aussiebasser

I had one in my Hornet, and fitted a better unit in my Stratos. One thing is, I've had three waterproof CD head units, big brand name, and all have failed. For the Stratos, I fitted a stardard auto Pioneer unit in a waterproof housing. It's hooked up to a 1000 watt JBL amp which is hooked to a pair of 6" Pioneer two way speakers and a 10" JBL Sub. The head deck features a direct iPod input so my 80 gig iPod sits in a phone holder on the dash. I'm about to fit a pair of 6" x 9" 3 ways so I don't have to run the amp all the time. I have a 70AH Deep Cycle battery which just runs the stereo, and the 9" portable DVD player. I'm also in the process of fitting a 19" LCD screen under the front hatch for night sessions at Awoonga. I've got some photos somewhere!

My XR8 ute had 19's on it when I bought it. Same size tyres as yours. I broke the first rim less than a month after buying the ute when I dropped off the ashphalt at 50kmh coming out of Awoonga. Spent $400 on another rim in Gladstone. I broke that rim last week when I hit a pot hole near Tamworth. The tyres were load rated, and I ran about 38psi in them. I've now fitted genuine 17" Ford rims because I don't trust the 19's. I hove only 3 19" Avanti's now so will be fitting them to the trailer under my next 12 foot tinnie. There's no way I'd trust them under the Stratos. I now have the two most expensive Garden hose reels in my street.

Hi RB, I've played with a few different types of foils, so I'll chuck in my 2 bob's worth. Stingrays have a very pronounced down turn on the trailing edge. My brothers tried these on a Savage Jabiru and an Horizon 4.1 and found the down force on the nose of the boat was too much at speed. The Savage was almost undriveable. On my Hornet, I tried both SE Sport 300 and Permatrim. I left the permatrim on because I fitted a Cav Plate mounted Minn Kota to the Merc and it was easier to fit with the alloy foil. Performance was similar with neither having any detrimental effects on the Hornet. My two brothers now both have fitted SE Sports. The benefits you will see are: Quicker onto the plane, Will hold plane at lower speed and not "bury the bum" and bog down when backing off. Will help in straight line tracking. Will give the boat more longitudinal stability at rest. This is because of the force required to move the foil vertically through the water when stationary. Try pushing a 1 foot sqare piece of plywood up and down under water and you'll see why this happens. My recommendation is to fit the SE Sport. If you do find a cheaper "Stingray" brand, you may need to trim about 50mm off the trailing edge to do away with the pronounced downturn. Hope this helps.

An easy way to resize pics, which works most of the time, is to email them to yourself and click the "make images smaller" option. In Explorer, right click on the file, then "send to" then "mail recipient". This brings most of my images down to size.

Hi Lukas, That last shot of the transom looks like you have a long shaft motor fitted to a short shaft hull. Any reason?

My new rig

As I said earlier, my Lowrance Ifinder Pro crapped out. It was just under two years old. I rang Lowrance and they said to send it back. They posted a con note to me and Star Track picked it up at Lowrance cost. Two days later I received a brand new unit to replace mine. Was crying about losing all my Wivenhoe, Somerset, Awoonga, Monduran and Faust spots until I turned it on and found that they'd saved all my way points and tranferred them to the new unit. Two years of research saved by the techno guys at Lowrance. Good service. For a sounder, I still prefer the Humminbird mounting system though.

1. Matrix is easier to remove from boat. (My last Lowrance was knocked off when I stopped for a pie, so I always remove them now.) 2. Side scan, great for fishing the river, and spotting fish out to the side. (Upgrade the 35 to a quad beam tranducer for about $20.00 at the moment.) 3. Easy to scroll between different views on the 'bird. 4. Upgrades are supplied if you register on the net. So your Matrix can acquire the latest features. Latest one was better blocking of interference from 'leccy motor and ghost view of large digits over screen pic. 5. You don't need to buy a swivel mount for the 'bird, I use a large RAM for the Lowrance. You need to be able to pivot the creen on sunny days to remove reflections. 6. Freeze screen lets u move a cursor back to a spot on your sounder and mark it on your GPS exactly. 7. Good service back-up, rarely needed, but in Brisneyland. 8. Dual frequency built in to the 'bird. 87 colour Humminbird is selling for about 1200 buck at the tittie and tickle, oops I mean tinnie and tackle show at the moment. With GPS fitted this is bloody good value for a colour sounder with a screen the same size as a 37 Matrix. A mate of mine bought one yesterday. (Further to the iFinder pro shut down. Lowrance may be fixing it under warranty, which will be good.)

I use both a Lowrance X135 and a Humminbird Matrix 35. They both offer different features which I use. The 'bird has a side scan which is great. The other benefit of the Matrix series is that you can upgrade them. Add a GPS module later on for a coupla hundred, a weather sense barometer and a Smart Cast, when you can afford them. I'd take the Matrix over the Lowrance. Here's a comparo pic. The Lowrance GPS crapped itself recently, and took all my Somerset and Wivenhoe marks with it, so I've added GPS to the Matrix now.

They be in Brisneyland, in Qld.

Get in touch with BLA in Hemmant. Aquarium Drive. They have a quick turn around service.

