In the opinion of many anglers (myself included), “sight-fishing” is the most exciting form of fishing ever devised. Seeing your prey before you make a cast and then watching its reactions to your bait, lure or fly lifts fishing to another level altogether, and really ratchets up the “hunting” aspects of our wonderful pastime… It’s also highly addictive! Whether you prefer to use natural baits, lures or artificial flies, I believe that there’s simply no bigger thrill in the whole wide world of fishing than sneakily stalking your visible prey, carefully placing your offering in front of it and watching what happens next. I defy anyone not to hold their breath and tense every muscle in their body with delicious anticipation as that target fish closes in on the trap you’ve just set. It matters little whether it’s a beautiful, wild brown trout tailing in the margin of a shallow lake, a fat, blue-nosed bream mooching under an estuary snag, a lumpy golden trevally hunting across a tropical sand flat… or even a stinky old carp mooching through the shallow margins of an outback dam! Time seems to slow and stretch as the seconds tick agonisingly by. Will the fish eat, or will it spook away in alarm at the last moment? For better or worse, once you’ve tasted the sheer delights of sight fishing, “blind casting”, “prospecting” or “flogging the water” will always be a distant second best. THREE KEYS TO SUCCESS NOTE: To read the rest of this blog, you must be a member of “Starlo’s Inner Circle” of Fishotopia.com. To discover all the benefits of belonging and find out how to sign up, simply click...

In this fourth part of my ongoing blog series about our new Beastmaster Boats Snubby 500 rig, I reveal the “vital statistics” of the boat and share a few recent images of it in action. If you’d like to read Part 1, click here. For Part 2, click here. And for Part 3, click here. Also, don’t forget that you can watch a short video of the boat’s maiden voyage right here. Okay, down to business!   VITAL STATISTICS: BEASTMASTER SNUBBY 500* LENGTH: 5.0 metres (16′ 6″) BEAM: 1.98 metres (6′ 6″) HULL DEPTH: 0.76 metres (2′ 6″) HULL SIDES: 0.57 metres (1′ 11″) DRAFT: 0.26 metres (10″) DRY HULL WEIGHT: approx. 375 kilos (827 lb) * Explanatory Notes: Measurements quoted are generally to within a few millimetres and all conversions to imperial have been rounded up or down to nearest inch or pound. Hull Depth refers to the maximum depth from gunwale tops/coamings to the deepest part of hull. Hull Sides are flat sides from coamings to chines. Draft (vertical distance between the waterline and deepest part of keel) is an approximate figure (+/- 10%) for the unladen hull and will depend on weight added, load distribution, salinity of water, etc. For this reason, the draft shown should be regarded as a minimum under ideal conditions. Dry Hull Weight is an approximate figure (+/- 10%) and obviously does not include motor, batteries, fuel, electronics, safety gear and other equipment. Next time we’ll have a look at the Yamaha F70A four-stroke outboard fitted to the Snubby, along with the MotorGuide Xi5 bow-mounted electric trolling motor, Lowrance electronics and various other fittings. Until then, tight lines… and meanwhile, here are a few more images of the rig in action:   For more, follow me on...

My good mate Paul Kneller first began making lures professionally a quarter of a century ago, in the early 1990s, under the banner of Deception Lures. He quickly carved a loyal market niche for these beautiful, hand-crafted timber hard bodies. Deception Shrimps, in particular, became the “go-to” lure at places like Lake Windamere, in central western NSW, while his Nippers, Cherax, Yabbies, Palaemons and other models also developed a strong following amongst both fresh and saltwater anglers. The Deception brand was eventually sold to the Brisbane-based Tacspo company around 2004, when Paul and his wife Cheryl opened a tackle shop in Maclean, in far northern NSW. Following this change-over, Paul’s original Deceptions quickly became collector’s items, attracting high prices on the boutique secondhand market. I’m pleased to announce that after a long lay off from making and designing lures, Paul is back with renewed vigour and passion, keen to take his lures to the next level in terms of detail, action and quality. The models shown here are just an entree, with many more lures to be added to the line-up over the coming months and years. Best of all, every Kneller lure is crafted from wood, and Paul insists that this will never change! Here’s a very quick rundown of some of the gems in Kneller’s new range. You can find out more by visiting his page on Facebook here, going directly to his on-line shop here, or emailing Paul at: shake.bake@bigpond.com CHERNOBYL SHAD 55FD The Chernobyl Shad 55FD is a 55mm fat-bodied lure that could be best described as an all-rounder; suited to bass, bigger bream, flathead, estuary perch, trout, sooties and so on. The Chernobyl Shad will dive to around 3 metres on the troll or off a long cast, with...

