A long awaited & welcome return to YouFish TV Series 5 will air very soon.

YouFishTV Series 5

Returns December 16th in Sydney on TVS and C31 Melbourne on the 17th Dec 2011.

Strange dates i know but hey we're busy :-)

Broadcast times to follow. But most likely the usual time slots.

Every now & again someone appears on the Melbourne Fishing Scene & instantly creates an aura of better things to come. Mark Sullivan is just such a person. Affectionately known as 'Sully' to close friends, he has been quietly chipping away at the methods to ensure repeated angling success on one of Victoria's best known & sometimes very unforgiving fisheries that is known as Western Port.

I first met Mark at the Stony Point boat ramp one evening last season & was impressed by his passion & above all total respect for the larger fish that include Western Port as part of their life long travels. His commitment to being prepared to put in the hard yards & learn the inner workings of Western Port was very apparent by the way he spoke.

One thing that did stand out also, was his total obsession with BIG Fish. Being locally based in nearby Tyabb, this has allowed Mark to key in to particular prime times for trophy sized species such as Big Gummy Sharks & Large Mature Snapper. Moving into Spring this year saw Sully on the water a lot more than most & this allowed a better understanding of areas to procure prime fresh bait easily as well as finding some very good sized Snapper along the way.

This all culminated into Melbourne Angling History on Fri the 28th Oct 2011 when at approximately 6.00am he landed the winning Snapper for this years annual Mornington Tea Tree Snapper Competition. Being around 500mtrs away when this fish was eventually landed was spine tingling as we all heard the massive crys & screams of jubilation. Sully had done it !!

Winners are Grinners !!

Up against 2000 plus entrants he found himself tight to a massive Snapper that later weighed a fantastic 10.55kg's & earnt him the respect from many other anglers instantly. It's worth noting that he'd put in around 200 hours on his engine hourmeter in the preceding 12 months to settle on the area he fished as he believed it just may hold that winning fish. This sort of forethought & dedication has been observed closely by the Team at YouFish TV & Think BIG and is just one reason we have Mark onboard with us for future YouFish TV Productions.

Winga & 2011 Tea Tree Winner for Largest Snapper Mark 'Sully' Sullivan

We are looking very forward to having Mark with us here at YouFish TV & Think BIG as already we know there is some huge achievements instore for all in the coming months.

Welcome aboard Sully, it's going to be a lotta fun for all mate.

Cheers,

TBC

Please click this link for latest charter bookings & information:

Once again Melbournes premier angling species Snapper are moving in steadily into both Western Port & Port Phillip Bay. From this weekend until the week or so prior to Christmas Day, Think BIG Charters will be out as often as possible to find these excellent hard fighting & sometimes frustrating species for our clients.

Our Charter Booking Calendar has been updated with a huge list of avail dates added. We expect these to fill fast going on past seasons & ask interested clients to ring promptly to secure your seat, as once the 'Snapper Bite' heats up so to speak, many dates will be filled very quickly. Our Snapper Charters are a full 6 hour duration & can often run longer than this to offer even better value for money. We generally run our charters around the prime bite periods of first & last light. We also have a lot of night time charters that often see a better size class of Snapper. It's during the darker hours that on average the true trophy sized Snapper are encountered. We are the only charter service in Australia that runs 24/7 365 days a year.  Like our motto says ANY FISH, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE!

As Spring moves into the opening of Summer, BIG Gummy Sharks & the ever elusive School Sharks will start to show their presence & work their way into the Port to breed.

These will be another favourite species for us to seek out for our clients.

Mulloway too will also be available for the dedicated few who understand what is required for these shy silver fish.

Of course how could we forget the Fighting Whiting that are Inviting & Exciting when Biting.

Western Port is famous for these excellent eating spotted fish & will fish increasingly better for these from mid October through until June at least.

So it's all looking like a great season ahead everybody !!

Please click this link for latest charter bookings & information:

Have a great fishing season.

Cheers,

TBC

In recent times we've had a few small tech issues with our vessel 'Think Big!'

