aussie123

These are not schoolies, These are Grey Mackerel and a nice catch here boys.

Go offshore and enjoy yourself. Take some spare fuel with you and just see how much you use for the day so that you know for future trips. I think you would be flat out using the 70 liters for a days fishing because once out there, you will use bugger all fuel while fishing unless you go trolling. Sooner or later you have to try it so get out there while the weather forecast is really good and have some fun.

If they have the forecast right you should have a lovely day out there. The early Westerly will not bother you except maybe make the sea a bit jigly but that usually burns off as the morning warms up. The swing to the Northerly will be behind you for the trip home so won't be too bad, especially in your 5.2m boat.

Yes mate. Get the pot anodes with a wire coming out of each end and just twist each end onto your wire frames.

Anodes are a must Robbie if you want them to last a while. When I used to fish trap offshore, any traps without anodes would just dissolve away and the wire would just start to crumble and some bigger fish would swim straight through the wire. Definitely get some trap anodes on some and see if there is much difference with them.

See if you can find that wire or another suitable one that has been double galvanised and use an anode on each frame and that should slow down the corrosion a lot.

Are you not using Gal Wire with anodes attached Robbie?

Hopefully then you just flattened them with everything you did. I'd say you will be ok now knowing what actually happened leading up to this.

If nothing was definitely left turned on I would be looking into things Greg as you may have a dead short somewhere. The last thing you want out at sea is electrical failure or even worse, an electrical fire. Do you have an automatic bilge pump under the floor as they can be a cause of flat batteries if left turned on.

To have items in your boat that are only running led's and internal memories drain 2 batteries there is something seriously wrong with your wiring or with some item in the boat. Twin batteries should last for weeks like that before they are dead flat, especially if they are reasonably new batteries. I would definitely be investigating things a bit further to find out what has drained 2 good batteries.

Greg I had a chat with my manufacturer and unfortunately he does not have any options to build a mount to fit securely to that ski pole in your boat.

I m not sure if it is a setting Steve as I am not real familiar with the Garmin gear.

No Terry, only what is in the file.

I fixed the login/registration issue hopefully so thanks for letting me know Greg

The order came through Greg so thanks mate for that. I will check out that issue as it is a totally new website so there may be an issue lurking there that I have not noticed yet. You ski pole is a doozy so I will have a chat with my manufacturer and see what we can come up with.

We do not use clamps as they are generally not very strong. The attached image uses a section of tube that allows the board to drop on over the ski pole The squid go with the Esca Lights. http://www.reeltackle.com.au/catalog/Deep_Drop_Gear-452-1.html

That is good news Greg as I have not tested that file for ages now.

Hi Greg That one drops into your ski pole tube mounted in your boat so you would need to remove the ski pole first. Depending on your ski pole design, we can build one that will fit onto the existing pole. Virtually everyone opts for the fixed leg that drops into your ski pole base.

I found the file and uploaded a copy to my server. Just click on the link and download it to your desktop and unzip the file. It has .usr and .rte files and from memory the .usr should be accepted into your lowrance. If not, you should be able to use something like GPSBabel to convert the files to what ever format you want. Back up all your current marks onto a SD Card before you add these new ones. https://www.reeltackle.com.au/greenzones/marine_zones.zip

The Green Zones are on navionics but they are only fine lines and nearly impossible to tell them apart from all the other lines on the chart. The latest Garmin charts have the Green Zones shaded so you can see them easily. Cmap i am not sure what they are doing on their latest charts. You can download the green zone waypoints and then create routes to have a visible boundary on your charts. I do have a Lowrance file somewhere with it all completed so if I can find it, I will post up a download link for you and you can stick it in your plotter and upload them.

Friday is going to be delivery day now as my mate is still out at sea fishing.

All good Jon, thanks mate Tonight is the cut off for anyone wanting a nice feed of prawns. These will be delivered here in Kingston sometime tomorrow if anyone else is interested.

These are top quality Hamish.

If anyone is keen for some Mooloolaba King Prawns, i have a mate who has a heap for sale at Tewantin, QLD. These are off the trawler that he runs so it is all licenced commercial seafood. If you live up that way and are keen to buy some, please shoot me a PM and I will pass on his contact details. The prawns are packaged in 5kg boxes and have been snap frozen on the boat. You will not find any better quality prawns than these Mooloolaba Eastern King Prawns. If anyone around me wants some prawns, he is delivering to my place in Kingston 4114 this Thursday. I need to know by Wednesday night if you would like some so he can bring them down on Thursday. Get your Easter Prawns so you do not have to line up at the shops for them. Cooked Medium Prawns $100 Cooked Small Mediums Prawns $80 Medium soft and broken green prawns $60

Hi Geoff I have crossed the bar at SWR a few thousand times and you do need to treat it with the utmost of respect. It is a very shallow bar these days so waves can stand up on it from out of no where, especially if there is any swell from the North East to Easterly directions. It is well protected in a Southerly unless there is big swell running and then it will curl around the Jail and hit the bar. The main thing is to cross it on the run in tides or right on the change of tides if you are not terribly experienced on bar crossings. Beware of the pressure waves inside the river on the bigger run out tides as these can be just as nasty as the bar itself. Never go out south of the south wall as that is dead mans territory down there, generally the channel is straight out the middle or just to the side of the middle of the river. Some times a small channel can open across the front of the North wall so you can get out by running along the beach for a couple of hundred meters and then pop out into clean water. Coming back in, just sit on the back of a wave and follow it in and you will be fine. Back Creek is fantastic for small boats but remember you will only have a foot of water at low tide so you will need to work the tides. You can drive down to the creek entrance below the police station and have a good look before you even launch if you are worried about it. I have not seen the new ramp at the Jail since it was built but I always launched off the beach there when the river and creek were too dangerous. That corner of the bay is an awesome launch spot if you are familiar with beach launching and it is also a safe place to retrieve if you cannot get back in the river or creek. You can pull up there and call a taxi to take you back to your car at one of the ramps where you launched earlier that morning. I would also forget Forster for Mackeral as they do not get down there very often or in the massive numbers like you get off Grassy. The close ground in 18m should be fishing well this time of the year but they could be there or on the Middle Ground in 29m, just look for good shows of bait and anchor up on them and get your live baits out. If they don't bite early morning, they may bite in the afternoon so try both if you have the time. Don't foret small live slimies are the best baits there. If in doubt, don't go out !!!