In this third part of my ongoing blog series about our new Beastmaster Boats Snubby 500 rig, I take a look at some of the accessories we’ve added to the boat. If you’d like to read Part 1, click here, and for Part 2, click here. Batteries are something many people don’t think much about when it comes to setting up a new boat. However, they are vitally important components in a well-equipped rig. My fellow Offroad Adventure Show presenter, Jamie Hazelden from Jamie’s Touring Solutions (JTS) had been waxing lyrical about the new Lead Crystal Batteries, and after checking them out on-line, I could understand why he was so excited! Anyway, to cut a long story short, we ended up fitting two: a dirty big 120 amp hour unit up front to power the MotorGuide Xi5 bow-mounted electric and a smaller 80Ah battery down in the stern for cranking the Yammy and running the sounders, etc. It’s early days yet, to be sure, but so far I’m blown away by the performance of both batteries. The major claims to fame of these state-of-the-art batteries are an extremely long shelf life with a very low discharge rate when stored (you can store them for two years without any top up charging!). They also have the ability to cope with high discharge rates, a very fast re-charging time, and deep discharge capabilities. As a bonus, they’re made to deal with extremely harsh conditions in terms of temperature range, vibration and so on… All-in-all, exactly what the doctor ordered for tough marine use! (Go to the very bottom of this page for a listing of the major advantages of Lead Crystal batteries.) I’ll be sure to keep you up to speed with our observations about these...

In this second installment of the Snubby Boat Files, we finally get our new Beastmaster Snubby 500 boat wet. You can watch our short video of the event here, or by simply clicking the play button below: Even a grey, overcast and cool day couldn’t dampen our enthusiasm for giving “Mad Keen” (yes, she’s been officially named!) her first on-water run. Launching was a breeze and everything worked exactly as it should. We puttered slowly up through the 8-knot zone, then gradually increased the power… With the brand-spanking new F70A Yamaha still very much in run-in mode, we needed to frequently vary the revs and only touch full noise very briefly, but we were extremely impressed by the rig’s initial performance. It seems the motor height and prop choice (a Yamaha SS [stainless steel] Talon SDS 14K 13 1/8) were spot on… which is always a huge relief! (Find out more about those amazing Talon SDS props here.) Please note that the preliminary performance figures shown below are with a motor that’s still very new and therefore a tad tight. Also, there was very little additional gear in the boat, apart from basic safety equipment, 10 litres of fuel and two people. Here are the initial speeds we observed (via the GPS) at various revs: INITIAL PERFORMANCE FIGURES 3500 RPM = 15 knots (28 km/h) 4000 RPM = 20 knots (37 km/h) 5000 RPM = 25 knots (46 km/h) 6000RPM = 29 knots (54 km/h) 6100 RPM = 30 knots (55.5 km/h)* * Wide open throttle I’m particularly impressed by being able to sit on 20 knots or a whisker over (around 40 km/h) at 4000 to 4200 RPM, as this is an extremely economical mode of operation. I’d expect to be covering close...

