TK01

Not sure exactly where the ventilation plate is at cruise, I'll check that out. It's been a bit of a muck around getting this sorted out and I've already dropped the motor on the advice of the designer of the hull. I'm not sure it was the right thing to do but he's the expert so I went along with it. He was very confident that the previous prop was the problem as it was a 4 blade 19" pitch (can't remember diameter but it was also large). I'm now running a 17" pitch 14.5" diameter vengeance prop. I'll probably lift it back up this weekend and see if I can grab a 16" with same diameter to test out.

When I say WOT I just mean full throttle. Max RPM at WOT is only about 5500rpm so I think it can drop an inch or 2. I notice it has a lot more trouble maintaining rpm when cruising at sea. So a smaller prop would hopefully give me a little more torque to fix that (I think). Regarding too much trim, I need to trim all the way in to stop the porpoising, which then means the steering becomes a lot heavier than it should be and top speed would be much lower than if I didn't need to do that. Things just aren't quite in balance I feel and something needs to change. The problem with lifting my motor one more bolt hole is that the top of the water intake will be above the keel which I think can't be a good thing. Then again at that speed maybe it doesn't make any real difference as the water would be forcing it's way into the intake. My old boat was a 5m quintrex so this is a lot heavier and a much deeper V than what I'm used to and it behaves very differently so I'm not ruling out that I'm still getting the hang of things.

Thanks mate, the boat is going well. It was pretty sloppy conditions on 3 of the 4 days. It handles the conditions well, but as with any open boat you get the occasional spray in the face in windy conditions. It's actually the handling in calm conditions that I have a small problem with. It wants to porpoise at high speed. I can stop the porpoising but too much trim is required and I'd like to improve this. Not much I can do in terms of moving weight forward as I've already done a lot in that regard. I rarely go to WOT so it's not really affecting me but still I feel it's just not right. Already have 80 hours on the motor since November. It's a great motor and very efficient but it's still over-propped. I've got a 17" pitch at the moment and I intend to try smaller one out. Less thrust could theoretically help with the porpoising too but we'll see. Other notes, I need to do something about securing my anchor in the anchor well as it has scratched a lot of flowcoat off due to the constant pounding. Will end up doing some damage if I leave it as it is.

4 days of fishing, Not a lot to show for it unfortunately. We caught countless Mack tuna and lost just as many other fish to sharks and pulled hooks. Finally my mate Andy got our only spotty for the trip today on our last drift before heading home. Scratchie, my mates longtail was not landed. He had it circling just below us and the hook pulled. yesterday we found some big kings that absolutely owned us. Managed to get one boatside which I estimate to be 15-20kg before it woke up and dived 30m on heavy drag to the bottom and reefed Andy. Hooked a couple of others that we didn’t see due to a reefing and the other got sharked. The shark got hooked and took off before jumping and cartwheeling about 50m from us and broke the line. It was huge! No wonder given the amount of fish they steal. It was a great trip but I feel the need to come back again soon to try to redeem myself.

Up here for a few days to explore and hopefully catch a few fish. Never fished Coffs before so I’ve been really looking forward to this trip. Pretty sloppy conditions today but we managed a few fish including the ever present mack tuna, a few keeper snapper and my first ever longtail. My mate also hooked one on his snapper plastics rod which kept him busy for a while. We struggled to find livebait today. Will try again tomorrow.

Great report scratchie. Your reports leave me scratching my head. I seem to do a lot of the same things you do but rarely get the results you do. You certainly inspire me to keep trying.

Ended up burning the extra cash and getting expensive ones purely because I’m going fishing Friday- Sunday this weekend and don’t want to take a break to fight the Saturday morning Aldi enthusiasts.🤣

Yeah but it will keep it going for a full 3 days fishing without needing a charge so well worth it IMO.

Thanks guys, I think it’s worth a go, but agree that getting in before the rest of the crowd will be the hard part. Xerotao it’s a 24V motor

Hey guys I discovered yesterday that I need 2 new 100AH batteries for my motorguide. Just by pure coincidence I saw today that Aldi has 100AH 12v batteries for sale this weekend for $199 each! Whaaat??? Could it be fate? How did they know? I don't mind the odd Aldi special buy but these things are about half the price of others so I'm wondering is it worth the punt or should I just pay the extra. Any experience with these? Cheers

Agreed. I have no trouble catching bait, it was just very noticeable this time that I would only get yakkas from the bait I was marking on the sounder, and I had to cast over the slimies when they came up to get into them. We got a heap of yakkas and maybe 1 or 2 slimies jigging straight up and down, but casting over the schools when they came up got us full strings of slimies.

