The lads over at Fetha Styx have been running a great competition over the last few months for fans to Spin a Story about a great fishing trip they have for the chance to win one of their awesome Predator Salmon-Steelhead rods.  I entered my humble ‘To Save a Fishing Lure’ story and managed to walk away with first prize.  All I can say is I flattered that they found my sheer clumsiness amusing enough to award first prize and I can’t wait to give my new rod a whirl!!

If you love fishing you will want to check out some of the other fantastic stories they have published from other keen fishermen.

Thanks again guys and special thanks to my bro for being a wicked fishing partner and the Jarrats for letting me stay in their beautiful house in Coffs Harbour.  Wishing all of you happy fishing in the new year!

Since being back I have been lucky enough to be doing some work with one of my mates on his Phd where he is investigating the effects of kangaroo over grazing on endangered bird, mammal and reptile species.  This has given me the opportunity to explore some of the off the beaten track reserves around the place where I have encountered some stunning scenery and animals as well as getting the chance to test out my 4WD skills on some pretty tricky terrain.

Shingle Back or Sleepy Lizard – these guys are awesome, they are almost invulnerable predators because of their armour

Echidna – when you spot them they basically curl up in a ball and try and bury themselves

After a hard day’s work and a massive hamburger dinner, I got the opportunity to take my mate out fishing for his first time – we were camping in the reserve near the river and I thought it was a great opportunity to do a bit of night fishing.  Night fishing was made a lot more difficult by the fact that somehow, neither of us had remembered to bring a torch.

Despite the lack of light it wasn’t long before I was hooked up with a decent sized carp and it wasn’t long after that that he had run me around a submerged (actually it was only semi-submerged I found out in the morning) log and broke my extremely light line.  Brett fished on until he finished his beer with no success and I fished on until I’d finished a couple more before calling it a night and throwing the rest of my corn in to burley up for the next morning.

The next morning was an absolute stunner.  We were up at sun rise to count kangaroos from the Hilux, which is kind of akin to going on safari – except instead of hunting we use rangefinder binoculars to spot them hopping through the bush and record their numbers.

Having completed the morning’s work we returned to our fishing hole where the carp were well and truly on the bite! They were striking hard and often and constantly diving into the snags to try and cut us off but with the aid of light I was able to land the first carp of the day.  Within seconds Brett was also hooked up and doing a pretty brilliant job of controlling his first ever fish!  So finally what you have all been waiting for, a couple of fishing pictures.

Yeah, it kinda sucked. We were pretty annoyed by it, too.

But no more! As of today’s update, the gallery will remember where you were and, instead of showing the six newest photos when you click on one of the gallery previews, it will now show the next six after the one you clicked. If you want to just keep clicking on the larger preview image, it will walk you back through all uploaded user photos, one by one. Clicking any link outside of the FishPics gallery will still reset the gallery to display the newest photo uploads, so you don’t have to worry about missing anything.

Aside from that, we’ve added a link to Mashable’s Open Web Awards, set up a new introductory video for new users (if you’re already logged in, you can still watch it at http://fishtwits.com/intro without logging out), and made it easier to get to the page added last time which shows lists of fish, users, techniques, locations, and events you can follow on FishTwits. You can now also follow fish, users, techniques, and events directly from this page. (Locations aren’t cooperating just yet, but should be followable from the list page in next week’s update.)

I left Sweden toward the end summer and headed back home for the start of summer (furthering my pursuit of an endless summer for the rest of my life).  I have managed to get out a few times with my brother who is a mad keen fishermen for a fish since I have been back in the home country.  In fact not more than three days after I touched down in Sydney airport my brother and a mate whisked me off to Coffs Harbour on the Northern New South Wales coast for a few days of beach sunshine and fishing.

My dad had managed to acquire an inflatable kayak from a friend whilst I was overseas and my bro and I decided to explore and fish one of the many creeks that run into the Pacific Ocean just near Coffs.  These creeks are teaming with fish Flathead, Whiting, Bream and Mangrove Jack, Trevally and a bit further inland the much sought after Australian Bass.