G'day Tony, Good to see there are still a few rats getting caught out there. Only joking, a great fish in anyone's book. The ABT Electric round winning bag from there was 4.52kg. The great news is that the ABT Electric Convention is being held at Wivenhoe this year. September should see the big girls come out to play, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a 5kg bag appear. Dale (Secretary, Somerset & Wivenhoe Fish Stocking Association Inc.)

G'day Evan, I use a Cortland 4wt Crystal tip Sink Tip line and I'm impressed with it. Up here in Sunny Hot Queensland it can be difficult to find a line that doesn't get "sticky" in the heat. The Cortland does the trick.

I had a good look at the new Haines at the Tinnie and Tackle show in Brissie today. Looks like the Aussie's are waking up.

The Hornet will ride softer than the Bass. Neither of the motors are state of the art, unless you are getting the US Merc 30. If it's a 30 Lite, it's a Tohatsu painted black. The Johno is still a twin cylinder that's been around for donkeys. See if you can get a reasonable price on a Yammy 2st, not the CV model, the 3 cyl job. A Honda would also be a good choice but will probably blow your budget out. Good luck with your decision making mate.

Yeah Matt is is difficult to see the difference between a Jackall and a Daiwa, but the noise they make is the big decider. The Bass on some of our dams up here have had Jackall dropped in front of them for a fair while and the completely different rattle of the Daiwa may pay dividends. I've had success with both, but the deeper rattle of the Daiwa, caused by larger ball bearings I'd guess, can wake the Bass up I think. Sadly, they both come with terrible hooks that need to be upgraded straight out of the box, which isn't good enought for a $25.00 lure. At least the prices are dropping now.

While we're all flogging the Aussie manufacturers, perhaps we should look at the market in Aus, compared to US. On lake Oroville in the states, on any week-end you may see 500 to 1000 boats. That's one lake on one day. In Aus, there may be 1000 boats fishing on a week-end on all our Bass Lakes combined, but I doubt it. Manufacturers need to get a return on tooling costs and R & D before commit to manufacture. With the Free Trade Agreement now in place with the US, have the prices of commercially imported boats dropped? We have a small market growing for Triton, Skeeter and Tracker now, will we see even more US coming in, Bullet, Bass Cat, Cajun, there are heaps of them in the states. The good thing is it may make the Aussie manufacturers consider building this style of boat, but I doubt they'll be profitable. As for the only "Tournament Ready" aussie boat being worth $38K. I'd suggest you go to more tournaments and look at the "majority" of boats entering. $38k is definately in the upper echelon of bass/bream boats. With regard to damage from racks for the salty guys, Mike Metcalfe's boat has polyethylene rubbing strips on the chines to protect the gelcoat. Pretty good idea and worth considering for the rackers.

I don't have the problem, but if I was offerred an ally core upgrade for $590 I'd jump at it. The weight gain and performance gain alone are worth the money. I got a price of somewhere in the vicinity of $1200 to do my 435 Hornet flooring with ally core. No, not from Quintrex. You bought the boat from a dealer, take it back and tell them to fix it at no cost! It then becomes their fight with the manufacturer, and not your's. That's why dealers have mark-ups in products, to fund providing the service to their customers.

Isn't Mike Metcalfe's boat an Aussie built job. Somewhere in the vicinity of 70mph. I've also had a bit of a play in one of these which should be getting around a bit soon. Couldn't fault it really. X-tream Stealth made in Aus.

Also found at the ABT Comp last week that my bow mount would only turn left, not right. Found this out a couple of minutes before the start, and everyone had fun disenurinating me about it. Neither the foot pedal or co-pilot would turn right. During a hissie fit, I promptly kicked the mongrel at the swivel housing. Percussive maintenance worked a treat and it hasn't played up since. Then the CD player crapped out and we couldn't get a fish with out George Thorogood serenading them. (Kicking didn't seem to help that!) Lucky I'd already bagged out.

I broke a Shear Pin on my Minn Kota RT at Awoonga last year, first day of a three day Barra trip. No spare, and the old one was corroded in from chasing Bream in the Rust Water. Ended up using rock as a hammer and a 4/0 hook shank as a pin punch. Found that the wire handle on my 2 gallon bailing bucket was the same size as the shear pin. Got me back out there for the rest of the weekend. Note: Always carry a spare Shear Pin, and regularly remove the old one and put some grease on it. Wouldn't want it to happen mid-comp.

Perhaps we should have a $ for $ comparo. Let's start at entry level of abut $10,000. Oh, sorry, it's gotta be an Aussie. Go up one to a 435 with a 40. Bugger, Aussie again. What are we comparing here guys, Holden utes, to Cadilacs???

Here's a map of Faust. You'll find Barra around the blue area.

G'day LW, That is Lindsay Dobe, from Proserpine Bait and Tackle. A nicer bloke you wouldn't want to meet. He and his mate Jason are the guns on Peter Faust Dam. You will be impressed if you charter him for a day. Lindass has taken Barra from Faust every month of the year, so you should get to feel one of the monsters up there, getting it to the boat will be your problem though. Hope you have a great trip.

Hi Jaso, What setting did you have your Sensitivity on, also Surface Clutter setting will affect readings, especially of bait balls right under the boat. With the scroll speed set to maximum, you probably won't see an arch, you'll see lines though. The best bet is to turn it on simulator mode in the shed, and have a long play with all the options.