Ed.

At least if they don't work you will have a cool looking boat at night!, If you want to try a light here is a link and they are only about $25 just to see if they work. I bought 2 myself but still haven't tested them out yet, but theoretically lights at night should work. https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/12V-Underwater-108-LED-Fishing-Light-Night-Boat-Lamp-Attracts-Fish-Shad-Squid/163676895227?hash=item261be737fb:g:~H8AAOSwhBtczie-

Do you have a link to this guys store, found one name similar but he only had automotive fuel pumps? Oops, never mind found it.

Try Banksia Beach and heading northwards along the foreshore toward White Patch till you hit a little bridge over a creek, any where in between along that area used to have Yabbies. Personally I haven't had too much luck catching a lot of fish from the Jetty at Bongaree. The odd fish here and there but not worth the effort most times. In the video above the guy is also using females with eggs on as bait. I always release those as they add to the population and make it more sustainable as those areas on the Island are always hit hard.

I personally haven't noticed any difference in using bait runners vs plain spinning reels apart from that the baitrunners are a bit larger than the equivalent plain version and a also bit heavier, hence all my spin reels are the baitrunner types, as you don't have to use that feature and just use it as a plain spinning reel.

From what I have read, if you oil/grease the anti-reverse bearing too much they may loose the ability to work, If it doesn't have a anti-reverse bearing of these then it will have Dawgs in them and something maybe stopping them from engaging the cog, either way I don't think that it would be a major problem. I would be hedging a bet that it's too much oil or grease and a quick de-grease of it may solve the problem. Especially if the guy has serviced it himself, he may not have known and just added extra grease, by virtue of the fact it does it at full drag only when it is under pressure and so it slips.

Another thing that you may want to add to the boat if you are fishing at night is an underwater LED light, such as the following: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/12V-Underwater-108-LED-Fishing-Light-Night-Boat-Lamp-Attracts-Fish-Shad-Squid/163676895227?hash=item261be737fb:g:~H8AAOSwhBtczie- They come in Green, Blue or White and you can get them for about $20-25 delivered. They have a switch on them and come with small alligator clips to connect to the battery terminals, just be aware of the battery drain as most are between 15-20W. Only thing I don't like about them is that the wire cable is really thin. You just lower them underwater and tie them off, they attract bait which attract the bigger predators, just cast outside the light circle and reel back in as most of the predators will be cruising just outside the light reach.

Personally I use the Penn Spinfisher Liveliners in the 2500, 4500 and 6500 sizes and use a reel depending what I think may be about, but must admit I don't do a lot of surf fishing. If I want to go after Sharks/Trevally in the surf then I will use my Solterra SLR 10CS overhead. Ballooning off the rocks specifically for larger sharks it will be the Makaira 30 or the 50W, rockfishing in general I prefer to use overheads and will use the Fathom 15 and Tica Uzio. Surf fishing more often then not, will have a strong offshore breeze so the spinning reels are less problematic in casting out the bait/lures. The 2500 and the 4500 is for small to largish fish, the 4500/6500 will handle quite large Jewfish/Spanish mackerel. However you should pick a reel that has adequate line and drag capacity 'cause if you are lobbing a bait 100m into the sea a smaller reel may not have enough line left in reserve on it to play a larger fish if it decides to go for a run. There are gazzilions or reels/brands out there so just get the one that feel comfortable to use and has the capacity you require. One thing to be aware of with Daiwa's is that some of the their reels use a magnetic oil and which wasn't available to retail sales, so could be a problem if you like to service your own reels. Not sure what models or even if they still use it.

Small good 200mm bolt cutter (for the largish hooks) in my tackle bag, bottle of Betadine antiseptic solution, tweezers plus the rest as above.