We inflated the kayak and pushed off with the incoming tide up the creek only to find that it had a leak.  For one reason or another we had thrown the foot pump into the kayak before we left so we hooked it up and I pumped air back into the kayak at the same time as paddling whilst my bro trawled a soft plastic trying to attempt a Dusky Flathead or maybe a Bream.  It wasn’t long before my brother managed to land a small flathead and my inexperience in kayak paddling whilst simultaneously pumping and dealing with quite a strong current landed the kayak in a creek side tree poking another hole in it.  As the kayak deflated, we ended up in the drink and had to swim it across to a nearby sandbank just barely managing to keep the rods, reels and tackle dry.

We decided to leave the kayak and wade the sand flats casting soft plastics and prawns into dips and holes trying to tempt a big flathead.  I spotted a likely looking snag next to a deep hole and expertly flicked my lure straight into it.  The thought of losing my $2 soft plastic was too much for me so I swam over to the log to remove it.  No sooner than I had de-snagged it, I noticed my brother hooking up – I quickly swum back to the sand bank and reached into my pocket for my bro’s water-proof camera to take some footage… it was gone.  In the process of saving my $2 lure I had managed to drop my brothers $700 camera into deep water next to massive snag!

My brother and I put our extremely limited free-diving-without-a-mask skills to the test for half an hour only to come up with a lot of scratches and no camera.  I was determined though and as I again descended again, this time I glimpsed a small patch of red buried in the mud just under a tree branch… it was the tiny red label of the camera case, with my last ounce to breath and subjecting myself to more cuts from the vicious tree I managed to lay my hands on it coming to the service arms raised in victory!

After a semi disastrous start to the trip the fishing only got better from there.  My brother showed off his flathead expertise landing them on both soft plastics and prawn baits.  He managed to land two 60cm plus specimens on very light gear by working the very same deep gutter that we had punctured the kayak on.

Having been completely out classed by my bro on the flathead front I decided to wade further up the creek chasing the many schools of whiting that were cruising the shallows.  Fishing conditions were perfect, clear water and a seemingly endless supply of different habitats making every cast exciting.  Nevertheless the whiting proved to be behaving very circumspectly sometimes approaching my bait, even touching it but never striking.  It wasn’t until the next morning, when my bro and I headed out again, undeterred by the rain, that I was finally successful in landing a 40+ centimetre specimen.  For those of you that don’t know the Australian Whiting, it is a reasonably close relative of the Bonefish, and is incredible sport on light tackle as well as being delicious eating.

A great end to the trip until my bro left the camera on the top of the car as we were packing up, we didn’t notice until a while later but when we retraced our drive sure enough we found it.  That camera is damn tough and must have nine lives!

Today’s update adds user “kudos” to the site. For the moment, users get one kudo each time one of their tweets gets hit. If a user has any kudos, this will be displayed on their profile, plus the Most Popular Users list is now sorted by kudos instead of by followers. Follower count is still displayed and used as a tie-breaker when users have the same number of kudos.

In the future, you will also be able to earn kudos in other ways, so keep your eyes peeled and watch this space for further updates.

The Fisherman

If you want some more inspiration check out the style guide

Just to remind you of the official rules of Movember

You know what they say, never sign anything you haven’t read, always eat your crusts and make sure you know the rules. Just so we’re clear:

1. Once registered each Mo Bro must start November 1st with a clean shaven face.

2. Then, for the entire month of Movember each Mo Bro must grow and groom a moustache according to these rules:

• There is to be no joining the Mo to the side burns – that’s a beard. There are no beards.

• There is to be no joining of the handlebars on the chin – that’s a goatee.

• A small complimentary growth under the bottom lip, aka a tickler, is allowed

The rules for the FishTwits competition are here

The biggest new feature is hit counts. The “biggest hits” view sorts based on both the actual number of hits and how fresh they are. While this is unchanged, any tweet which has one or more hits will now display the number of hits it has received on the “hit” button, so you can not only tell what tweets are the best and freshest, but also just how good they are.

Somewhat simpler, but perhaps more useful, is that replies posted through FishTwits will now include a link to the tweet you’re replying to, making it easier for other people on Twitter – people who are, for some reason, not using FishTwits to read about fishing – to figure out what you’re talking about in your replies.

Speaking of reading things on Twitter, we’ve added a link from your profile page to your direct message inbox on Twitter. This link will only appear when you’re logged in and viewing your own profile and clicking it will take you to Twitter to view the messages – FishTwits never retrieves your private direct messages at any time or for any reason.

