Collecting equipment

Hi all,

I've browsed this site a few times before and have enjoyed the pics and stories.

I went for my first snorkel yesterday and I have to say, I'm hooked. It was just amazing floating over all the corals and watching all manner of fish swimming around. I saw angels, butterflies, damsels, coral trout, a few different types of cod, and even a sea snake.

I am interested in catching a couple of small fish and maybe some shrimps for my reef tank and was hoping someone might be able to post some pictures of the equipment they use to collect these animals and maybe where they can be purchased from. Also what sort of locations do you look for to collect these animals? For example, I noticed yesterday that there are higher numbers of fish in the deeper water (a couple of meters), but there is also a lot more coral which would make them harder to catch. In the shallows, there are not so many fish, but there are not many corals, so I would think they would be a little easier to catch.

Thanks in advance for any advise given.

Cheers,
Dave.

Some of the members make there own equip on advice to regs for the areas that we are going to at the time.

It isn’t so much the spots we go to as the conditions that suite the spot at the time that is important.

The last trip was supposed to be a boat trip of sorts and than was supposed to be some where else, as the conditions changed so did the spot that would be the most favourable for all to get the best and most out of the club trip.

The day was the only thing that remained consistent.

The members are shown how to catch whatever, for its best result for the sport and hobby combination.

One our few younger members has gone from not being able to catch anything, five trips back to now showing us all up in catching one of the hardest fish, cleaner wrasse.

I hope he doesn’t take offence to this, him and his and his partner are nice people, but he would stay very close to learn all he could about the sport, sometimes so close it was hard to actually collect.

He will soon be the one catching something for us and achieving far more than we could.

It was amazing to watch him out smart those fish and learn there techniques of avoiding capture.

Just keep trying; you will get the hang of it.

You did read the thread on gear used for collection didn’t you.

That pretty well says it all.

Thanks for that. Just had a read of that thread, I'm not sure how I missed it before. Is there somewhere you can source the netting from, like do tackle stores normally stock it? What about the frames of the nets, do you make them from alloy or plastic or something else? Sorry, but I'm a little clueless as to the gear to use, sort of why I was hoping for some pics. I've read the rules on the DPI website, so will be sure to stay inside the law. I'll be going into town tomorrow, so I might have a look around the tackle stores and see what I can find.

Cheers,
Dave.