JonD

The place I used is called KPS Marine. It was very easy to do, they have a template where you do side and rear photos and fill in the measurement requirements. You also take a photo of the old build plate and they got back to me the next day. They do the calculations of how much extra buoyancy you will need (if any) and can also sell you the exact amount if thats easier. You then have to send them a picture showing that you have fitted the new build plate and fitted the foam buoyancy. I was able to jamb my foam (12lt) up under the transom. You can go online and fill the application in without costing anything. The weight difference between my new and old engine wasn't much, hence why I only needed 12lt of added buoyancy. I also went from a long to extra long shaft engine using engine mount brackets which I believe can be used on engines up to 400hp. In regards to the difference the power has made, its quite simply make my boat far safer crossing bars, I can get up and go when needed. I had this grand allusion that I would be cruising at lower rpm using less fuel in the 22-26kts area!!!!! It does do exactly that but the extra power has turned me into an almost 60yr old rev head, if its not reving out at 40kts its simply not fun!!!!!....in saying that the economy is still pretty good even at full noise.

There was one tackle store which looked more expensive and less on offer than heading to a local tackle store. Maybe on the last day they drop their prices to get rid of stuff but certainly not the case on the Thursday. Did you go ? far less boats on offer to look at than any year Ive ever been, especially for anglers, yes there seemed a good selection of gin palaces. I enquired on a new sounder as mine has a cracked screen, with a boat show special it was over $400 more expensive than buying from the likes of any of the big suppliers. I had gone to buy one at the show but will get one at any of the 5 locals suppliers nearer home. A Dunbier trailer was advertised at a boat show special of $5700, however when I enquired when and where I could pick one up the price climbed to $7300. Not only was I disappointed, I also felt angered that sales people were trying to dupe customers with false offers.

Tourniquet, blood clotting bandages and bolt cutters.

I went Thursday, found it very disappointing after a 5hr drive. I believe the costs for exhibitors is extremely high which has put off smaller exhibits. As for the boat show discounts, I found the items I enquired on were way higher than shop prices. It will be my last visit to the Sydney boat show.

If you have reveal, vision or any of the other sea floor mapping charts that area is covered covered well. Some decent reefs very close as well as plenty around the island. You can get a free trial app of Navionics for your phone that allow you to use the sea floor surveyed mapping, its under the layers called relief shading. To buy the full app for your phone requires an annual subscription of around $38-$40. You can plan courses and set up a profile of your boat and average fuel usage which comes in handy if toy ever plan on longer sea voyages. The bar can be quite nasty, so be very careful. There are also shallow rocks heading pretty much from the bar to the island a few hundred metres out, so make sure you are aware of those. Heading back late in the afternoon with the sun in your eyes those rocks and reef can catch people out. Fishing wise, Ive found it hard to wrong from there but make sure you know the sanctuary zones. The ramp can be difficult at low tide if you have a deep v hull with any weight about it. The beaches fish well for jews if you sort out a decent gutter before dark. Wooli is one of my favourite places to fish but you can beach launch just to the north at Minnie Waters too. If beach launching make sure you know about tyre pressures and have a set of treds or maxtrax etc incase.

Thanks Zoran, thats something I used to use but hadn't been able to locate this section lately, great to have the link back to that specific section. Do you know if any of the paid ones allow for tighter ranges, such as river systems. Heading up north in September where I will be searching for river temps of around 28'c for Barra to be more actively feeding. Where I head the sea temp is normally ranging from 22-24'c which is tough getting Barra to feed but if I can find sections of rivers with hotter water I will check them out. From my base camp to river mouths is at least 50km one way before I head upstream, so knowing the temp before I head will obviously save time and fuel, which is extremely expensive to have dropped out on the islands offshore.

Don't get me wrong, like you I watch lots of YouTube music videos finding songs for my son to perform but gee those adds can be a pain. Are you using the free YouTube or the paid version ? I just use the free one.

You can most defiantly work with that unit, even be able to see bait and lures in 50-60m of water with tuning. Also the sidescan may seem small but if you are close enough to the screen and use sidescan for finding structure it can be very good. Once you find structure that looks good, switch over to traditional to search over the top of that structure. If you are searching for fish that are mostly bottom dwellers, you can set an upper and lower limit so you use more res of the screen just for the bottom part of the screen, like zoom but zoom simply magnifies where changing range upper and lower limits allows you to use more res for that depth. Search speed needs to be slow when looking for fish, yes it may show bottom and big patches of fish at speed but staying with a speed of around 5-6kh is the way to go. Using sidescan in side chop or swell is not going to give good results but by simply slowing the boat down and scanning in the same direction with the waves will greatly improve the image. With sidescan its your brightness and contrast that you will need to tweak to help make the image pop on the screen, also start off on a 3 or 4/1 ratio, so in 10m of water try 30-40 side width. Years ago I had a lowrance hd5 which I could easily see my lures falling to fish in close to 60m of water, the fish showed up as individuals. That was by using the limits set at 45 for the upper and 65m for the lower, which meant I used the full screen res for just 20m of water .

