Club members will be very aware of JM’s fascination with new kit. Here is his review on Fliprocks sandals – the latest in his efforts to find the perfect footwear for use with his boat and kayak.

Jason reports on his experience with a lightweight raft. Apologies, I should have uploaded before Feb Newsletter

Tristan is one of our newest members joining up after the 2020 Fly Casting classes.  He looks to be dead keen and had success on the fly already in the company of BJ – week before Lyle Knowles.  Very good looking fish, especially for the Cotter so well done mate.  Particularly memorable for Tristan since it was on a glass fly rod that he had made himself.  All written up here … quite inspiring for uninitiated.

In the Sep 2020 Burley Line Jason provided some notes describing his efforts of renovating an old baitcaster reel and the full description was added to the gear blog … I thought the article seemed to end abruptly in a cliff-hanger.  Little was I to know that a second part was in the mill.

Jason M recently acquired some second hand Abu Garcia level wind baitcaster reels. In Tackling the Trouble he describes some of the maintenance work he did to bring them back to good form. I’ve later discovered this work is actually in two parts. The concluding episode is here.

Jason gets bored when bait fishing, so he took some time out to evaluate some of his rods

NSW is still lagging behind with banning these traps and implementing their exchange project. ACT is enacting the change. CAA Sec emailed this today:

The ACT Government is introducing a new Fisheries (Fishing Gear) instrument which prohibits the use and possession of opera-house nets in all ACT waters (including private waters). This instrument also allows the use of open-top pyramid nets in waters where hoop-nets are allowed – please see the following link to view the instrument https://www.legislation.act.gov.au/di/2020-113/ . This has now been notified and the changes to these fishing gear rules now apply in the ACT.

Minister Gentleman has announced an opera-house net swap program https://www.cmtedd.act.gov.au/open_government/inform/act_government_media_releases/gentleman/2020/swap-your-old-yabby-trap-for-a-free-wild-life-friendly-net ,this will allow Canberran’s to swap opera-house nets for an open-top pyramid net free of charge at participating retailers. We hope this will see less opera-house nets in the community and result in less deaths of non-target native animals captured in these nets. Flyer:

Mark has been raving to me for ages about how screws for ice-racing motorcycles can be used for studs in wading boots. Shaun has taken the plunge and bought some, his review is here – many thanks mate.

Especially if you go to another supplier, Mark tells me that the coarse or self tapping thread is the one you want. The fine thread has to be screwed into a nut or threaded hole.

“These are the ones I use (image from here). A couple of tips:

• Shoe must have a VERY hard sole. Soft sole and they will fall out after a while.

• When screwing them in put some glue (aqua seal or shoe goo) on the thread.

“

Shaun has provided a quick review of his success replacing his normal tie laces with those curly ‘lock’ laces. Just like reverting back to kindergarten days but they work.

lock_laces