Hi Fergo I'm new to the area and by no means an expert on marlin or where to chase them. I am actually hoping to get my first marlin this season and have had a few days out trying to no avail... yet! You seem a few steps ahead of me with how to go about it. With regards to slimies, there's a bait ground in close about a mile or so north of the river mouth. I got slimies there last week. It took a bit of time but I found that jigging straight up and down was useless as I only found yakkas that way. The slimies were popping up on the surface occasionally and a bait jig cast into the school was the only way I was able to get them, but it was very effective once I figured it out. Hope that helps.

Epic! I'm still itching to get my first marlin. I was trying to do that yesterday in the same areas you went by the sound of it. Eventually got distracted by the kings and all thoughts of marlin went out the window. Everybody around me is telling me the marlin are going off and I've seen a couple caught near me but I'm yet to get any interest from them.

Today was the first day that my busy schedule and the weather both allowed me to get out on the water for a proper day out fishing. Thankfully the fish played their part and I have finally managed to land some quality fish on my boat, hopefully the first of many great days out from my new home port. 3 fish landed on livebait. Also hooked one on a jig that busted me off. Kings were 95cm to 113cm. I’m the guy holding the smaller fish with the big smile.

Wow, how things have changed in the past 3 years! There have been many captures of kings including a lot of big 1m+ ones in the last couple of years. Pretty much everybody who fishes the waterway regularly has seen or caught them now.

Yeah it was very low when we were there last November. Almost no flow and we had to drag kayaks between pools, it was a lot of work when you do a 5km run downstream and drag a kayak for probably 3km of that. So different this year. It was actually flooded the week before we arrived and was on the way down. Only section I had to portage the whole weekend was about 20metres downstream to avoid a rapid that went under low hanging trees. Much more enjoyable.

Nice one! I would love to get one over 50!

Thanks guys Yes Fil we were in the Willawarrin area. There were a few taken on surface in the low light hours although I don't think they were hitting them with great enthusiasm at this stage. Small divers around 50mm, spinnerbaits and chatterbaits were all very effective.

Just got home from a few days west of Kempsey fishing with a few good mates and my brothers. The weather was great and the river was fishing well. Such a beautiful part of the world I almost forgot about the fishing at times and just admired the scenery. I did however manage to land 47 bass including my new PB wild bass @ 48.5cm. A few minutes after landing it I caught a 46cm fish! There were heaps of fish in the 40-45cm range too. We’ve been making annual trips to the Macleay for the last 10 years or so. I had been a little worried this time what the fishing would be like as there was a large fish kill just after the bush fires last year, but I'm pleased to see the river is looking very healthy with an abundance of life. Didn't see as many platypus as we usually would though.

The thing about tailor is they'll smash the bait and disappear before you get a chance to pick the rod up. So if you're not holding onto the rod and have a really light drag setting in the holder, you're going to miss most fish. I like JonD's approach and use the same 2 hook rig as he does. I set a decent amount of drag, say around 3kg, sit back and let the fish hook itself. You just need to make sure your rod holder isn't going to fall over. Not everyone agrees with this approach but it works for me and I like chilling out in a chair and not holding the rod.

Thanks, yes I remember Scratchie's report very well. Epic! I hope to have the boat well and truly finished by then. Give me a month and I should be good to go. Apart from the local spots I'll have Crowdy Head an hour to the south, and South West Rocks an hour to the north, and countless rivers and creeks to explore. All close enough for a day trip. I also love my freshwater fishing so there's going to be a lot of exploring to do.

That’s great, I’ll be in touch at some stage. Can’t wait to start exploring the area!

Hi all I’m moving to Wauchope at the end of next month. Keen fisho, don’t know anybody up there and just thought I’d shout out here to see if we have any Raiders in the area. Cheers Tim

I've wondered about this issue too. Is it possible to mount it right on the keel? I'd be very worried about hitting it on something but curious if it can be done that way.

Wow! What an amazing session