Gee that was a mission 😱 I struggle putting up with anything on Youtube due to all the adds. There are numerous music streaming apps which at her age Im sure she already has the commonly used Spotify etc. There's a free app called "radio garden" which plays radio stations from all over the world and you can also search certain years for stations that play the likes of 60's-70's etc. The radio signal being via satellite is actually clearer than listening via local aerial signals. I can listen to local Sydney, Melbourne, Brazil, Paris etc etc stations live through the app, there are thousands. She should be able to find her local Irish radio station and listen to what they are playing, in fact Ive listened to a few of the Irish stations in the past. She can bluetooth to the car radio and introduce you to her local stations from back home etc. When you open the app there's a globe which you can zoom in on and move around. The globe is covered in green dots, clicking on these opens that station.

A 7 is pretty small in size and res 800x480, so obviously will be a struggle for wide scans and deep water but still quite capable when setting manual limits and gains etc.

I paid for the Ryan Moody 1 and 2 sounder skills a couple of years ago, he puts very informative well presented video together. Most of his tutorials are based more on shallow water. These have now gone very expensive. Garmin do some very good Youtube tutorials which go for 30-45mins and cover a fair amount on getting the most from the units, which can be related to any brand really. After paying for any piece of equipment and not taking the trouble to learn how to use them well seems crazy to me. I hear people often going on about sidescan being a gimmick etc, which makes me chuckle to myself. The tools and adjustments within them will make a huge difference to understanding structure and what fish are holding on them. There are some very basic things that even seasoned boaters neglect to do simply because of years of doing things a certain way. Understanding frequencies of transducers so you know what to use for certain depths or widths. Resolution also plays a huge part, with higher res head units and higher frequencies to show fish in detail. My low 260khz will sidescan in over 120m of water and show reef, though some will tell you they are only any good for rivers. Im constantly searching YouTube as the more people use their units and the more firmware updates that come out there are often little tricks you can add to helping your own bank of knowledge. What head unit and transducer are you using ? I have three transducers and would fit more if I had space for them.

All the best spots tend to be the sharkiest, funny that!!!!!!.....got good numbers of lobsters last week at another spot where you really need to have eyes in the back of your head. Heading up the top end soon, where I dive a few river mouths in extremely sharky areas, where Ive been on the menu before with large groups of sharks. Its best to go in and not hunt anything up there and they tend to leave you alone then.

In the past Ive been able to use sites that allow free water temp chart viewing which was a few days out of date but good enough to get an idea where to head. Now it seems difficult to find any free water temp info without signing up for apps which can be difficult to back out of if you don't like them (bit like changing phone carriers!!!!!). The fact Im not a hardcore game fisher and only chase the bigger stuff occasionally I wasn't looking for all the bells and whistles of the $12 per month subscriptions. The Bom site is ok but seems to cover the whole country with one basic sort of average.

No, not really, my wife contacted hime when he was 1hr late to find he was just leaving Canberra!!!!!!....three hours away with traffic. It seems to be how the majority of people are these days, Ive given up letting it bother me, hence why I have such a small boat and mostly fish alone😁

Unfortunately they don't import the clear diamond so I buy 1000m spools from Melton tackle. There's no right or wrong, just preferences that people have, this works well for me.

Wasn't sure where to put this given its not a fishing report, though I did feel like bait for something big and nasty!!!!! So I was asked if I could take a the partner of my wife's best friend new to snorkelling out for a dive with the seals as he couldn't find any charters doing the trips this time of the year. I must admit to not being overly keen given how cold the water has turned and I only have one cold water suit but I committed to saying I would take the fella. The 9am start went to 10am then 11am before the guy finally turned up at 1pm just as the wind started to blow!!!!!! With just myself onboard I don't mind working through chop and gunning it from A to B but with someone who doesn't boat I had to take it easy. Even at the ramp is easy to see the water had turned mushy over the last few days and sure enough once I got out to Montague the dirty water and the fact I was lending my cold water suit to the guest didn't inspire me. Jumped in with a sudden flush of cold water leaking in just about everywhere in my torn up summer suit, at least my guest was happy and warm!!!! The seals were incredibly excited to have play mates and this soon attracted stingrays and port Jacksons which had my guest beaming with excitement also. I had my concerns being late in the day in such poor vis so moved to another stop where again dozens of seals and even a green turtle came to check us out. Songs from humpbacks were amazing and must of been pretty close considering how loud they were. We only stayed in the water about an hour as I didn't want to push our luck to much give my daughter was forced out on her last two dives by a great white on the last one and a tiger shark the trip before. These are a few screen shots from GoPro footage, these almost didn't happen after the GoPro foot broke and the camera dropped 17m to the bottom which is about the max of my breath hold.

