JustJames

The first suggestion I would make is to remove some of the columns from your spreadsheet. Air pressure. For fish, it has to be irrelevant. The first 10m of water column weighs the same as the all of the air above it. A fish moving one metre up or down in the water column experiences more pressure change than the wildest atmospheric pressure change. Air pressure may be an indicator for something else, such as clear skies which may make a difference, but air pressure itself is not going to affect fish. Similarly, fish don't feel air temperature or humidity, so that's another three variables to remove. Removing extraneous variables will make it easier to concentrate on relevant variables. Humans are great at spotting patterns, even when they aren't really there. We are programmed to see cause and effect where none exist. Back when we were trying to survive on the African savannah, spotting the patterns that helped our ancestors score a meal while avoiding becoming one was a good way to pass genes on to the next generation. So we notice things that surround successful (and unsuccessful) fishing days and ascribe results to variables that aren't really relevant. That's why I have a lucky fishing shirt. That said, I intend building a similar spreadsheet for my trolling (ocean, not internet) in the summer months, so please don't interpret any of the above as peeing on your cornflakes.

That first pic, the portrait of Rosie is just gorgeous! Those eyes, the whiskers, the nose! The right dog is really just a bundle of happiness and joy added to the family.

I've also been looking into this. Early days yet, but my current plans involve a Weber BabyQ and a rod holder BBQ mount.

Well, you'd need a very long, thin plate. Those things look utterly prehistoric. If I ever caught one I don't know whether I would be pleased or terrified. Scratch that...I do know I would be terrified.

And of course, Sadie The Cleaning Lady (which will - rightly - require at least as much force)

Oh man, I am so-o-o-o looking forward to working through this. This is really my wheelhouse in so many ways! I am an immigrant to 'Straya (and never more proud than when Johnny Bairstow got stumped!), and a musician (guitarist, drummer and kinda singer) with a love of what gets called country music in Australia. (As far as I can tell country music in Australia means you once spent a few days outside of Sydney/Melb/Brisbane/Perth/Adelaide. Dogs hardly ever die and pick up trucks, ok, utes, are scarcely mentioned.) Check out: Sal Kimber and the Rollin' Wheel https://youtu.be/GhjhP2VTNtM The Audreys https://youtu.be/XneiEUFQbL8 For outrageously accomplished acoustic guitar blues, try Lloyd Spiegel https://youtu.be/k62SaHX2zMI I saw Kasey Chambers supporting the Eagles a few years ago, and she was delightful https://youtu.be/qdflARH06dY For fun stuff, check out Flight Of The Conchords (OK, they're kiwis, but still cool, and we can claim them because we can). Acoustic guitar doesn't get better than Tommy Emmanuel

Yep. Having just bought a new boat it's old clothes and porridge for a while but at some stage there will be an upgrade to something bigger and more up to date.

Sounder Skills 1 course is now $20, but the 2 course is ferocious expensive! I am not sure that there is anything in the 1 course that I haven't already learnt/worked out, and I am not going to be spending the several hundred for the 2 course. Until now I have been using a Lowrance Hook2 9 inch unit, but the boat that it is on is for sale, and I am about to get a boat that has a Lowrance Chirp 7 inch, both with their standard transducers.

Arches? What on earth are arches????? Nahhh...just kidding, yes I am using arches. Actually, I've been cheating. When I got the boat it had an old-tech black and white fish finder that does show fishes, so rather than rip that out and leave holes in the dash, I have that next to the Lowrance, and the Lowrance shows arches, but it means I get the older idiot mode finder and the newer one showing something that requires me to interpret. I troll at 5 knots/10kph which seems to allow my lures to swim well, and does will with catching bonito and the occasional king fish. Happy to hear suggestions re trolling speed too.

I've been running a Lowrance Hook Reveal 9. New boat has a Lowrance Chirp 7 (slightly older tech). I've looked at the Ryan Moody courses, which claim to be independent of sounder brand/model. My usage has been predominantly for trolling, and knowing to go back over spots that showed fish but failed to get a bite, and that has been useful but that seems a fairly basic and obvious use of the tech, and I think that I am missing out on stuff. But the thing with ignorance is you don't know what you don't know.

