's all your Solteag SX Rings and Mavericks? You must have sold them all. He goes, Oh, yeah, well, give me another five or ten of each. So he used to order like that, he didn't have a computer system. And someone had put them in a box and hidden them somewhere, and they got lost. And then all of a sudden, I went back the next time and goes, You bastard, you stitched me up, right? Adam up at um Carrathos. Um he's not in there anymore. He's his daughter Tasha's in charge and thought, oh shit, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna have to take these back, and Bob's gonna kick my ass at Dio. But then um, he kept them for like 10 years, and then everyone was looking for them, and they were ringing them up and they were getting like $1,500 for a reel. They became so sought after.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:53

I've got a few messages. If you're ever gonna get rid of that dog fight, we'll take it off you as well. Like they're yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:58

So dog fight was a Japanese one, and so was Expedition, but the but the uh Australian one was the red, the S Extreme standard speed and the Maverick high speed. The Maverick were black and red, weren't they? Um so the maverick was deep, deep, nearly black. Yeah, um, deep cherry um red, and then the um that was the high speed one, and then the S Extreme was a lighter red. Um they actually look fantastic, but red reels to buy a reel at that price is like no one wanted that. It's like a Ranger. So I walk around with red hair. No one wants you until Ed Sharon and Prince Harry uh make stock makes your sword after your stock price goes up and then you're then you're unavailable.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:36

Yeah. What about you, Tim? I'll be quick. Um I had a Salt Tigger 4500 original that my good mate Daniel Bell sold me for like a hundred bucks two years ago. I've caught so many good fish on that, but that's my second favourite. My first favourite is my current Saltus 10 10,000. Because that is the most versatile reel I've owned. It's smooth. I can surf fish with it. I can go to Dirk and spin lures with it, and I can fish for boldies and spanglies at close quarters off the rocks with it. I can go out trolling for max. I can submersile bottom meat fish with it when we can. So it is a super versatile reel. So if you're looking for a a reel you can do everything in an 8,000 or a 10,000 Saltist, that's what I would recommend.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:22

I reckon that sort of wraps us up, man, for listener questions. Yeah, a few good ones there. So we usually throw it to the guest lads to pick their favourite questions. So you had um from my side, what are some of your most important fishing life lessons you've passed on to your kids from Nathan M. You had Riley Kennett, what is your favourite dial reel that we just answered? And then uh Luca B for what is the biggest fish on the smallest Louis you've caught?

SPEAKER_03 1:34:48

And then you had Yeah, we had the Sambos, the question about locating metro sambos and the brim brim structure. What do you reckon, boys?

SPEAKER_01 1:34:56

I like the answer that we got. We got a bit of a history lesson out of that dial reel, but it's not up to me. The dial question I liked.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:06

He's the one that makes all the decisions in my business.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:08

I like I like the dial question.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:11

What is your favourite dial reel of all time, Riley Kenneth? Mate, you're not getting a dial reel, but actually, maybe we can hook him up with a reel. No, he's getting a fair price.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:22

Settle down. So man, I'm feeling generous today.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:25

But hey, you're not getting a reel, you are getting a mental Dio, light tackle pack. It's probably about 500 bucks worth of lures in there, mate. So at least there's a bunch of lures. Um, your flatty fishing, even um, you know, your soapy Mulloway or take that sort of stuff. Whiting, mate, you're getting hooked up proper. So thanks to the guys at Dio um for hooking us up with them and hooking up the listeners. We'll get that out in the mail to you, mate.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:47

Well done. Sweet as boys. I think that just about wraps us up. We'd love to sit down. Like we this we plan this on being a little bit of a shorter episode, but we've still punched out an hour and a half pretty easy. So um no quick fire. No quick fire today. You boys have already been in. So yeah, thanks for coming in. I'm pretty keen on getting you guys to knock those lures into the wall, and we'll have to tee up a fish. Part of your thing is go and fishing more often. We're gonna tag along if we can because you guys know exactly what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:12

Make us do it. That's that's the key. Make us. We'll make you do it. I dare you. You won't.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:18

Uh oh, oh, real quick too. I've got someone to plug as well. So I'm doing a t um tinny fit out.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:23

Oh, actually, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:24

Let's so yeah, doing a tinny fit out. I've decided with the boat. I was gonna get a new boat, but I've decided with the um sort of raising fuel price and that. That tinny is just too bloody good to get rid of. So I want to give a quick shout-out to the guys at uh DC Detco. They have offered to fit my tinny out with all new EVA flooring, which is bloody epic. Um I needed to get rid of the carpet on there, man. It was it'll change your life, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:49

Yeah, I have DC Detco on my dad's boat. Um, we fit it out a few years ago, and that stuff's awesome. So you're gonna absolutely love it. I'm looking forward to seeing the tinny um come together as well. So that's something we'll keep you up to date with on our socials. And um, when we're out fishing as well, you're gonna see the results so before and after on Rothy's boat. Um, and I'm looking forward to seeing the design you get put on there as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:11

Yeah, yeah. So I've got tall tails logos and all the rest in it, but I've got to put the flooring in it first. So we'll keep you updated on the tinny and post a little bit on socials we want to.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:19

Put a uh fish ruler, probably up to about 35 centimetres, I reckon for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:23

It'll be enough. So that'll be excess. Nice. All right, guys. Well, thanks for tuning in. Thanks for coming in, boys. Uh we'll see you on the next one.