Got a killer suggestion for how to improve FishTwits, or just something you want to see that isn’t there? We’ve added a UserVoice feedback tab to the right side of each page on the main FishTwits site. Just give it a click to see what suggestions are out there, make a suggestion of your own, or vote on what you want to see most. If you manage to find a bug we missed, you can report it there, too.

Finally, you can now see more easily what the photos in the FishPics gallery are about, as the text of the tweet associated with the photo will now appear when you point at the thumbnail previews with your mouse.

There are a couple other minor changes in there today that I didn’t mention, but I’ll let you find them on your own…

There has been a long-standing controversy amongst a select group of well-regarded anglers:

Do fishermen with Moustaches catch more fish?

Circumstantial evidence seems to indicate that it may in fact improve your chances by up to 5 times! However, here at FishTwits we like to see hard facts when it comes to fishing.

Some of you may have heard of Movember.  Movember is a world wide charity event about raising much needed funds and awareness for men’s health – specifically prostate cancer and depression in men. The event works like this:  You sign up to become a Mo Bro or Mo Sista and start collecting sponsorships to grow a moustache for the month of November.  If you sign up as a Mo Sista, you can collect sponsorship for the man in your life – boyfriend, husband, brother, father, granddad, etc. to grow a Mo.

To us, Movember seemed like the perfect opportunity to settle this controversy once and for all and at the same time support a really worthy clause.  Eric and I have put our razors away, picked up our fishing rods and are heading out on the water in pursuit of the Moustache-loving fish, but, if we really want to settle this, we are going to need your help.

We have decided to make Movember Madness an annual FishTwits competition.  If you want to join in the fun, help settle the controversy that has been plaguing the fishing world for centuries, be in the running for some really cool prizes and – most importantly – help raise money for a great cause, here’s what to do:

1. To enter our competition you will also need to sign up for a free twitter account (this allows you to also sign in to FishTwits).

2. Head on over to Movember.com and sign up as an individual – or even better sign up as a team – and get all your fishing buddies involved in the fun (teams could be for your fishing club, your fishing forum, your company or just a bunch of mates).

3. Register as an individual with FishTwits simply by clicking the tweet button on your Movember.com page then come over to FishTwits.com and upload a photo of yourself fishing without a Moustache.  It’ll look a little something like this:

I’m growing a Mo for #Movember to help the fight against prostate cancer & men’s depression. Pls donate: http://www.movember.com/m/96971

4. Register your team simply by clicking the tweet button from your Movember.com team page and get all your team members to come over to FishTwits.com and upload photos of themselves fishing without Moustaches.

Join my #Movember team as a Mo Bro or Sista to help the fight against prostate cancer & men’s depressionhttp://www.movember.com/r/24929

5. Start collecting donations and growing an awesome Mo or, if you are a lady who wants to support the cause or just loves a man with a Mo, encourage your boyfriend, husband, brother, father, friend, etc. to grow a Mo!

6. Go fishing as many times as you can in November and upload a picture of you and your ever growing and ever more awesome Mo (or pics of you, the man in your life and his Mo) each time you catch a fish.  Remember to include the words ‘Mo Madness’ in your tweet when you upload the photo so that we know you are entering it in the competition.  Entries close on 30 November at Midnight, GMT.

The team that raises the most money will win the coveted Movember Madness fishing trophy and a place on the FishTwits main page linking to their organisation.  The team that uploads the most Movember fishing photos will win an assortment of fishing tackle.  The individual that raises the most money will win an exclusive Mo Madness fishing t-shirt.  We could always do with more prizes, so, if your company or organisation would like to sponsor a prize and help promote this great cause, get in touch with us: Fishtwits@fishtwits.com

The main cause of rejected tweets was text that didn’t fit within the 140-character limit, so that has now been addressed quite thoroughly: Any tweet made through FishTwits which is longer than 140 characters will now be cut down to size with the excess text added as a comment on the tweet – you can type in as much as you need to describe your catch and it will all be saved, even if it doesn’t fit within Twitter’s length limits. A link to the detail page for your tweet will also be inserted when this is done, so that anyone who sees the shortened tweet will be able to click through to view it in full on the FishTwits site.

On the original intended enhancements for this week’s update, although I didn’t get to the point of allowing Savlen’s artwork to be purchased through FishTwits, I was able to provide a larger view of each photo which you can view by clicking the image in the sidebar. This page will also be the one from which you will be able to make the purchase when that is implemented.