Hi Guys Like it says on the tin, does anybody have any recommendations for courses on how to get the best out of my fishfinder? Also, if anybody has any especially good YT vids that they know of, please let me know. Thanks.

Well done on all fronts, and only right that Whole Lotta Rosie gets her pic posted. @Mods can we make it a rule that if anybody mentions a doggo they are legally and morally required to post at least one pic?

BUT boil it in fresh water first or your budgie will get puckered lips and very thirsty from the salt!

This is the mostly step by step guide to changing the control cables on a Yamaha 2 stroke outboard, but I expect the basics will be the same for most outboards. Yamaha use the same cables for gear selector and throttle control. General observations: 1. Take your time. Rushing is a good way to make mistakes. Forcing things is a good way to break them. 2. Take pictures and label things. If this is your first time tackling this job (as it was for me), it’s all uncharted territory so leave a trail of breadcrumbs. 3. Start and finish fasteners with hand tools. A battery powered drill/driver is a great way to undo and tighten fasteners. It is also a great way to strip threads. Step 1. – Order new cable(s) To order new cables, you will need to know the length of your cables. If you are lucky, you may be able to find the length marked on your existing cables. If not, you will need to measure. I measured as follows: Remove the control and remove its backing so you can see exactly where the cables start. Measure control to gunwale Measure gunwale to start of the pipe that runs along the starboard side of the boat carrying cables various Measure pipe. Measure from end of pipe to stern bulkhead. Measure from stern bulkhead to end of control cable in outboard housing. Add all of these up, and round up to nearest foot to get a cable length. Note that new cables do not have ends, so you will re-use the ends of your existing cables. Step 2 - Disassembly. Disconnect the control cables from the outboard end and the control. This will entail removing the control from the gunwale. It was only on the umpteenth removal (see below) that I realised that I didn’t have to disassemble the entire back of the control, just the bottom section. The plus of removing the entire back was that I could check that the control mechanism was full of fresh looking grease. I am a glass half full person. When disconnecting take note of whether the two control cables have the same connectors to the controls. On my outboard, the gear selector and throttle cable end were different. If they are different, label them. Be careful removing the clips from the control end. On the Yamaha they are retained by E clips. So named because “Eeeeeee” is the sound that you hear as they go past your ear. See also F clips. Step 3 – Feed Cables Through Decide whether you are going to pull cables through from the motor or the controls end. I decided to pull cables through from the outboard to the controls. I joined both cables to the two new cables with cable ties and then wrapped in duct tape to make the join smoother for pulling through. I thought this was very clever of me, but it turned out to be not so clever. Pull the cables through individually. If there is another cable that has wrapped round one of the control cables, you will find that you can get so far, but no further. Before you start puling cables through, check that you will have clearance. A previous owner may have had a cable tie fetish, you may need to address other obstacles such as removing the trim piece where cables go through the bulkhead. Step 4 – Connect the new cables. You can measure any adjustment of the old cables, to use as a starting point. With the cables connected, check operation. Here are where you can learn from my mistakes. Check that the throttle is closing and opening completely and that you can change between neutral, forwards and reverse. Check that the boat idles and revs correctly and that the aux/cold running throttle works. Cables may not (ahem) work in the direction you think. You can check operation without re-attaching the control to the side of the boat. Do not ask me why this is important to know. Step 5 – Once everything is back together and neatened up, check that all electrics work correctly to make sure that you haven't broken anything. Reflections... In my case, I tackled this because I wasn't happy with the feel of my boat's controls. Interestingly, the old cables didn't feel noticeably stiff when they were removed but the feel of the new cables once installed was much smoother than the old ones. You can - apparently - lube old cables, but firstly, the cost compared to the effort involved is quote low, so once you go to the trouble of removing and re-installing, why not just install new cables? Secondly, opinions seem to vary as to whether adding lube will work in the longer term.

I have caught tailor right at the boat ramp. After an otherwise doughunt day, while preparing to tie up, sudden boils of tailor followed by frantic flinging of shiny metal lures and several tailor caught. I've also caught undersized snapper in the general neighbourhood (land based), bonito in Bantry Bay, rat kings off Yeoland Point and seen plenty surface activity in Fig Tree Cove when I haven't been fishing.

