BaitDropper

Great photo there noel.. I fish with Rod's son, he's a good friend, fishing skills never fell far from the tree there, as the saying goes. But, some great memorabilia to be kept, for sure.

Glad no one was hurt, material things can be fixed or replaced.....

Incredible video, thanks for sharing. Some very big fish there. I've had only one good session on the cod, biggest was 950, like winding in a dead weight, but nothing as big as those in the video. spectacular fishing.

I feel for you Robbo, it seems to be happening in a lot of residential areas where there is a boat ramp. It can be very frustrating, Melbourne was a share nightmare for parking and wardens nailing you, without exception. We had to pay at all ramps down there, no free ramps and bugga all parking when the snapper season started, once the car park was full, you just went home or took the hit for the pending ticket. I agree with XD, residents would have been lobbying council to do regular inspections, for sure. A good warning to all tho.

Ohh, that is looking divine !! Just had my salad sandwich, Then had to see that...... 😁

Hi James, As I've mentioned, my engine stays on without being switched off, the whole time I'm out, Which could be for 2-3 hours or a month or so back, I was on the water for near 7 hours. The blue seas switch system, technically, means I can switch over to battery at any stage through the day without having to turn the motor off. I like to run off both batteries at some stage during me being out and generally do it half way, as I think you mentioned yourself doing, just to get some charge into both of them. So the system itself has huge benefits, not having to kill the engine to switch to your second bank, to me, is beneficial and if you think about it, COULD save any engine restart issues. The fact that I can do this, without causing alternator issues, to me, is a big safety factor and one I'd rather have than a switch system without this safety feature.

No, not the powerful ones, the same one I have, a mate fitted to his, its like an airport landing light !! It reflects perfectly off ali boats. I mainly went out on night fishes out of St Kilda, this is where all the " Illegal boat people "😁 used to go out from, they would sit right in the channel out, or straight out up to 1 or 2 Km from the marina entrance. And I'm talking small tinnies with 2 or 3 blokes fishing. They seem to clean it up for a while, but they would soon turn up again, it was dangerous, there was no way you saw them until you were right on top of them, I heard many a blokes chatting about near misses and from memory one larger boat went clean over one about a decade or so ago. Spotties can have there uses, but like everything else, need to be used sparingly and for safety puposes. Even following another boat in with one of those LED strips on there rocket launcher basically blinds you, so in general, dont use driving lights !! but for safety situations, spotties have there place.

It's a debatable topic, front spots, I definitely have experience from absolute idiots using them full time while motoring at night, nothing worse than those who feel the need to have them blaring, you actually see better with out any lighting. I actually bought a decent spotty for the rebuild and have it already wired ready to install mine if/once I get a bracket made. But in all honesty, I don't think I need it now. In Melbourne, I had numerous close calls, with idiots in tinnies, a couple of KM's out, anchored, with no anchor lights, it was fair frightening when coming back in at night and a tinnie appears right in front of you !! I was adamant, as most of my friends did, was to fit one for pure collision prevention, when just out from the marina's or ramps, They actually sit there, and are completely blind to those coming back in after a night fish. One instance we were coming back, I missed one by mere inches, near ran right over the top of him, the swell was up and seeing them was at the last minute, a frightening experience. We always radio'd it in, but it changed nothing, they were always there, risking everybody's life. Where I am now, I haven't had such an issue, but port phillip bay, is full of the night time idiots...

That's some nice lawn Pawn going on there mrsswordfisherman... Noel, the new place we have now, was really confusing, the previous owners, spent a fortune on the gardens 5-6 years ago and from what the Neighbours told us, never touched it again.. I've taken near 4 tonne to the tip so far, pulled out plants that should never have been planted and removed every vine known to man !!.. I'd take some photo's. but everything is still pretty much a mess,, went out to berry nursery yesterday for another load of new plants/Trees, we are getting there and we know we will be happy with the eventual outcome. But Yep, some people should just have lawn and probably pay someone to mow and have no business being in the garden 😁.. The wife isn't really what I'd call a hands on gardener, a good critic being a designer, and enjoys the daily vegetable harvest but doesn't really have that green thumb. I find it therapeutic, although a few curse words have been muttered thus far on the journey, but we are seeing the progress and we see the light at the end of the tunnel, we know that all the hard work will pay off at the end. I'm sure you'll enjoy the challenge of making your new garden at the new place, it really is a great feel good admiring all the hard work and effort..

