Preparing your Trip Report

Our trip reports have proven to be a valuable source of information and amusement among Noosa Yakkers, their friends, and since late 2011, visitors to the NY TR blog from all over the world. No doubt in years to come some of us, in the old folks' home viewing this blog, will be able to relive the old times and go fishing vicariously with the latest batch of Noosa Yakkers while boring to death all of the other inmates with tales of derring-do.

Only members of Noosa Yakkers can submit Trip Reports and on this page I provide a few tips about how best to create them and prepare them for publication. Most importantly, the report should be made available ASAP after the event, as old news just doesn’t cut it.

BASIC INFO

In the report title (email subject) include the date of the trip.

Use the headings below at the top of your report

Wind:
Swell:
Current:
Launch point:
Participants:

Then fill them out something like this.

Wind: light westerly
Swell: low N
Current: at Jew Shoal, easterly, 1kph
Launch point: Middle Groyne
Participants: richmond, eyetag, gemini, windy, carlo

TELL THE STORY

Relate where you went and what time, what happened and include what your mates did. Tell us the methods used and their effectiveness. Enthral us with the adventures you had. How did you handle the surf zone? Mention anything of safety, wildlife, good idea, nature, which occurred on the trip.

PICTURES

Try to take pics on and under the water. Decide what the subject is and act accordingly. In any case, get as close to your subject as safety permits (try to fill the viewfinder with the subject without zooming, and get the whole fish in the frame). Make sure your camera focuses before taking the pic. Turn off the flash unless absolutely necessary. Look for shadows intruding on the subject and adjust so that they are avoided. If it's action you're after shoot movie with sound as individual movie frames may be useful and the edited movie can be placed (by one of our NY skilled operators) in a live link to YouTube on the blog post. Get your subject facing the sun and have hats and sunnies removed (watch out for your shadow falling on the subject). Use Google Earth to provide illustrations of where you went and other software and tricks to provide other interesting images (eg Seabreeze forecast graphs). Practice, practice, and be ready to shoot stills or movie at short notice. Leash your camera!

For every picture include a caption in your report. Don't discard the original images as we might ask you to provide them for better presentation on the blog.

SEND YOUR REPORT TO

Please reduce image size before sending. [Don't know how? Click here.] Nobody likes to receive 10mb emails when plainly, with a little care, 1 mb would have done the job. If you don't know how to resize images please contact one of the old hands and we'll try to help you, or click here.

If you have authority to use the Practice blog, post it on there and tell turtleboy by email that it has been posted on the Practice blog.

If you do not have access to the Practice blog, send your report by email to turtleboy in the first instance. Remember to crop and resize images, make the width no more than 700 pixels then either embed in or attach to your email.

Don't email movie files but contact turtleboy, gemini or sunshiner and arrange for transfer. If you have a movie already on YouTube send us the link to the movie and we'll embed it into the blog entry.

Have fun with it!