helliconia

you beat my PB with that one

Nice bagful for the family. Grats to the young fella on the flounder!

PM sent.

Hello everyone. My name is Brian aka EmptyHooks. I picked the nickname because most of my fishing time is spent rebaiting after it gets picked to death by minnows. Hoping to improve that! I'm 44, work as a project manager in IT and live in Summer Hill. I grew up around boats and I've finally joined the ranks of proud boat owners. My partner has deluded herself into believing that buying the boat is the end of the expenses but I have several projects in mind to disabuse her of that notion Most of my boating experience was around the Lower Hawkesbury and Pittwater, but I'm keen to explore any other patch of water I can find the time to get to. Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting to know you all and learning and contributing where I can! Cheers

Hi guys, I've been lurking here for a bit but now I've got the new boat I'm keen to get more involved in the Fishraider team! I'm based In Summer Hill/Ashfield area and my usual haunt would be around the lower Hawkesbury but I'm keen to learn more about the Bay since its a bit closer. If any Raiders would be interested I'd be grateful to take some of you out in exchange for a little local knowledge. My boat is a 4.75m Brooker runabout (with bimini and clears) and a 60hp Yamaha 4 stroke. It could fish 3 reasonably comfortably. I've got a colour sounder and chart plotter plugged in too. My fishing gear is copious but pretty basic. Mostly I've been into bream & flathead on soft plastics, as well as bait fishing with the other half. I do have some heavier gear but nothing too flash. As this is my first boat ever (altough my Dad had boats all my life growing up so I'm not a complete amateur) I'd appreciate a few tips from some of you guys (or ladies) who know the ropes a bit better than me. I can make time on the weekends and I get RDO's periodically I can use during the week. Thanks in advance! Brian

I got a Humminbird 587cxi Chartplotter/Fishfinder Combo as an upgrade on the new boat. Display * 4.5" diagonal * 320V x 240H * 256 Colour display Memory * Waypoints: 3,000 * Routes: 50 * Tracks: 50 w/ 20,000 points each Sonar Dual Beam * 200 kHz / 20° @ -10db * 83 kHz / 60° @ -10db Power Output * 300 Watts (RMS) * 2400 Watts (Peak-to-Peak) GPS Features * 50Channel GPS * Chartplotting * Humminbird UniMap * Internal GPS antennae What did you pay for it - $800 Value for Money - Yes Easy to use- Yes In your opinion, does it find fish accurately - Yes In your opinion, does it some bait balls accurately - Yes In your opinion, does it read the bottom accurately -Yes Any extras worth mentioning? Takes Navionics Gold Charts - haven't got them yet. What are you able to do with your sounder - Logs trips, shows tracks (handy when channels aren't marked and you want to retrace your course), has tons of icons for marks such as fish, ramps, marinas, wrecks etc, and allows them to be renamed, fish alarm can be set to anything, medium/large or large, display can be customised to show speed (knots, mph, kph), temp, depth and others, easy to use and has a few views to chose from. What can't you do with your sounder - actually catch fish I see on it! (starting to believe it lies!) Your (personal opinion) rating out of 10 overall - 8 - unimap is pretty basic but I have to save for the Gold Chart. Takes a few minutes for the GPS to grab a signal and place your location when you first switch it on.

As promised, here is my first fishing report! Towed the shiny new boat to Sanctuary Point and waited impatiently for Xmas lunch to finish so I could dunk the boat for the first time! Took one of the locals with us (a friend of the out-laws) who was kind enough to show us a few spots. Only keeper for the day was a 29cm Flounder from the banks near Sussex Inlet channel, but we picked up a few undersized Flathead and Whiting. I did manage to get a few GPS marks into the chartplotter for next time I'm down there. Experienced a lot of frustration as the fish alarm on the finder went off repeatedly (I'd set it for saltwater large ) as a bait school hovered under the boat with "something" chasing them around. Threw every soft plastic I had at them and tried jigging, walking and fast retrieves but not a sign of interest. Even tried some whole squid but they weren't playing. Ah well, this is why we love fishing, isn't it? The new boat performed above all expectations. A bit noisy on the short chop as it slapped through it on the plane but that's aluminium for you. It'll take some time to get everything sorted how we want it but as my better half puts it - "I'm a very happy boy!" Off to Nelsons Bay today for 6 days and I'll be sure to bring the camera this time!!