I run 2 standard batteries, not deep cycle. As Dunc sais above, swap over during the day, or you should have a " both " alternative as well. I run a blue seas Battery switch, There quality products, after the above chat, I rang the blue Seas supplier ( a Marine electrical shop ) and he confirmed that their Battery switches CAN be switched between Batteries while the engine is going. I haven't really done this as yet, but the technology allows for this. As far as deep cycle batteries go, I understand the general reasons behind this, but as a day boater, my engine basically is never turned off, I don't really anchor much at all ( I have an anchor winch ) So basically, I felt I have no need for one battery to be a deep cycle. I did have the set up in my bigger boat, years back, but we would spend 3-4 days away, different scenario. So if it were me, a day tripper, I don't see the need ( I'll probably get shot down for that 😁), But, that's how I roll..

We've all done it I guess, had a boat with a tow vehicle that was less than adequate ( back in the day ). yesteryear, the old Falcons and Holdens were the prominent choice of car for the average bloke, nowadays, with the switch to FWD, it makes things a tad more difficult. I've had my days in my 4WD, unhooking my boat or trailer and pulling a boat off the ramp ( even off the beach ) for a " Well intentioned " boater, batting well out of there league with the tow cars being used. No matter what ramp I'm at, when retrieving, I'm in Low 4WD, it's just habit, couldn't imagine at some of the ramps trying to use a front wheel drive car.

How much lawn have you got at the new place, compared to the old place ???

Sorry, off topic here Noel..... Fab, Yes, definitely looking at a Pgr, But, weed eradication is first priority at the minute. Old bloke across the road, was ready to rotary hoe his lawn up in an attempt to get rid of the Riccardia, but I've held him off until we see the results of this new Herbicide.. Don't normally like the heavy use of herbicides, but it's a last ditch effort for us now. The " Quest for a decent lawn" continues 🙂

I couldn't tell you the hours I've put in on lawns since being here, I quite enjoy it in all honesty, although having 3/4 acre to do, especially with the growth we are getting at the minute, is getting tiresome. Mowing every 4-5 days at the minute. Nothing is better than sitting back next day and admiring a nice mowed lawn,, However, currently going thru an infestation of a weed called Riccardia in the area, a shocking invasive weed that's ruining many lawns in the area, so the past month or two has being heavily spraying to try and eradicate it.,,, But on all accounts, mate is surprised and impressed with his elecky mower on his smallish block he has now, I guess if you've already got a mower and whipper snipper, probably no reason to spend money for the sake of it, he left all his mowing gear with the house he sold, so he made the change...

A mate has just down sized and moved to Brisbane area, having had an acre for the last 25 plus years, the standard self propelled mower and ride on were staple for use. He now has a small block, dunno the exact size, haven't visited yet, but got a call from him after he bought one of these eleckie mowers and he was super impressed. Said he has about 20 minutes of mow time now, barely, and he had nothing but praise for the job it did and how powerful the elecky mowers are. So for that smallish lawn, it sounds like the way to go.

The trick to finding/fixing leaks is to go through an elimination process. Firstly, I would sit in side the boat, while someone uses a hose over the white light fitting and try and create the leak there first, only put water on the white light fitting, not the windscreen If indeed you find one there, that should be simple enough to seal up. As far as the front windscreen goes, sealing up the bottom could have a detrimental effect, creating a swimming pool effect, I would say, underneath the aluminum, it will have screw fixings, unless it's only held in by Urethane ( which I doubt ). Same with the side window, just having 2 screws doesn't help, for sure, but depending how its fitted ie, urethaned in, if the seal has broken, it may very well be better to remove it, add a couple more fixing screws and re fit and re seal again. But again, by eliminating potential leak points as you go, is the correct way to do it in my opinion.

