Cameron

The canopy on my Allison Fisherman 189 has become quite mouldy and I would like to clean it up, but am hesitant to do so using normal household mould killing products for fear of damaging the material. It has also shrunken to some extent, which makes it quite difficult to do up the press studs securing it to the canopy frame. Are there any products that I can safely use to clean up the mould and hopefully prevent it from recurring? I have noticed that time in the sun seems to allow the canopy to stretch out and makes it a bit easier to use the press studs, but is there some other method that I can use?

I have an old hand built rod built on an Ironglass blank, which will give you some idea of how old it is. I wish to completely rebuild it, including the removal of the winch fitting. It was put on using the masking tap/24 hour Araldite method and has stuck fast for many years. I was thinking of taking an angle grinder to it very judiciously, but if there is a better way I would love to hear it. Any thoughts?

I make my own floats for fishing off the rocks, which tend to be larger than the ones you use in the river. You can buy the canes that you use for the shaft of the float in some tackle stores. I use champagne corks for the main body section of the float, which I reduce in diameter by impaling them on a drill bit in my electric drill clamped in the vice on the bench, then set it going and use various grades of sandpaper to sand them down to size. You use the drill like a lathe. After making the cork the right size, I stick the cane through it and glue it in place with araldite, leaving a short section sticking out of the top so I can fit a drilled out short piece of thin dowel. Taper the top of the dowel down a bit as it makes it easier to push a piece of plastic tube on it (see further on). I fit appropriate sized ball sinkers to the bottom of the float shaft using araldite, after boring a hole in the sinker using a drill. You need to test float them to get the sinker size right. You can then fine tune the float by wrapping bits of sheet lead around the shaft above the sinker to get the floatation right. Too much float above the water is not good and will deter fish that might bite if the flooat cannot be readily pulled under. I then give the whole thing an oil based paint job. Strange as it might seem, dark colours seem to stand out well! I use these as fixed floats, using an appropriate diameter piece of plastic tubing from the hardware store on top and a short piece of flyscreen tubing ( the stuff that keeps the gauze in place) on the bottom. Put the line through the top tubing, jam it on the top dowel section nice and tight and then wrap the line several times around the shaft of the float below the cork before securing it with the flyscreen tubing on the bottom. You can then vary the depth at which you fish by pulling the bits of tube off the float and moving the float up or down as required. Sharpening the bottom of the float shaft makes it easier to fit the flyscreen tube. There is a certain amount of trial and error involved in getting everything the right size. The less weight that you need to use on the line the better; one small ball lead is fine. Don't weight the line to get the floatation right. Keep a few bits of sheet lead in your pocket to wrap around the float shaft if you need to adjust things while fishing. This system has worked for me over many years; my blackfish rod is a home made job from the early 1970's! If you need some help, send me a PM and I can give you a demo. My floats are no oil paintings, but they work!

I was planning to try a bowline; was that one that you tried?

Guys, I think I may have confused the issue by referring to the synthetic spectra winch rope as a cable. It is not a steel cable. I take it that I would not use wire clamps on spectra. I was thinking that all I might have to do was tie a suitable knot in the spectra to connect it to the new hook, but then I though that perhaps there is another method that is more suitable

The hook on my Spectra trailer winch cable is badly corroded and I am no longer prepared to trust it. The cable itself appears to still be sound although it is now a few years old. If I was to remove the corroded hook and replace it with a new one, is there a particular technique that I should use to do so, or can I just tie an appropriate knot to secure it?

I normally keep my boat garaged but for a few weeks I was planning to park it in the open. As a result I need something to put over it. I have used a tarp in the past for this purpose, but found them to be worse than useless. While I am aware that you can have custom made covers that do an excellent job, I'm not sure that I can justify that sort of expense for what is only likely to be a short time. I have seen off the shelf covers at around $200 or so and was wondering whether they were any good. Has anyone had any experience with such covers and can suggest any particular ones. My boat is a 5.8 metre cuddy cabin (Allison).

Once again I copped a hiding from the leatherjackets off Broken Bay last weekend. Nothing that I dropped over was safe from them. They were taking bait, hooks and biting off sinkers, often well back up the line. I am really interested in understanding what causes such a huge concentration of fish in one place at approximately the same time each year. Then again, maybe these holy terrors are rampant right up and down the coast at the moment. Can anyone throw any light on the science behind this phenomena? Do we have any marine biologists in our ranks? Knowing why it happens won't stop me using appalling language when it happens again as it surely will at some stage, but at least my curiousity will be satisfied

I am in the process of doing up an old rod. Normally I don't worry about underbinding runners but on this occasion as the original rod was underbound, I thought I would give it a go. Where I am running into trouble is getting the overbind thread to go up tight against the previous turn, because I think it is falling into the tiny gaps between the underbound thread. It leaves a tiny gap through which the colour of the underbound thread is visible. There must be a way of doing this, but to date it has not dawned on me. Is there anyone who can help

I have recently had a similar problem with my 115 Merc. In my case the engine would go down but not up. The problem turned out to be a part called a relay, which I think incorporates a solenoid, although do not trust me on that as I am not God's gift to outboard motor electronics. One relay is for up, the other is for down. Once the dud relay was replaced, everthing worked as good as new again. I am not familiar with the innards of your engine, but I can't imagine that it would be too much different from mine. The relays were fitted side by side, with wires going in and out and screwed to the block via rubber blocks to absorb vibration.