I use the same 50lb mamoi diamond clear which breaks at 82lb, no idea why they call it 50lb. I use it straight through without leaders on most fish. Some of my outfits have 50m+ while others only 5-6m of the topshot. For me its more about handling the fish when they are close from the shore, rocks or boat. When Im up north I pick rocks where they gently slope into the water so I can slide fish onto the slope. Topshot any lighter and it can cut into my hands, any heavier is to bulky on the spool and almost impossible to break if you need to on stingrays or sharks. 80lb works for me because I can break it if I need too but its still strong enough than I can land fish over 100kg with some care.

Are you targeting tuna with that outfit ? how much line are you getting on a 4500 reel and don't you find a 12ft rod back breaking on bigger game species.

Can't you see the head units on the dash from where you fish ? How wet does the back of your boat get ? most boats will be pretty wet and even though these units are supposedly made for this environment you will soon find water inside the connections and memory card door. Personally I think its mostly those who are sponsored who promote having these all over the boat. Not sure about the Lowrance but my Garmin is easy to connect to my phone or to a tablet but even though I can and have to try it out I don't bother on the water. My head unit is a Garmin 8410 and the usable screen is actually very small, like you I did have two units on the dash but dropped back to just one. For general running offshore I use a double screen, half traditional sonar and the other half chart. When I reach an area I plan to fish I dived the screen to three, tops half sidescan and the divided bottom to traditional and chart. When I find decent structure (even along the shelf using 260khz) I then drive over the spot using the two screen again to see if there are any fish holding the area. What Ive recently added is a dash mount for a Garmin 67i. This is not only a backup for when I do my remote trips but its a way of getting weather forecasts and two way communication anywhere there is sky above me (saves setting off an epirb if I have any sort of failure offshore). I have to say this is the best piece of fishing equipment I have ever owned when it comes to finding fish in shallow water and has paid for itself over and over while skippering a commercial abalone boat. The screen may be small but Im able to drop my main fish finder head unit to sonar and sidecan only or use the panoptics. The electronic compass in the handheld will instantly show true heading and leave a track for my drift, which is all I need when fishing on the fish.

Ive been using a 3 piece Shimano grappler travel rod on tuna and other tough fighting fish which would be my choice as these are easy to carry around or climb cliffs with, they cast extremely well and able to be used from rocks, beach or boat. I used mine to test it out on salmon from the shore and was surprised how light I could flick lures in the 40g up size. The rod was fun on average sized salmon but equally at home with my first cast from the boat where I landed a yellowfin of around 65-70kg. I took the rod to a remote offshore island up north with a group of friends who also bought a grappler each and we managed numerous species including tuna's, Spanish mackerel, very large travallies etc. Not sure is they do multi versions as I use an 8000 saragosa with mine. If you buy an overhead you may find it gets used very little in comparison to this outfit I mention and if you decide to sell it on your market would be far less that the spin outfit in my opinion.

Are you saying you want to catch pike 😱 normally they will hit just about anything you put in front of them even squid jigs. Like any fish though, they have times where they are inactive to feed. I fish a few spots where I can see pike and other more desirable species follow my lures but not take them, this can all suddenly change in an instance though when the feeding clock turns on. A couple of things to look into are barometric pressure and tide states, have a look at these links to see if they help at all. https://socialfishing.com.au/2015/12/01/the-weather-effect-pt-1-barometric-pressure/ https://www.oceanbluefishing.com/magazine/understanding-your-barometer-and-barometric-pressure/

Yes its just one of those little 10in ones for when its to cold to sit around the fire. Turning on the 12v electric blanket before I get in the roof tent is a game changer, uses very little out of the lithium battery and the sun soon has the battery back to 100% once the sun is up.

Quality catch, top day out. I was surprised how long you leave those fish on the line at the surface, could end up a bit messy if a mako decided to take one around the motor when helm master is running but I suppose that could happen just as easily on the way up. 3500rpm for just over 40kh is a good cruise, were you actually on the seamount ? I thought it was a bit further, or perhaps Im getting mistaken for our seamounts which are about 47km out. As for gentleman hours, mine start two hours after yours when the sun has warmed things up a little first!!!!!....in saying that the water is 14'c here at the moment and most of my trips have been in the water more than on it.

I like the talica reels, however you won't cast as far as you possibly will with a spin reel such as a big saragosa etc. Personally I would use at least 80lb topshot fishing from rocks. Are you hoping to cast baits, let them swim their selves out or drop them with a drone ?

4.3am is time to go to bed, not heading out on a cold morning!!!!!....Really though great report, surprised how warm the water is up there, with it being 14'c on my last two dives down here, not to mention dirty brown sludge in the water here.