What a great write up,, thanks for sharing. You were/have certainly kicked some goals Congrats

Noel, the home for you and your family will be where ever you and your wife are. Yep, sounds like you have a great set up at present, but the new place ( if it goes thru) will end up being exactly the same. Your kids and grand kids will still turn up, the food will still be a plenty and the only difference will be a different house,,,, It's not the house that makes the family gatherings the way they are, it's the people/family. Just do your due diligence, which I presume you already have ??, have your real estate agent all ready to go to get your existing place on the market and moving ahead with your selling plan. Set your self a realistic target, of what you'll accept to move the house on,, Don't do what some of the clowns do on those real-estate programme's and hang out for that extra 10k on the sale price 😁.. I'd be on the back of your real estate agent right now, prepping them and getting them phoning their special lists of potential buyers, even though it's not finalized with the new house yet,,, I'm sure you've already actioned this. The trouble sleeping, the stress and nervousness is all par for the course unfortunately, no real remedy there, Just don't let it get on top of you. As stupid as it sounds, telling yourself all will be good and remain as positive as you can, really helps !! The last thing you want/need is your wife feeding off this and then backing out because of the stress its causing you. It's not easy Noel, but keep reminding yourselves why your even considering such a move. Ours involved, selling a house like you, closing down a business, selling a factory and moving interstate !! I had all the same feelings and stress levels as what your getting . So tell yourself, Jeez, it could be a whole lot worse for us !! And, do I really want to do this in another 10 or 15 years ?? . Things have a habit of falling into place.. We were originally going to rent out my factory, which was our plan. I phoned the real estate that I bought the factory off the plan, to organize a renter, they came and sussed the place out, a few days latter, they phoned and arranged a meet, they presented me with a buy option, which turned out to be the highest $ per sq foot sold in the area, I wasn't even signed up with them to sell, we couldn't refuse the offer. Your real estate agent, if he's any good, will probably have a list of potential buyers wanting to get into the area, alot of sales are done this way and by the looks, your current place would fall into the category of desirable places to live. Interest rates have certainly effected the market, but those that can afford the top end, generally aren't chasing huge mortgages, as we found out selling our house when the market was. cooling. My only other piece of advice, is to not just use one agent at the start, play them off against each other, make them work for that exclusive contract. Everyone has a regular or a friend in the real estate industry and a lot of times, that can be detrimental. We went with an out sider from the area, because of how keen and motivated they were, it Pissed the agent off that we had been using for properties for 10-15 years, but the short marketing campaign that they used,, was much more aggressive than the others and they came up trumps.... You've got a lot on your plate, don't envy you, but keep positive.

Ok.. I fully sympathize with the " nervous feel " It kinda runs with the situation. If it's meant to be, it will fall into place, But Yeah, times like this certainly raise the BP 😁.. We decided to turn down the offer from the real estate that knocked on our door, decided that we would take it straight to auction, huge gamble, we could have lost the original buyer. But she turned up, plus other interested buyers and drove the price up another couple of hundred Thou, so it was a good move for us, BUT, Jeez we doubted ourselves and while sitting inside listening to the live auction, was a whole gamete of emotions.. Think positive, don't think any further ahead than you need too, secure the new house first, then take everything as it comes, with so much more equity in your existing house, there's wiggle room to move if you have too. Hope it works out.

Congrats on your " potential " new move Noel. I'm a firm believer that, Everything happens for a reason, It does sound exactly what you are looking for. 2 Years back, life was normal for us in Melbourne, until a knock at the door from a real-estate agent saying someone is interested in our house, 2 months later we were homeless after selling for a ridiculous amount of money, had an idea where we wanted to go, but the borders were locked down with Covid. Again, everything happens for a reason, we were bunking in a bed and breakfast, desperately waiting to travel north, borders opened, we dashed up here, and bugga me, the first place our agent had lined up for us, we knew was " That perfect place" . This was after 2-3 years coming up this way Looking. We had a real estate agent on the books for us, been dealing with him for about 12 months, he new what we exactly wanted and he came through for us, ironically the day after the borders opened. We saw properties come on the market and were un able to make an offer due to not being able to inspect,, At the time, they told us that 50% of properties were being sold, sight un seen and only off internet walk throughs !!! Jeez, we couldn't bring ourselves to ever do something like that. but plenty of buyers did. Your potential purchase, being by word of mouth or knowing the sellers, makes it even better, getting in there without it going on the market is absolutely brilliant and would have saved a whole heap of stress which normal buying and selling brings. We didn't down size, in fact we went bigger, but because gardening and landscaping is one of our/my interests, 3/4 of an acre of garden area is brilliant for us. Everyone's different in what they downsize/upsize too, the main thing is that it fits your lifestyle, until the inevitable rest home period of our life becomes a reality.. Goodluck, hope the deal comes through for you.

