kingfishbig

Actually happened to me. A seal was trying to steal a big trevally off my line when a 10 ft long bronze whaler shot out from under my boat and went for the seal, both disappeared, and i got my fish.

NZ waters have somewhat higher primary productivity than Australian waters. They are not actually less fished, NZ has twice the fishery of Australia despite having a much smaller EEZ. Another difference is that the inshore waters are less diverse than ours, ie fewer no of species.

Kingfish nos and sizes seem (anecdotally at least) to be improving under the current rules. Also there is no convention that legal sizes must be at or above spawning size for the fishery to be sustainable. There are other limits like bag limits for anglers, limits on commercial fishing like the number of licences, gear limits, trip limits etc. Size limits below spawning size do confer some protection and will mean more fish reach spawning size than if the limits weren't there. PS: I think you will find that the rec take is similar in size to the commercial take for kingfish in NSW.

Well water resistant might be a better term, some are just more resistant than others. I have got the drag wet on Shimano's a couple of times when they got a heavy dunking of water. The old Everols were very vulnerable to water as the drag was uncovered. I think the old Internationals do have some sort of cover over the drag that might give some protection but not as much as the Shimano's. The drag washer might be asbestos (bonded) on your International so I would use a bit of caution when dismantling it. Alan Tani's website would be a good place to look for tips.

Yep, Shimano were first to come out with the first waterproof lever drag with their TTS range. With older designs like your Penn heavy spray while trolling or leaving your reel in a rocket launcher will render the reel unusable until you dismantle it and dry out the drag disk.

The drag won't be as waterproof as the Shimano's you mentioned. You migh want to use the shower cap over the reel trick when trolling.

You will do better in Botany Bay when the weather warms up in a few weeks. You should get flathead at the spots you mentioned, though generally you want to reach the deeper water over the drop off. So you can use the groynes to get out deeper or wade out at low tide from the beaches. Don't be afraid to use large (4'') lures for flathead and upping the leader size to 9 or 10 kg.

I heard that too, but also that the refiners (or maybe it was the oil makers) have adjusted their formulations and it is not such a problem now days. I also heard it's better to use synthetic or semi synthetic oils with premium or high octane fuels.

The energy content should be the same regardless of octane rating, all other things being equal. Octane rating is a measure of resistance to pre-ignition or pinging. So a higher octane fuel will have a higher activation energy or resistance to burning but should still have the same energy content. It may be possible though that a premium fuel might be blended to give more power as different chemical bonds release different amounts of energy when burnt. Ethanol has a lower energy content that petrol hence the often reported drop in economy with E10. Another complicating factor is the use of engine management systems on cars such as knock sensors. If the system has detected knocking on a low octane fuel and adjusted the timing or turbo boost or other factors then performance will probably be boosted with a high octane fuel Outboard motors don't generally have knock sensors apart from a few new models, but if the system is calibrated for low octane fuels than using higher octane fuel won't boost performance.

If you have water in the carbies (or water ethanol mix) it might be hard to start the motor. Your mechanic should be able to dry them out using compressed air. PS: outboard motors are low compression engines. To get any benefit out of high octane fuel you need a high compression engine.

Standard or 91 RON (ie ethanol free) is probably the best choice. The higher octane 95 and 98 fuels will lighten your wallet without conferring any benefits. Outboards are designed to run on pretty low octane (usually 87) so that they can be sold worldwide

I'm not sure it's a good idea to remove part of the structure like that. Not only could it weaken the boat, I'm not sure what is to be gained. You can sit on top of this section if it's calm, it creates a dry area to store equipment and it goes some way to keep spray and water out of the boat.

The diet of mulloway is varied and includes a lot of other things besides prawns, The prawn catch on the Hawkesbury has in fact been remarkably stable for the last 17 years. The effort, size and age structure has also been monitored by Fisheries, again no indication of over fishing. It would seem a bit far fetched to think that taking of prawns has effected mulloway nos adversely.

Walk into a tackle store and ask for Hawkesbury squid or prawns and I'm sure they will know what you are talking about. That's how they are caught (ie trawling). In this case commercial fishing and rec fishing work together (the bait industry). In the case of mulloway they are a by catch (juveniles) from this activity. Steps have been made by NSW Fisheries to reduce by catch along with restrictions on commercial take and an increase in legal size and a reduced bag limit for anglers.

Quite right, though a light towing weight is also important to some people. Bar Crushers and Surtees boats with their flooding keels and fairly deep deadrise seem to go someway towards giving the best of both worlds.

One major flaw with that is that the conditions might worsen once you get out there (ie the 12 mile). If you are going to do that sort of fishing perhaps use a boat suitable for the sort of conditions you might face. PS: you can do just as well in terms of fishing results within 2 nm of the coast.

I don't think it's a good idea. That far out from land the westerly wind can whip up a nasty chop and you will have head straight into it to get home. Your boat is a bit too small and on top of that it is a pressed tinnie which will not handle those sort of choppy seas very well owing to it's shallow deadrise and light weight.

It depends on the brand. Some can be towed using the built in lock but with some makes such as Suzuki the lock isn't strong enough. I'd check the manual and with the dealer. I wouldn't tow just using the hydraulic rams.

The good thing about epoxy is that it penetrates the wood a bit. It's important you treat all of the wood though in including screw holes as it won't dry out if water does get in. Another way is a process called sheathing where you fiberglass over the wood with epoxy resin and an epoxy compatible matt or cloth. It's more time consuming than just painting something on.

You could also finish up by coating with a 2 part marine epoxy paint which will be compatible with the Evadure.

You might end up anchoring as anchoring and burleying and fishing floaters is very effective for snapper. In any event you will need at lot more anchor rope for safety reasons. If you motor breaks down you can at least stay put and not be at the mercy of the wind and current. You need around 3x the depth in anchor rope length to hold bottom (more if it's rough). So I would suggest at least 200m of rope if you are going any distance offshore. PS: you will want an anchor chain about the same length as your boat and 2 types of anchors, ie a reef anchor and a sand anchor.

Plywood would be my suggestion. That's what most people use (and many manufacturers). It is cheap and easy to work with using hand tools. It is vulnerable to rot though if exposed to freshwater so you will need to protect it some way. You could try using a penetrating epoxy resin like 'Evadure' and follow up with a marine epoxy paint.