Dual purpose setup.

[John Sykes]

Hi All,
   I am new to heavy poppering having only caught fish to 15kg on PE 4 outfits and poppers to 80g at this point but I am moving to Townsville in a few months so I am looking at a new outfit to fish the area in the hope of landing something a little more substantial.

   I have a 20ft Centre Console capable of fishing the outer reefs but in terms of time/cost/weather/fishable days the reality will be that my fishing will consist of 80-90% inshore around the numerous inshore Bommies and Islands such as the Palm Group and 10-20% fishing the outer reefs.

   Having done a fair amount of research on the Palm Islands area it seems 10-25kg can be expected with the odd bigger fish thrown in as a result I am at a bit of a loss as to what line class to use in the area.  My intention at this point is to purchase a 10K Stella and a SOM 16000 spool and fill the original spool with PE 5 and the SOM with PE 8.  Where i run into problems is figuring out if PE 5 is adequate for the inshore areas and if so I will go ahead and purchase both a PE 5 and a PE 8 Wilson Livefibre Venom to have both the reef and inshore covered.

  My preference is to use the PE 5 outfit inshore if most of the fish in this area will be managable on it.  However if PE 8 inshore is going to be a better choice that leaves me with the option of purchasing a better quality General purpose PE 8 rod.  My Budget is 1k for the rods side of things if this helps and I can purchase the two Venoms for $750 combined so it is sort of appealing to have the two rods IF PE 5 is the right choice inshore.

  So, is there anyone out there with any experience/knowledge of the inshore fishery around the Townsville area who can point me in the right direction?
And in addition with regards to the Wilson Venoms' are there any updates on the performance of these rods in both PE 5 and PE8 for general purpose use?
 Cheers, and thanks in advance for any help/comments.
   John.

[Graham Scott]

Buy the PE 8 rod, they look OK to me, spool up with PE8 then buy 60-80lb trace for chasing small to medium mackerel and lesser trevallies, buy some 130lb trace for chasing smaller GTs around the Islands..and buy some 200lb trace or make twisties for the bigger fish. PE8 is still a fine diameter, its a misconception that you have to fish always to sunset based on your braid strength. I do this multi-purpose thing all the time, you just have to be aware of your drag setting for each application. My PE8 gear is excellent for jigging mackerel, but if I set the drag the same as GT's all I'll get is straight hooks or mackerel lips. Its also easy to re-rig as most of the bustoffs are at the hooks.

[John Sykes]

Thanks for the reply Graham,
   I guess I have to get my head around the "Think Truck Not Trout" factor a bit more.  For me line class choice has always been about fishing the lightest I can get away with in a given situation. Probably not the way to think when with GT's "That Fish" can show up at any time.  The biggest reason I was considering PE 5 inshore was as a function of increased casting distance due to lower diameter and decreased fatigue over long casting sessions.  This is useless if I have no chance of stopping a half way decent fish when it does come along though so from that perspective PE 8 makes more sense.