Well, we see that some of the KIwi Kings actually head over here on there journey, So the only thing different, from what I can ascertain, is that it's just the conditions and habitat. While I haven't targeted Kings much over the last 20 years, the occasional outing at Eden always seemed to produced after a day out on the billed Variety, I'm sure in the future, king numbers will increase, as they seem to be returning now in Victoria, after years of trapping. It's a funny thing, same fish, in fact exactly the same fish when you look at Mike's Post, it has to be conditions and habitat. In a couple of weeks, I'm actually flying over the ditch for a quick catch up and holiday with my NZ half of the family,, Pryor to booking the tickets, organizing which day was best to head out for a day on the kings was confirmed. Of course, it's hard to look that far forward with regards to weather conditions to get to the areas we hope to go too, but here's hoping !! ☺️

Yeah, Great stuff So good to see knowledge being passed on, but also being received by the willing...

Google up Alan Tani stradic service, or similar, I'm sure he has done review on them, he is a good source of info on most reels and a top bloke. Most of those spinning reels, once you have done one, if you pull up a schematic of the particular reel, there pretty basic to service them

I find it quite amazing when Tagging records are revealed and incredible migration distances are revealed. Yowie, we quite regularly caught Kingies of a night, this was in NZ, especially while dangling a live bait while anchored overnight. It would be in a sheltered bay, anchored up, while we slept. We always left Livies out with generally one keeping an eye while others slept, Whether they were attracted to the lights, not sure, but once one bait was taken, quite often a great Kingy session would be had during the night hours following. They can be the most finnicky feeders and quite often follow lures/jigs right to the surface just giving them a nudge then turning away. I used to target Kingy's quite a bit and one thing was definitely certain, that nothing seem to be certain with them. Our best ever session on the kingy's was in the wee hours, which was out wide on the east coast on NZ, a place called Major Island, where 3 monsters were landed ( I missed out ) but they tipped the scales at an average of 35 plus Kilo's, even though I wasn't one of the lucky ones, it was exhilarating watching others in battle. So they definitely feed at night and the larger ones seem to travel in packs. I think it's a marine reserve now where we used to anchor up..

My first boat was a 13ft 6 Haines variant with those back to back seats, Same problem, I would basically sit on the back rest of the seats to get up higher to have more leg room. You'd be sandwiched in there like a Sardine. Seems the seats they put in now are no better for someone of above average height or size, which can and does make the experience very frustrating, so definitely no Flaming here with your question. Now with my current boat, I rarely even sit, have one of those bolster seats with a flick up bottom so it can be used as a support to lean on, which is what I do 90% of the time. If that's the size of boat your looking at, I suspect you will have that issue regardless, BUT I'd be looking at modifying what ever you bought, I'd be flicking that pedestal and setting up something more comfortable and practical so you can at least be comfortable while motoring. There will be a solution, for sure and its an unfortunate thing we boat owners experience and have to go thru no matter what type of boat we buy. They sure do look pristine sitting in the show room, but in practice, not so much. I fished with a mate, that wasn't a tight turning circle, he tipped the scales at around 140kg and could barely squeeze his XXXX into the shocking bucket seat that cruise craft supplied as standard, THEN, when he eventually managed too, I would see the floor actually moving as we travelled at the base of the stupid pedestal 😁, of course I never ever mentioned anything at the time, when I finally did the rebuild on the boat, the 8mm Masonite floor was found and the reason for all the movement. It was still alarming to see it. Maybe, you allow for ripping out the drivers side Pedestal and fitting up a half type fiberglass seat box, ( also good for internal storage ) ,, Position it for your leg length, along with allowing for fitting a better seat higher, which will also help with overall leg room ?? Just an Idea !! Will of course depend on the actual boat you end up buying, but there's a solution for everything I believe, or at least one that will improve your experience.