In this first installment of my ongoing blog series about our Beastmaster Snubby 500, I look at the decision-making process that went into our selection of this bespoke, custom-built boat: Choosing a boat is always a massive decision. Like most keen anglers who’ve been pursuing their passion for a considerable period of time, I’ve owned a bunch of different vessels. I kicked off with a second-hand fibreglass canoe in my teens, went on to a car-topper aluminium punt, then a Webster Twinfisher alloy cat. That brings us through to an era when I first met shipwright and boat builder, Tyson Dethridge, and fell head over heels for his customised Full Boar fibreglass sportfishers, running first a 5 metre version, then a 5.5. Next, I spent a year or two in a fully imported Scout flats boat from the U.S. That was followed by a neat little 4.1 metre tiller-steer Cross Country (again built by Tyson) before I graduated into one of his larger, centre-console 4.75 metre Cross Country rigs. That 4.75 Cross Country (called “Evil Minnow” after one of the deadliest Squidgies soft plastic colours) was part of our family for well over six years, and we absolutely loved it. I’d have to say it was my favourite boat up until that point. With its light-but-strong foam-core sandwich fibreglass construction and powered by a class-leading F70A Yamaha 4-stroke motor, this was quite a radical craft, especially in Darwin, where we lived at the time. I reckon it opened a few alloy-blinkered Top End eyes to the validity and surprising durability of good glass. Our 4.75 Cross Country was the prototype of that hull and it had a few “rough edges” internally, but it served us exceptionally well. We dragged it over some bloody awful...

For at least a decade now, kayak fishing has been one of the fastest growing sectors of the angling scene here in Australia, as well as in many other parts of the world. Interestingly, this phenomenon shows little sign of slowing. Sales of kayaks and related paraphernalia continue to boom, marking this as one of the strongest niches in the marine and boating industry. I must admit that I’ve been a little slow to embrace the whole kayak “thing”. I spent lots of time sitting (usually with a wet bum) in various Canadian-style canoes throughout my early fishing career, and I was delighted when I could finally afford to graduate to a “real” boat. Don’t get me wrong: canoes have their place, and I’ve enjoyed some wonderful times in them. However, once you’ve fished from a craft that’s sufficiently large and stable to stand up in, especially one with a raised casting deck, it’s very hard to willingly go back to the low, cramped, unstable and often wet confines of a canoe. There were also other factors holding me back from kayak fishing. One was a perception that many ’yak fishers, as well as those who catered to their equipment needs, seemed to be missing the whole point of simple, minimalist boating. Some of the ’yak rigs I saw on the water and in magazines or videos had more “fruit” hanging off them in the way of electronics and accessories than my 4.8 metre trailer boat! Some actually required dedicated trailers of their own just to get them to the water’s edge, and half an hour or more of fiddling, tweaking and setting up before they were good to go. Wasn’t portability and ease of use supposed to be the whole point of ’yakking?...

I’m really proud to have had my work published in a fantastic on-line “e-zine” called “The New Fly Fisher”. While it’s based in Canada and devoted in large part to North Americanj fly fishing species and locations, “The New Fly Fisher” also carries international features (such as mine on catrching barra and saratoga), along with lots of great gear, technique and fly tying information. It’s loaded with video clips, too! But, best of all, subscription to this wonderful quarterly mag’ is completely and utterly FREE! All you have to do is register here (by clicking on the ‘subscribe now’ tab at top of their home page). Once you’ve registered, you’ll receive an e-mail notification and link each time a new issue comes out. If you’re into fly fishing, fresh or salt, I guarantee you’ll get a lot from following this electronic publication. But even if you’re not a fly fisho, I reckon you’ll really enjoy the photos and videos! Check it out… I guarantee you won’t be disappointed! Anyway, I’ll leave you with a few random spreads from my first feature for “The New Fly Fisher”…...