My son several years ago managed to crack the side wall of his 4144 a couple of feet up from the butt. Treading on them does not help much! I repaired it with fibreglass matt & resin and it is still going strong, without a sleeve on the inside. It does not look so great as I am not an artist in fibreglass, but it continues to pull fish. However it may not be as bad a break as your rod has suffered.

One of my mates had his trailer stolen from Church Point (Bayview Ramp) yesterday. I am not aware what sort of security devices that he had installed. He has had a bad run with this rig because he has not long had it back from being recovered by the police from a shed in Riverstone. The boat (Pacific #####) and trailer had been stolen from outside his house!

What sort of rope should I buy if I want a product that sinks when laying in the water rather than floating on top. It is needed to moor a boat off a river beach with a rope coming back to the shore that will not interfere with other boats. White silver rope seems to float particularly well. Is there one that sinks to the bottom?

My son and I are heading up to Port Stephens next week with the boat, to fish inside and outside and off the beach. Can anyone bring me up to date on what is doing up there at the moment. I am aware that the Marine Park boundaries come into force next week and so will have to take account of them, which puts much of Broughton Island out of the reckoning. Any ideas?

Pete, The anti backlash device screws in and out, so just tighten it up until the lead and bait falls slowly to the ground when you are holding the rod in front of you. Start casting from that point and back off the screw as you start to get the hang of it. I ran 18lb mono on mine Cam

Pete, I have one too and have only recently stopped using it on a regular basis, replacing it with a Penn 545. It was given to me for my 16th birthday and I am now 59. They were a pretty good reel in their day and were made in the USA. Mine saw a lot of use throwing baits off the beach and rocks. It has an anti backlash device which works quite well, although it does knock back the length of your cast a bit until you can develop an educated thumb on the spool. The drag on mine still works pretty well, although that might say more about the size of the fish that I catch than the quality of the reel!

Mick, Given that this is your first shot at beach fishing, then Flattieman has provided some sound general advice that should stand you in good stead. If you become addicted to fishing the beach, then it is worth exploring the lighter end of beach fishing, using beachworms as bait for whiting and bream. Catching beachworms is not something you learn to do in five minutes, but it is worth knowing how to do if you wish to become a good alround beach fisho. If you see someone worming on the beach while there, take some time to watch how it is done. You will curse and swear the first few times you try it yourself, but once you have the knack it will widen the scope of your beach fishing dramatically. You can then fish much lighter (say up to 6kg) on an Alvey or eggbeater reel, still using a 10 - 12 ft rod, but much lighter (say a 4 wrap instead of a 7 wrap that you would use when fishing 10 - 15kg). Another plus is that you can catch whiting all day, whereas many of the other varieties are a dusk and dawn proposition. Cam

Bashir, I can only agree. They are expensive for their age, which reflects their good qualities. There are times when I wish I still had mine, particularly when a school of surface fish erupts near me. They are a great platform from which to throw lures and very seaworthy for their size.

I cannot help you with the fibreglassing myself, but what I do have is a series of articles from F & B (Fisherman & Boating) magazine published several years ago, that shows you how to do it. If that is any help I can photocopy the articles and put them in the mail to you

I sold my 445F with a 60hp Mercury over three years ago for $10,000 and it was over 20 years old then. The price does not seem too bad to me based on my experience. They have attained cult status these days and a very similar boat is being sold new for over $25,000, using the old moulds. I would have thought 90hp would be overpowering it; 70hp to me is about all it needs, although it does have a deep V which needs power to get out the hole. Mine was a great little boat, but advancing age on my part saw me looking for a little more comfort!

There must be a general shortage of flathead this year. Have you seen the price in the fishshops lately? Over $30.00 per kilo for fillets! There was a time when flathead was everyman's fish. Nowadays they are the same price as John Dory. What is going on?

I'm not into trolling for trout myself, but a good all round brand that is worth a look is Scottys. There certainly are some cheap and nasty ones around, but Scottys gave gone the distance on my boat. Well worth paying a bit more for them.

Yes, on the Central Coast.

If you can manage it, try and fish change of tide at change of light. Its a general principle that seems to work in many spots. I'm not saying that it is the only time to fish, but I have found over the years that it is a time when the activity seems to be greatest, particularly in the estuaries.

Garie can produce the goods on the beach and rocks, but it is also worth exploring south of Garie as well, down through Era and Burning Palms. Some great rock spots down that way and you avoid the crowds.