spic

just go to a tire shop and you will he will give you tires for free

I went for a fish with my youngest son on Sat 4th Jul and struggled, damn jackets every where.

g'day raiders been having a problem with the fuel filter latley. been discovering brown jelly sitting on the bottom of the fuel filter. its like some sort of corrosion? but we dont know were it is coming from. any suggestions on were it is coming from??? cheers spic

Thanks for the replies guys. I did the motor height last year and got that right. I know everyone talks about the picth but what impact does the diameter have? Been searching around and most of the references are to the pitch not much on the dia.

Dave, Thanks mate! All I did was buy these from Bias http://www.biasboating.com.au/p-1885-alloy-bull-bar-mount-rod-holder.aspx and purchased the nylon inserts that sit in the top, I think I got them from Bias as well but Witworths has them http://www.whitworths.com.au/main_itemdetail.asp?cat=136&item=72037&intAbsolutePage=1 Cheers, Vic

Okay I finally got the boat finished today and planning to go out tomorrow morning for a quick fish. I'm quite happy how it turned out now to see how the new coating holds up. So far it's it's very comfortable on the feet and very grippy. Not sure if get the idea but if you zoom on the pic you should see the finish It's extremely satisfying when you finish a project like this not just the money you save but the peace of mind knowing that it was done right.

What a great solution I never would of thought of that. Many thanks.

I appreciate your comment, I was planning to load the screws up with Sikaflex before I screw them in, not sure what else I can do. I'd appreciate any other ideas!

Made some progress over the weekend. Got the cracks welded up, coated all the bear metal with etch primer and gave it a spay with some white enamel. I also installed the additional rear floor supports. In goes the tank, replaced all the fuel hoses and fuel lines. Filled her up and gave the motor a run just to make sure I didn't over look anything. I managed to get the new floor screwed down, real pleased with the fit and I sealed up all the gaps. The front pieces have already had 2 coats applied of Tredgrip. This is the product I chose to paint the whole floor with. It's a rubberised paint with small pieces of rubber in it. Has extremely good grip and it's quite soft on the feet and it doesn't get hot like normal decking paint. I'd been searching for quite some time and came across this product and discovered quite a few of the pro crayboat operators in WA use it on their decks. Time will tell but so far I'm really pleased with the finish. Hopefully next weekend I'll get the entire floor coated and show the final result.

I haven't put the floor in as yet as I need to get those cracks welded up. I thought about the under deck storage and opted not to, I've got heaps of storage and quite frankly it becomes a pain in the arse as water will get in there. I've cut the floor pieces out and have applied 2 coats of undercoat on the top and approx 5" around the edges underneath. So there is some bear timer underneath but I'm told there should be so the timber can breath. I won;t be putting carpet down I'll be painting it with a rubberised paint called Tredgrip amazing stuff. I'll keep updating the post as that was the real reason I started it was like me alot of guys don't like carpet as well as the traditional deck paints so I wanted to show there is an alternative. The other reason I opted not play with any additional storage as I wanted to keep the foam flotation that sits in there. Here is a shot of the floor pieces as they are at the moment.

I've been talking about replacing the floor in my Savage Osprey for years and now I finally have got around to it. I'd been sitting on this project for a while due to being indecisive on what to cover the new floor with. I like the feel of carpet but it's a pain to clean and takes ages to dry and I wasn't too keen on the deck paints I've seen as their quite harsh on the feet and quite hot. Well things are a bit quiet at work and they decided to close the plant for a week so here was my chance to get this one out of the way and thought I'd share some pics and experiences. Well here is the existing floor, pretty ordinary particularly in the back corners. Here she is without the floor, pretty clean I'm impressed I cut the new floor out of 15mm structural grade CD plywood, 4 sheets did the job Quite happy, ample clearance around the sides and the pieces fit neatly I started to paint the new floor pieces when my youngest son calls me over and point out 3 cracks that I missed,,, old age It's only on one side Now I have to get in there and strip all the paint around the cracks and make sure it's spotless as I got someone organised to weld plates over the cracks this Saturday.

Here is one my young fella scored in Berowra.

I think you will find that Penguins were chasing those bait fish. I was off Barranjoey on Friday and watched about 4 Pengiuns hammer a school.

It was the Brooklyn Parsley Bay ramp on the Hawkesbury river.

This particular ramp used to be quite bad a few years ago and was quite common to see car windows smashed, trailer rollers missing but the last 2 years has been good as I've see on a few occassions the police doing the rounds very realy in the morning. It's a real difficult one to police as most of the ramp carparks are quite dark so cameras are not very effective. Not sure what the solution is ?