It’s not every day that you get to launch a comprehensive range of hard-bodied lures and semi-soft topwaters onto the Australian market, knowing that each lure will retail for $10 or less, yet still be an excellent fish catcher, with a classy finish and better-than-average hardware. However, that’s what I’m happy to say I’ve been able to do with my new STARLO PRO Lures range, designed and selected by me exclusively for the BCF chain of stores here in Australia. Now, I realise from past comments here and elsewhere that not every Aussie angler is necessarily a huge fan of BCF. There’s no doubt that the big chains (including BCF) have led to the demise of some small independent tackle stores, just as the competition from Coles and Woolworths has resulted in a reduction in numbers of local grocery outlets, butcher shops and so on. Nonetheless, for better or worse, I suspect there’s a certain inevitability to this sort of evolution in the world of retail. It’s also true that the better independents (in all fields, including fishing tackle) will not only survive but thrive in the face of such competition. They achieve this by providing the sort of expert advice, individualised customer service and “value adding” that most chains simply can’t or won’t offer. Meanwhile, BCF and their ilk do provide an excellent service to a great many customers, employ a heap of Aussie workers in the process, and don’t, in my experience, indulge in the sort of “crazy, crazy, crazy!” unsustainable discounting that could damage the industry. So, I’m more than happy to be involved with sourcing and designing exclusive lines of tackle for them, just as I have on occasion for other companies.         Anyway, if you’d like...

In the first part of this blog series on spooling up your reel, I looked at attaching the end of your line to the spool of your reel before beginning to crank all that line on… Now it’s time to work up a sweat as we finish the job! Hopefully, you’ll remember that in that first part I instructed you to fit the reel to a rod, run the end of the new line down through at least one runner, wrap it several times around the spool core, then secure it firmly in place with a five or six turn Uni Knot. I also stressed that if you’re filling a spinning (threadline) reel, you’ll need to open the bail arm first, before attaching the line, while if it was a baitcaster, the line would need to pass through the level wind carrier first. After tying that important Uni Knot, tightening it firmly and trimming the knot to leave a one or two centimetre tag, you can actually begin spooling up… This is the physically active part of the process! (Note that if you’re spooling with braided or fused gel-spun polyethylene line, lots of people suggest laying down a base of 15 or 20 metres of mono first and tying your braid to this. To be honest, I don’t usually do this, but it’s not a bad idea.) TO READ THIS REST OF THIS BLOG SERIES, GO TO “STARLO’S INNER CIRCLE”, BY CLICKING...

Saturday, 21st July, 2012 saw the staging of the second annual Barra, Bass and Bream Digest Harbourmasters’ Invitational on the waters of Darwin Harbour. In stark contrast to last year’s event, a cool, windy dawn greeted the 41 keen competitors who made up 21 teams taking part in this year’s BBBDHI, and the stiff sou’ easter continued to build throughout the morning, peaking at close to 30 knots before subsiding a little in the early afternoon. The aim of this unique one-day tournament is straightforward enough: go out and catch as many barra and bream as you possibly can on cast-and-retrieved lures or flies (trolling, bait fishing and berleying are not allowed). However, where it gets really interesting — and very different to any other Top End fishing competition — is in the final scoring process. Only the combined lengths of the longest barra and the longest bream taken by each team actually count towards their final points’ tally. And, critically, one species doesn’t rate without the other. In other words, you could theoretically land a metre-long barramundi (a monster by Darwin Harbour standards), yet still score zero points, simply because you’d failed to catch and record a bream! Unique concept My wife (and fellow writer/presenter) Jo and I devised this unusual event in an effort to effectively force Top End anglers into thinking a little more seriously about the vast schools of bream that frequent our waters, especially during the cooler months of the Dry Season. In the past, most Top End fishos have been quite dismissive about bream and bream fishing. Yet, with my southern background and years of competing on the bream tournament circuit, I know just how challenging these little buggers can be to catch! I wanted a way of sharing that challenge...

