Junky

Good on you mate. That is an awesome setup. Well done. It is so good seeing someone your age so keen on fishing. Keep it up pal. I read every report you post.

What are the rpm's at WOT? The rev range at WOT will be in the owners manual. You want to be in the higher end of that range. If it's not hitting that upper range then you need to go down in pitch. The engine will have to much load on it not allowing it to rev out. If it's over reving then you need to go up. The engine will be revving it's titts off before you hit WOT. Each prop pitch should change the RPM by about 300 to 500 rpm. So by going down to the 10 from the 12 that you have on, should see an increase in rpm between 600 to 1000 rpm. To give you an idea on the prop pitch, if you were to rotate the prop one rotation in a solid substance.....it's the distance the prop would move forward with one rotation. So the 12 you have on will move 12inches forward in one rotation of the propeller. But because it's in water etc It won't in theory due to cavitation, weight of boat, water is easy to move etc. So the 10 would move 10inches in one rotation. You'll notice the 12 has deeper blades than the 10. The engine will spin the 10 easier than the 12 due to it travelling less distance in one rotation. I hope that's easy to understand. I'm not very good at explaining techy stuff. You will need to get hold of a tachometer though. Call the dealer for help. IMO the 20 will not go as well as the 15. Sorry to say but four strokes don't rev and produce power like 2 strokes do. My bro in law found that out. He had a 40 2 stroke and went to a 60 four stroke and tbh the boat went better with the 40. It's a 4.45m vnose punt. Stessle I think. I tried to convince him to get a 50 2 stroke but he went the four and was not impressed.

Use the berkley gulps. Almost entrily made with liquid and biodegradable.

I make a habit of not catching undersized fish for that reason....

Is it a 4 cylinder?

I used to work with him a while back. Bloody legend of a bloke. I put 2 and 2 together with the merc and your description of him. One of the madest craziest blokes to go for a run with. Make sure you go with him for a water test. Unbelievable experience. His last name says it all. How do you slow a boat down for corners H? Trim the engine down but whatever you do don't back off.

Does the bloke setting your boat up have the initials H.W?

I want Hell yeah. Nice. I want that motor. Be interesting to see the fuel figures when you're up and going. 4 blade will launch out of the hole.

Good on you. Nothing like a new boat. What did you settle for?

You could match worms and grasshoppers with plastics. Also frogs and cicadas. There would be some sort of bait fish in there. Maybe smaller redfin, freshwater gar, prawns, shrimp. I've never fished for them but I imagine they'd be similar to bass. Are they considered a noxious pest? I can't find anything that says they have to be destroyed. Can see they are classed as an introduced pest but that is all.

Try and find what baitfish are in the same waterway.

Take a rod. I'd be trolling from the balcony.

That gear is perfect for offshore here.

When you start to pull reels down be sure to take pics at every stage. Easy in today's standards thanks to the modern phone. Will save a lot of confusion when reassembling.

I had the diawa grease too. Awesome stuff. Liebherr crane boom grease is good as well. I just have a big tin of Castrol Vaso in the shed so I use that .

I still have mine, and wear them. I've heard those things taste good. I always throw mine back though. They remind my of a sea toad cross stonefish or something. I caught mine north of peel.

I don't use grease. Oil only for me, but I service my gear all the time. That's how I get a good life span out of my outfits. Even the cheaper hand me downs I have for the kids get services, in fact I sat down last night and did the 6 cheaper outfits. Nothing worse than gear that doesn't work when you need it. Washing under the hose and putting on the shelf is a recipe for disaster. Salt is extremely corrosive so if you want reliable gear....service it all the time, oh and don't forget the poor old rod. Give it a good coat in lanolin and wipe it down. Your rod guides and guide feet will thank you plus the cockroaches and rats won't eat your grips if protected. My thesis.... Grease, if left for long periods goes hard and loses its lubing properties, makes the action stiffer and catches foreign material like glue. I have lots of reels given to me that are locked up. When stripped down you find the grease has dried like glue and the oscillating shaft is locked into the pinion gear. Heat it up to melt the grease and out she pops, 90% of the time. The diawa oil that comes in the little orange and black squeeze tube made of alloy is the best oil I have found. It is almost like a car engine oil, possibly is something similar. That lighter singer oil stuff that Abu supply just runs straight out and doesn't really last long. Still works though. If I need to seal anything or grease the pinion and crown gears I use vasoline (where did all your minds go then....sick puppies ) Vaso is lighter/thinner and will not bind up the mechanisms like grease does. Just a small dab to . Don't pack it like your trailer bearings. Don't stress to much about the gears stripping. Shimano and diawa are pretty good nowadays. The cheaper overhead/spin combos in the shop that ruined most local tackle shops however will. Ive seen it happen on good fish. Cheap nasty crap or an expensive cheap crap rod, because the reel is stuffed. It isn't a car gear box with massive loads....unless you fish locked up on big saltigas or stellas that are capable of 15+kg of drag. Reels do not produce heat like cars due to the very low RPMs. The drag system is where that happens. Get a good drag grease and keep your drag lubed. Cheers.

I'm happy to help if you shout me the plane ticket over.

River2sea had similar lures with the shorter steep racked bibs. Diawa had some as well....although they were longer from memory. It is a shallow diver by the looks and with that steep racked bib giving it a wicked action. That's what is turning the fish on. If you live in brisbane head over to charltons at redbank or tackle warehouse in cooporoo. Im sure theyll have something very similar on the shelf

Grab some spray paint and paint another lure the same color.

M10 rod. Garry Howard has a nice 10-15kg offshore. I have two. 15yrs old and still tough as nails. Replaced tips due to "I'm a rough punt". I have a TLD30 on one and a torium 30 on the other. TLD is a winch. I dont stuff around with little line. 80lb braid 500m wound on top of 50lb mono approx 150m. Built like a brick outhouse. Great trolling stick. Nice forgiving tip so it doesnt bounce your lures out of the water and its a great bottom slogger. Standard drag system is tough as nails. I've abused mine with who's and Spanish, big reefies, no dram's. Loves it. It's that tough that when I get a snag bottom bashing, I can wind the earth around under me. Service regularly and lube the drag with good grease it will last you forever. Torium is okay but star drag went out in the 1900's. I wouldn't buy another star drag with all the new levers available. I only got it for the 6.2:1 ratio. Nice and quick back up to the surface if the pickers are hassling you. You could use it for jigging to but thats to much hard work imo. Trolling is okay but setting strike drag on star drag reels sucks. Cause you have to tighten while winding etc and you just can't get the pressure out of star drags like you do with levers. The lever is just soooo much easier all round. You can get good lever drag overheads from shimano and diawa. Don't touch anything else unless it's boutique like Avet or something. All those cheap shyte "Big store" overhead reels are terrible. Stay away from them. You will mash the guts of it on any decent size fish.

Prawns are thick. A mate got 5kg this morning. Southern bay.

Good stuff. I noticed in the post about your sienna misfortune that you threw it in the bin. If for some reason in the future you decide to chuck a reel out....let us know. May even give you some coin for it. Cheers.

The amount of times I've been fishing at airlie. The main street holds plenty of beautiful species, no need to take boat. However landing them can be sometimes difficult and other times it's double hookups all round. Very seasonal. Best bait I used was pineapple cruisers. The fish up there love cruisers.

If you want kingy's then head to any big rocky headland. Pillies or livies. Take spinning gear and slugs for livies. Never caught kingy's in the seaway. Caught plenty of queenies though.