I went for a fish out of Parsley Bay on Friday had a good day with the flatties. Cleaned the boat when we got back, put all the gear away, good feed lifes great. I get up this morning and my youngest son comes in screaming something, couldn't make it out. I finally get him to calm down and explains that there is no number plate on the boat trailer. I look at him with disbelief and go and have a look and bugger me it's gone. Someone pinched it at the ramp and they even had the nerve to put the 2 screws and nuts back that held it on. Boy there are some low people around, just what I needed a long visit to the RTA. In short if your number plate is held in by screws consider rivetting it in with stainless rivets as this is what I'll be doing. Atleast this will make it extremely difficult if they try again.

My 1st boat was nauti V150 with a 70hp. I'd get the motor checked out as that usage sounds excessive. Now I don't mean to put you off but the Nauti is a great hull just built on the cheap. I had the floor in mine go as it's only masonite covered in fibreglass. I had a crack in the hull located under the drivers side and finally got rid of it as it had a rotten transom. All these issues covered a period of 8 years and all in all was a good 1st boat. If you are going to use it in enclosed waters I'd say get if fixed up but if your planning on going outside I'd seriously consider moving on. The hull is extremely thin and won't take the punishment it will get outside, thats what found with mine. Cheers, Vic

Thanks for all the great comments. Catching fish of this size is one thing but when have a situation where you get smashed on every drop well thats dream material. Thats what it was like for us on this occassion basically one after another, truly amazing. Cheers, Vic

Adelaide Goes Off! I need to run thru some history in order to really appreciate how special this trip was. I’ve got a good friend (Paul) who lives in Adelaide and thru the years we have been out in his boat on many occasions and managed some good catches of Whiting and Squid but the Snapper has always eluded us. Late last year I helped Paul upgrade to a used 5.3 Barcrusher which was purchased here in Syd and got it shipped over to SA which he has now fully decked out with the latest electronics, trim tabs, electric anchor winch and the list goes on. In short, an awesome rig. Last December we lined up a trip to target Snapper, so I flew down and met up with Paul’s mate Brian who is an absolute gun fisherman and really knows his marks. So we had the boat, we had the marks, but as is always the case, when I got down there it was blowing a gale and pissing down rain. We didn’t get to wet a line at all as the weather just did not let up. “NOT HAPPY”. Needless to say I was shattered flying home on the Sunday. The following Monday I get a SMS message from Paul and Brian with a picture of 4 Snapper approx 7-9kg, the buggers managed to get out on the Monday literally hours after I’d left and bagged out, devastated. A couple of months had passed and I was advised that I had to attend a conference in Adelaide on the 22nd Feb commencing in the afternoon. Well the plans quickly went into action. As the d’day approached the weather was looking a bit ordinary surprise surprise but there was a small window on the Sunday morning, so we decided to target the Snapper then. Sunday came around, and we got an early start and headed off into Gulf St. Vincent. When we eventually reached our spot the showing on the sounder looked extremely promising. I got a bait down 1st which didn’t get a chance to hit the bottom when it got smashed. This was a thumper of a fish but unfortunately I dropped him. Within minutes Paul’s onto another cracker of a fish and this one hits the deck and it’s a 10kg fish. This action continued for a while, and I just couldn’t believe how thick the fish were and all the fish were HUGE with only one smaller fish, 63cm caught. We were starting to get cocky as we had reached out boat limit of 6 fish over 60cm (2 each), and the boys suggested I give a plastic a run, so I tossed a 6” Gulp out which got annihilated on the drop. We dropped this fish at the boat trying to lift him in and it swam off with the plastic in the side of his mouth. The following morning Brian heads out to fish this spot again and scores 2 great fish, one was a 27 pounder. While cleaning the fish to his disbelief he finds the plastic which I had lost the prior morning – unbelievable! So after many heart breaking trips I finally managed to catch that fish of a lifetime. I still can’t wipe the smile off my face. Fish of a lifetime. The haul – middle fish was 63 cm. Brian’s fish next day – top one had the soft plastic from the previous day in it’s gut - bottom one was 27 pound and 104 cm.

Apologies, just the boat I saw looked so much like the one in your Avatar. Cheers

Just curious was you fishing Broken Bay on Sat as I thought I saw you trolling around Joey in the morning? Cheers, Vic

I have the map on my plotter but I'm refering to a few hard copy maps that I purchased. The detail is fantastic and shows depth as well. I'd be keen to hear if there is an electronic version that displays the floor in different colours!

Thanks for clearing that up for me I was just about to. Yes it was a hard day no current and the water temp down there is still very cold. There was some planing put in to finding these, sometime ago I purchased a few seafloor topography maps that by different colours diplays the type of bottom. There is one particluar small gravel patch that I've been meaning to try for a while and this is where we picked up all the fish. The drift is a very short one approx 20mt.