Given the sheer amount of ongoing work it has done in recent months in sometimes trying conditions, we have needed from time to time the services of a mechanic ....'QUICKLY'

Enter Southside Marine Services, owned & operated by Alan Heib from Langwarrin.

As a well qualified and diverse mechanic of many areas, & also currently employed for a lengthy period within the massive Toyota group. He is also very well versed in the workings of major outboard brands such as Suzuki, Yamaha, Mercury, & Evinrude. In addition to this Alan also offers trailer & wheel bearing services.

Alan has recently opened up the doors to his business after doing many years of 'friendlys' and finally making the choice to go into more of a full on set-up.

With the red tide of Melbs fav Snapper just a mere 10 weeks away or so....It may be a good time to give Alan a call for any pre Snapper Season boat-motor-trailer servicing.

As he's mobile, it can often work very well with clients, as there's no need to tow your rig to a distant workshop or fight through traffic on the way home....

He is happy to help out where possible  his work is attractively priced, some of our Think Big clients who also own boats can attest to this, adding that Alan really went to lengths to ensure everything was operating perfectly.

Alan can be contacted on 0424 315 112

Here's one very happy skipper after a lovely set of new L.E.D Trailer lights were fitted to 'Think Big!' recently.

Cheers,

TBC

Recently we had the good fortune of well known & skilled angling/travel author Steve Cooper contact us. Here he is pictured above cradling a big grey girl prior to release.

Steve has accompanied us on a few trips now aboard Think Big & in the past, has had some memorable fishing sessions.

The purpose was to write up an article for readers of the popular Melbourne based Herald Sun newspaper. So it was that Steve interviewed Shaun as to some points & inner workings of successful Gummy Shark fishing within Western Ports tidal streams.

The article can be read here in full.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/special-reports/savvy-skipper-knows-the-whole-tooth/story-e6frf8uo-1226092304393

It has some very timely snippets of valuable information that will help to increase anyones success rate when targeting these smooth grey creatures of the port.

Also a warm hearted Thank You to all of our recent clients, many of whom are new & have experienced some great fishing. 

Cheers,

Think Big Crew

The scene was set at Hastings harbour for Round 1 of the Australian Egi Tournament.

Competing against 15 other teams in round 1 of this catch & release Squid Tournament.

Below is a summary of how things panned out during the comp.

Sat 25th June:

Very proud of the boy today!

Fin got 3 of our 4 squid which was good enough to sit us (Team Shimano Bar Crusher) 2nd on the leaderboard at the end of day 1 only 100 gms behind the leading team of Little Hooker.

As teams arrived to weigh the position of 'first place' changed 3 times before the boys from little hooker finished the day off in first with a close follow into second with Team Shimano/Barcrusher with young 5 year old Finn claiming the heaviest squid in the bag for his team !!

Tomorrow is another day tho and the Aust Egi Tournament could still be won by anyone and man it's gonna be rough! We used Shimano Sephia jigs in size 3.0 - 3.5. Thanks Joseph Fernand for your patient camera work. Think BIG!

Sun 26th June:

Pushed as hard as I could for Fin today in some shocking conditions and did no good.

At no stage did he lose focus or give up, not once. My hero.

We finished 5th and Congrats to Team Little Hooker on winning the first WP Egi tourny. Thanks for all the encouragement over past few days cheers the Wing Boys.

Great to see a bit of interest from the local fisho's who had never seen an event like this before and the attraction of the 2 x 1000 litre tanks was a fair spectacle for the few who came past.

All Squid captured were weighed in Live & released soon after, with 100% success rate.

A proud moment for a very happy father with son 'Fin' 

In closing I'd just like to say that this professionally organised Egi Tournament was run very well & is a credit to the hard work of people like Paul Carter for doing many many hours of hard work to organize this event. Thanks also to Joe Fernand for the dilligence & camera work in some ordinary weather conditions.

Cheers,

Winga & 'TB' Crew 

Here's to you Thinking BIG, Winga.

Series 4 will STILL start in March, BUT in the mean time we have agreed to air YouFishTV RAW starting as early as next week.