Thanks guys! We're off to St Georges Basin this afternoon for a few days then on to Nelsons Bay for a week. Fishing reports to come! Looking forward to contributing with some actual catching of fish instead of just feeding them!

I took delivery last night! Boat is now proudly hogging the car port with the car squeezed in as an after thought!! I got an upgrade to a Humminbird 587ci chartplotter/fishfinder and a couple of other bits and bobs. First project is going to be a live well which i have to decide on a space for!

Just a quick update on the search. After months of scouring the classifieds, and running around looking at second hand boats, we stopped in at a few new boat dealers to see what they had. In the end, seeing those shiny new hulls with pristine motors was too much to bear and we've coughed up for a brand new boat! Taking delivery of a Brooker 475 Freedom runabaout with 60hp Yamaha 4 stroke next week! Just in time for Xmas! Thanks for the help and advise (in this thread and others). Now I have to name it so you'll all know me at the boat ramp! Cheers Brian

Thanks for the good info Devo. One thing they never seem to mention is the towing weight of the boats. Now I have a good guide to work with. Yes I think sacrifice is going to be the key word in this exercise! I was actually looking at the older V-Sea's in the 4.7m length so thats going to make space even more of an issue I guess. I haven't seen any alloy half cabs for <$10K so I'm guessing my criteria are pretty popular and keeping the price up The pickings in NSW are a bit thin. Might look at expanding my search to Victoria and SE Qld to compare although that will probably just frustrate me More research and searching for me! Cheers Brian

I've seen the water board or someone using a green dye to check the flush on creeks and stormwater drains around Sydney. If they've done a bit of that around the place it could discolour the water a bit. The stuff they use has a strong flouro green colour.

Hi Guys, Wrote my motorcycle off a couple of weeks ago, and since my better half isn't keen on me getting back on two wheels, I'm replacing one toy with another. What with the low towing capacity of a bike, this is my first boat so I'm hoping for some advice. I have up to $10K to spend, and my partner has made a few "requests" (which I'm fairly sure I'd be silly to ignore) and I have some criteria as well. • Half cabin or cuddy cabin with bimini top - to keep the sun and weather off • Comfy seating so our butts don't get overly bruised • deck space for 3 or 4 people fishing • good sea-keeping for a dry ride • good quality engine so we're not spending another $10K replacing a blown up motor I'd be using it mostly around the Hawkesbury and Port Hacking areas but I'd also like to be able to get outside a bit. Have no ambition at this stage to go more than a few miles offshore but I guess it can't hurt to plan for the option. This is a long term investment for me. If I had the right hull I'd be happy upgrading the motor in a few years but I want something that has a bit of life left in it. My work doesn't really give me any time for projects, so I'm hoping to find something mostly setup so I can just enjoy the water. I've been looking at some 90's model Seafarer V-Sea's which seem to get good reviews. Any other boat suggestions or info on what to look out for with these boats? Cheers Brian PS I forgot to mention, we'll be towing it with a V6 Mitsubishi Verada so I'd like to keep the weight practical as well.

Maybe each area should have a recreational fishing group that applies for a grant to conduct research. We can get government money to go fishing and publish our catch statistics. Seems to work for the green tree-huggers who come up with these ideas!

Hi Raiders, is starting a new job today, so to shake off the old job blues I took her out for an afternoon fishing. I know, I'm a caring guy like that Hired a tinnie and VERY slowly made our way to the north edge of the sandbar off Lilli Pilli baths armed with fresh banana prawns from woolies (good mate of mine put me onto that bait source, cheaper and better than servo prawns!) Lots of little picker bream so after about 45 mins I decided to try the SP's. As I was tying the knot the water started to boil right next to us, got smashed by what looked like a largish pike, made a spectacular leap out of the water and threw the hook. cest le vie... As the tide dropped the party boats with the boom-boxes started to show up and the fish disappeared so we drifted up and down Burraneer Bay for a small pinkie which got returned of course. Fun day anyway even if it was unproductive No pics of the undersized Bream as the scavenged the batteries from the camera to get the radio working

Nice bag Jewgaffer! I've seen hordes of cuttlefish that size under the ledges along the easterly reef off Shelly Beach near Cronulla while scuba diving. Never seen one out of the water though! Nice work!

$50 will buy 2 good plate size snapper at the fish markets