will_l

To be honest mate, probably fine once or twice but would not recommend it at all, thats why the fishing is good west of the bridge because a majority of people C and R. There are a lot of dioxins in the water west of the bridge. You should read this: http://www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/foodsafetyandyou/special-care-foods/sydney-harbour-seafood

Hi, i was just wondering if any people who have or have had a 445f can reccomend me what power is best for a bow mounted electric motor on the 445f. Will mainly be used in relatively calm waters around the Harbour however may also use the anchor features quite a bit when it's windy or strong current. cheers

Hi, Thanks for the reply! I'm not really looking to much at crabbing but more just flicking SP's for some flatties and whiting, so mainly looking at staying inside. Dont have huge range as I'm just using the standard red fuel tanks and with a 70 2s its not fuel efficient. Cheers

I have seen kings swimming off the rocky point in the middle of balmoral while catching yakkas. If you have a big enough rod I'd try fishing off there.

Hi, I'm going up to Tin Can Bay for 2 weeks at the start of feb for the first time and I'm towing the boat up so I can get in some fishing. Just wondering if anybodys ever fish areas around tin can bay and can give me some pointers on areas to try. Hope to just be flicking some soft plastics. Thanks, Will

Hi, Me and @nickb111 are terrible at fishing the harbour, so if you are still creating new stickers could we get one for the boat so other raiders can come and give us some tips when we cant catch any fish. Cheers

Hi, I was wondering if anybody had recommendations on who to use to get some work done on my fibreglass boat. Looking at trying to get a cast deck built in. Can go anywhere in the Sydney region. Please only PM me suggestions. Thanks a lot for any help!! Will

Nice fish mate, did you put the squid down with a sinker or let it float down? Cheers

Great. Will let you know how I go.

Ok thanks a lot Fabian. So I'll conect positive to switch board, negative to negative busbar and also the ground wire to the negative busbar? Also both positive/negative wires from sounder have fuses. Cheers

Hey Mate, sorry this is my first time wiring so sorry I'm a little confused. The wiring in my boat is really all over the place making it a little difficult. I have one battery for my boat that is for cranking + all electronics. This is situated to the back of the boat, and it has a positive and negative wire running up into the console. These wires are quite a heavy gauge and the positive and negative wires are separately connected to a little device similar to a busbar but they only have one tiedown/nut down (I'll call them a tiedown/nut down busbar) spot for the wires. So all my electronics, nav lights etc have their postive wire connected to the single tiedown/nut down positive busbar and their negative wire connected to the single tiedown/nut down positive busbar, with the thick wires also connecting to these, running back to the battery. There is also a 6 switch fuse switchpanel which some devices are connected too. So my sounder has its negative and positive wires which I will just connect to the postive/negative tiedown/nut down busbar's and also another wire which I will connect to the switchpanel. But the sounder also has a specific wire coming from a separate port at the back of it that needs to be grounded. However since this is a small fibreglass boat I dont think I have a ground, thus I'm wondering how it should be done. Sorry for the long post, but any help would be appreciated. Cheers.

Hi, When installing a fish finder, is it important to ground the power cables for the sounder? Its a 628 going on a smallish boat, with closest electronics being a VHF radio. Thanks

Mate I had this issue with my last boat that had a 40 lightning XR, its fuel. The fuel line was old and had a lot of gunk in it. Just bought a new one for $20 and it ran perfectly.

I had a look at the s2009, but cheapeast I could find (world wide) was roughly 1250. Had a look at all the other usual a bit more closely and still think 628 is the best, especially at the price I found... An Australian store: $930 (incl shipping) for 628 + p66 tranny... Might pull the plug on this.

Hi Jon, Yes P66 is Furuno. There is still around a $250 price difference between the U.S and Aus on this unit, with most Aus stores selling around 1280 mark and the from the U.S + postage, it can be had for $935. As much as I'd like to go locally the price difference can't really but justified. Cheers. *Edit* You know Australian prices are horrid when you can get a 628 from New Zealand for around $900. I might look at getting one from New Zealand

Hi, So I'm looking at getting a new sounder with a max budget of $1000. I don't need any maps so looking for a sounder + transducer combo that can produce high quality returns. I'd probably fish in maximum 200m of water and have no need for side scan. I already have a well mounted p66 so I'm thinking possibly purchasing a Furuno 628 from the U.S. If anyone has any other suggestions that would be very much appreciated. Thanks

This!!! I've had no trouble getting squid, but its been hard to convert!

Here is a guide from Garmin about adjusting your transducer that may help. "Test the transom-mount transducer installation in open water free of obstacles. Pay attention to your surroundings as you test the transducer. 1 With the boat in the water, turn on the chartplotter. 2 Drive the boat at a slow speed. If the chartplotter appears to be working properly, gradually increase speed while observing the chartplotter. 3 If the sonar signal is suddenly lost or the bottom return is severely degraded, note the speed at which this occurs. 4 Return the boat to the speed at which the signal was lost, and make moderate turns in both directions while observing the chartplotter. 5 If the signal strength improves while turning, adjust the transducer so that it extends another 1/8 in. (3 mm) below the transom of the boat. 6 Repeat steps 2–4 until the degradation is eliminated. 7 If the signal does not improve, move the transducer to a different location on the transom, and repeat the test. "

Extremely true. This will be the first transducer I'm mounting myself so I want to make sure i dont end up with leaking water issues.

Another good idea, do you think the sikaflex would be strong enough to hold onto the tranducer with the drag it will cause from a little bit of it being in the water? Cheers

Thanks, that sounds like quite a good idea, only thing is the bracket currently installed is pretty wide so I hope the Garmin bracket can reach across that far. Cheers

Hey Guys, I'm looking to upgrade my furuno ls4100 to a Garmin echomap chirp in either 5" or 7" but need a bit of help on changing over the transducer. I have a P66 currently mounted for the furuno so will need to take that off, leaving the screw holes. So I'm looking at which option would be better to replace it (this is on a fibreglass boat). 1) Fill all the screw wholes with 5200 FGJ620 and then mount new transducer as usual 2) Screwing in a thick piece of marine plastic (i.e king starboard) into the old screw holes and then screwing new transducer just into the board Any other ideas would be fantastic. Cheers, Will

Nice mate, know exactly where you went . I went on Wednesday arvo and lost 2 live squid to pickers there. Tried put them down just below the surface and they still got destroyed which was disappointing. Good to see the kings back there though!!

Hey Guys, I'm looking at upgrading my current monochrome sounder to a Garmin Striker as I dont have a huge budget and have navonics on my phone. I'm particularly looking at the 5dv, but was wondering how good the chirp clarity is? Does it pick up fish well, and have good target seperation at <100m? Is there a large difference in clarity from the echomap transducers over the striker transducers? Thanks a lot!

Cheers again guys, I hooked up a fresh tank of 98 octance I bought this afternoon and tired to kick the motor over, but unfortunately nothing. I drained the fuel line before starting as well. I messaged the mechanic and told him about the situation and mentioned the e10, which he now believes is the cause and he wants to check it out. I'll take it to him on Monday on the way to school. If he can diagnosis the problem as either my fault or his, he can order the exact genuine parts for me and I can have a go a trying to fix it up. Cheers for the offer ZMK I'll let you know how it goes and see if I run into any troubles. Will try to get this fixed asap as having e10 sitting in the engine does not sound good. Thanks again for all the help guys, really appreciate it. Will