Thats 5 episodes of RAW fishing footage from the YouFishTV crew with no frills, no music, just hard core Melbourne fishing action.... Its gonna be wild fun ride on Ch C31 at 730pm Thursday nights real soon.

Cheers Fruity

Season 3 is coming first week of September 2010.  Mad action coming.

THE PROBLEM:

As 29th of January 2010 recreational anglers will no longer be able to fish for, or keep, mako sharks in Australian waters.  In my opinion this Rudd government decision has been made with haste and has not taken into account any of the scientific evidence that suggests that our stocks of this species are in no way related to those that are in decline in the Mediterranean Sea. The only thing they have in common is a name and because that name is one of the many species listed on the EPBC act they have automatically been banned outright.  This is not right, this was not the intention of the EPBC act, the correct path should have been to consult the stake holders (us) through our peak bodies and devise a management plan to prevent the numbers of such species ever reaching a point where fishing bans were the required to keep the resource sustainable.  However this consultation never took place and mako sharks were coldly and swiftly listed for NO TAKE at the stroke of Peter Garrett's pen.  The reason they didn’t consult us was simple, they received the advice that there would be NO social or economic impact from such a ban.  A notion that simply defies belief, talk about the height of ignorance. The impact on both fronts will be huge, make no mistake.

Australian rec anglers have a history of taking steps to protect their own resource from overfishing, we do not need to be told what to do by those who understand very little about the sea and its creatures.  We self regulate well and already consult and work with our fisheries departments to create and maintain effective bag and size limits well before we put any of our fisheries under pressure or into decline.  Snapper limits and sizes in Victoria are a classic example, we initiated talks with fisheries and brought about major changes to keep this resource sustainable for many years to come.  Mind you that work may well be undone if that dredge keeps raping Port Phillip Bay and interferes with their spawning.  Mako sharks have never been targeted by us for any changes as from all evidence they are prolific in number and are under very little pressure from the recreational sector in this country.  So this Garrett decision really smarts when you consider that commercial fishermen will still be allowed to kill and keep mako sharks in Australian waters after we are banned.  What a joke.  Also countries that are not signatories like Japan will continue to kill and fin millions of these sharks every year. 

It gets worse. Extreme green groups like Humane Society International (HSI) and PETA have made it their cause to stop rec fishing in Australia and they are the ones pushing for this ban to happen.  The thing that is of great concern about this is they seem to have the Labour government in their pocket.  How is such an extreme minority able to wield such power?  Well, the reasons are not very clear, but one theory is the trading of preferential votes, the green groups have plenty of them and the labour government wants them, but who really knows what happens behind the closed doors when our rights are being discussed.  Major groups like fishers are rarely welcome or present at such meetings.  The green groups are only getting started too, the mako sharks are only the first on a very long list of fish they want to ban us fishing for.  What's next?  Bluefin tuna?  Marlin? Snapper? 

THE SOLUTION:

All it not lost, we can still turn this around.  So whether you fish for mako sharks or not it is absolutely imperative you act NOW to defend your rights as democratic Australians. This decision affects you and it should have only been made after consulting with you after proper assessment of the issue and its impact.  It's all just a big slap in the face from our so-called elected leaders, and the latest news I've just heard is that they believe we will do nothing about it and its going to be a cake walk for them.

Well if this makes you feel angry and you want to do something about it then ring and write to MP Garret and PM Rudd and express exactly how you feel.  Let them know you exist and your views matter and they stand to lose your vote come election time.  This is the only currency they deal in, not wrongs or rights, votes!  So get on the phone and keyboard and give it to them!!!

Here are the numbers and addresses you need:

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's office:  Phone (02) 6277 7700

Environment Minister Peter Garrett's office: Phone (02) 6277 7640 or email:  Peter.Garrett.MP@aph.gov.au

Also contact your local, state and federal members and express your views.  The more they hear it the more they will take notice, it's not too late, we just have to act strongly and swiftly and be very loud.  Go people GO!

Have a meaningful day, Winga.