I made ceiling mounted rod storage along the lines of this. Quite straight forward to do and relatively inexpensive. One piece of timber has holes, and the other (closest to camera here) has an angled channel to the holes:

I know that some on here are fans of the y-type muffs, but it really shouldn't make a difference. The bottom of the motor is open both sides. I don't see how having twice as much water come in from one side is any worse than half as much water coming in from each side. What really will make a difference is how well the muffs fit. But as long as you have sufficient flow to ensure that the water level inside the leg is the same as the level when the leg is in water you're golden. Muffs don't last for over. As soon as the paint/coating on them is compromised by scratching or rust, they are on borrowed time. If anybody has ideas on why having water come in from both sides would make a difference, I am all,erm, ears.

Very important that the phrase "teabag the bait" should be acknowledged! Very well done.

Great thread! My fave - when it works like I want it to - is trolling lures behind my boat. The sound of a reel's ratche announcing a fish on the line on a summer morning is just heaven to my ears. I enjoy the sense of hunting for where I think the fish will be lurling, reading (attempting to read) the info on a fish finder and then finding a patch of fish is just joy on a stick, compounded when I send an SMS to SWMBO to say "sushi tonight!". Then again, there is an adrenaline rush in finding fish feeding on topwater and getting them on a Twisty. And beach fishing, even though it often involves lots of waiting for stuff to happen, has its own charm too. Generally not a fan of soaking a bait from the boat, but I am working on learning to catch bait and I suspect that fresh caught bait may change all that.

Hey Rebel, can you give us some more info on this lure...colour, size, and how/where you were working it. It's possible that your post may have caused me to order one, so I hope you are on commission.

The answer is a 'tradie' blue and orange shirt, bought from the German retailer known for its 'specials' aisle. Unbeatable! And as the orange has faded to near white, the shirt has become more and more deadly. The trouble with cracking the code is that you might report that at your fishing spot you consistently catch kingies on the runout tide, especially in the 3 hours after dawn on a full moon. And that "code" may well be accurate for your spot. The trouble comes with the over-generalisation, where I decide that the three hours after dawn on a runout tide with full moon is the code for catching kingies everywhere.

The answers so far seem to back up the point that I have arrived at. Please understand, nothing that follows is to be interpreted as me taking a pop at any person or any point of view. But we have had somebody saying that a loop knot is useful for heavier line classes, and somebody else saying that the benefit drops off on heavier line classes. These are both people who would outfish me every day of the week, but they can't both be right. The broader point that I am making is that we are in the realm of received wisdom, the stuff that "everybody knows that this is the way that it is". Even though that may not be the case. As fishermen (and women), we are a pretty bad bunch at this sort of stuff because as humans, we are good at spotting patterns. We catch more fish at full moon...or is it new moon, and at high tide. Or do I mean at low tide? So we see things that aren't really there. Worse yet, we mis-attribute what we see. If a certain location really does fish well at high tide on a new moon, we assume that other locations will fish the same way. And if I sound smug, I am not. I am the bloke who has 2 fishing shirts, one of which consistently fishes better than the other. And I know full well how daft that notion is.

I have been giving some thought to the Rapala knot, and have come to the conclusion that it can't do what it says on the tin. The idea of the Rapala knot is that, by leaving a loop where the lure attaches to the line, the lure is able to move more freely. But I don't see how this can be the case. When lure is being actively retrieved, the line is under tension with drag from the lure so that the lure is kept in one position against the line. The lure wiggles the whole line as it moves. I do not see how this is different to the action of a lure tied with a knot such as the uni (or other knot that cinches up tight to the lure). I tried to find videos showing a Rapala knot in action with direct comparison to other knots but couldn't find anything. So, is the advantage of the Rapala knot an element of faith or is there something out there to back up its claimed usefulness?

Saw a report this morning that said that the boat had been found, nobody on board. Be careful out there peeps!

Just saw this: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sea-search-launched-for-fisherman-missing-off-hunter-coast-20230615-p5dgs9.html If you're going offshore, log your trip and make sure people know when you expect to be back. The NSW Marine Rescue App makes it very easy to log trips.