In my last two blogs in this series I’ve been exploring the exciting subject of customizing your soft plastic lures to alter their actions, colours and sink rates in order to better suit specific applications, fishing scenarios and target species. As I explained in both of those blogs, this entire subject area of customizing plastics is a branch of tackle tinkering that far too few Aussie anglers appear willing to experiment with. Many seem to believe that these lures must be used in exactly the form supplied for sale by the manufacturer. But as we’ve been discovering, that’s not the case at all! In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Unlike most hard-bodied offerings, softies lend themselves extremely well to individual input and fine tuning from the angler, allowing you to clearly stamp your own personal identity and fishing preferences on the lures you use. In the first blog on Customising Soft Plastics, I focused on tweaking colours and patterns using various dyes and marker pens to achieve specific results, whether attempting to “match the hatch”, suit the environment, stand out from the pack or simply emulate a successful hard-bodied lure finish. Last time around, in Part 2, we pulled out the scissors, razor blades and hobby knives and started playing with the actual shape, bulk and profile of these versatile lures to adjust their actions, overall sizes and sink rates. This time, I want to look at the intriguing subject of lure hardness and its impact on action, “mouth feel” and durability. So, let’s kick off by tackling the subject of relative hardness in soft lure materials: TO READ THE REST OF THIS BLOG & OTHERS IN THE SERIES, CLICK...

It’s time to continues our look at customising your soft plastic lures with an examination of easy ways in which the size, profile, sink rates and actions of these great lures can be tweaked and manipulated via some simple cutting and shaping: In my last blog about customising soft plastics I explained that this is an avenue of tackle tinkering that too few anglers seem willing to explore. Many seem to assume that these lures must be used in exactly the form they were originally purchased in. Trust me, that’s certainly not the case! I theorized that this hands-off approach to tweaking plastics is most likely a hangover from our hard-bodied luring days. Beyond possibly upgrading some hooks and rings, very few anglers significantly modify their hard lures. But soft plastics are much easier to customise than hard lures, and doing so can produce some surprising results. The big secret is not to be afraid to give it a go! Last time round I focused on “blinging” your plastics by using various dyes and marker pens to alter or enhance their colours and patterns. This time I want to take customising one step further and actually get into playing with the shapes, sizes, profiles, sink rates and actions of our soft plastics. To do this, all you really need is a sense of adventure and a pair of sharp scissors. Making that first step of actually taking the scissors or craft blade to your plastic tails is perhaps the biggest leap of faith required to get into customizing soft plastics. After that, it gets much easier. TO READ THIS BLOG IN FULL & ACCESS OTHERS IN THE SERIES, GO TO “STARLO’S INNER CIRCLE” BY CLICKING...

Rigging your Squidgies and other soft plastic lures “weedless” or “snag-proof” is much easier than many people seem to think! And once they’re rigged this way, it’s possible to cast these lures into places you could never otherwise reach or cover effectively without constantly snagging up your line and losing expensive tackle. Trust me, you’ll catch a lot more fish as a result of adding this little trick to your rigging repertoire. These days, at least 75 – 80% of the plastics I cast for barramundi and saratoga in northern Australian waters are rigged weedless/snag-proof. But these innovative rigging strategies go far beyond those species. The same approach works like a charm on any fish that favours hanging out in or around dense snag, rock or weed cover. Bream, bass, estuary perch, flathead, mangrove jack, fingermark, Murray cod, golden perch (yellowbelly) and even trout can all be targeted very effectively by “Texas-rigging” your softies on wide-gape worm hooks. The most important part of this rigging  system is a wide-gaped worm hook, or a jig head or other delivery vehicle that incorporates a wide gape worm hook. These hooks may look a bit odd at first glance, but they work really well. Lots of companies now make this style of hook. Some good ones include Mustad, Owner, Gamakatsu, and VMC. One really interesting new addition to the wide gape worm hook field is the KVD Grip-Pin hook from Mustad. This clever hook incorporates a little pin that helps keep the head of the rigged plastic in place, preventing it from being too easily ripped free or scrunched down into the hook bend by a striking fish. Another very innovative presentation vehicle for this style of rigging is the TT Lures Snake Head. The best way to...