Thank you Hamish, the rod is one I made years ago, I bought 3 blanks when Snyderglass was closing it's business, and this one after I made it, was just sitting in the rack unused as it was 1 of 2 identical blanks I got at the time, that's the problem when you have too much gear and the missus reminds me of that fact frequently but she is understanding though. I don't complain too much about how much she spends on makeup and bags and she doesn't give me too much of a hard time about my gear . You wont save any money by building your own and it takes a fair bit of time, upside is that you do get to make it the way you want. In fact, it actually costs me more as I usually put SiC guides on them and I try to use use Hyperlon instead of the EVA that you see on so many rods nowadays, it does make the rod heaver but since it is an aerated rubber, if you squash it for example when it's in a rod holder it bounces back, the EVA is lighter but it is an aerated plastic so when it squashes, it leaves a dent in it because the plastic deforms and does not spring back as much, plus hyperlon feels much nicer to me. Whenever I don't feel the need to build a specific rod I just buy an off the shelf Ugly stick. These reels are on special at the moment, I paid $250 discounted for it and the next day found a place that sells them for about $40 less, which is always the way though!! but at least I supported the local tackle store and it was better than paying full retail. Eventually your collection will build up as well so just give subtle hints to your family for birthdays, X'mas etc. specific brands, model numbers and even tell them where to go to get the best price, it also makes it easier for your parents and relations to get you presents as they don't have the time and effort work out what you would like so your more likely to get what you want . I have been slowly increasing my collection since I was 25, I am now 67, although I made my first set of lures when I was about 8, so now I have at least one or two rods and reels to go from whiting fishing all the way through to big game fishing. It's been great now that all my girls have grown up, so when they ask me what I would like I just say to them why don't you pool the money with your other sisters and I give them a model number, and then I just act surprised when they give it to me, which with my short term memory it isn't that hard to be surprised. . That's the one redeeming benefit of being old, there are birthdays, fathers days, anniversaries and X'mas.

On a side note have you heard if any of the fish have Ciguatera in that area?

Absolutely, can't wait, have the rental house booked now so just waiting for the date to roll around. Forgot to put pic in before.

Had to cancel my ski trip to Mt.Hotham due to the Covid-19 lock down so instead I am going up to 1770 with my missus for 10 days in Sept. and taking the boat, so when I was sorting out my gear I was hoping to take a rod up with me that I made years ago but never put a reel on to it or even use it, so decided to get myself a new toy for it. Got approval from the boss, initially I was intending to get a Makaira 15 for it, and although it is a really, really, nice reel it is still double the price of the next contender which was another Penn Fathom Lever drag and it probably wouldn't get too much use as I have a few other reels that are similar. So after making the hard decision to not get it (Sob Sob!) I went and bought the FTH25NLD2. I already have a 30 and a 50W in the Maks as well as a 15-2 and a 30-2 in the Fathoms so I got the 25-2 speed model which is just a narrow version of the 30 size. So same drag and reel height just narrower, for future reference you cannot go by the capacity printed on the reel, it is about half of what they say it can hold. So after a couple of re-spools with different sized braid I ended up with 280m of 50lb 0.36mm line and a 30m topshot of 40lb mono leader 0.60mm which is enough for now. Heaps of drag on it, managed to just about lift a 18l bucket of water on full lock which is around the 39lb mark. Anyway changed the drag knob downwards to give me a more controlled drag range and did it mainly to test out my FG knot which held nicely. So now really looking forward to going up there although I do have to do some work on the boat. I will probably build an extra fuel tank about to 60L size in Ally and also fix my wife's seat as she complains that it leans back too much when bouncing around in the waves and swell. With the extra tank I should have about 210l of fuel and I am running a 150HP Optimax two stroke so that should give me more than enough fuel to get out and back to the reef with a lot of running around as well.

Welcome to the forum Andrew. Cheers Ed.

If I was much, much, younger and not married I certainly would, she looks like fun!

I also have heard that if you're right handed you should wind with your left, however it has never been a hindrance or a problem to me so as I am 66 years old, why change? I find it quite comfortable to wind with my right hand as it is quicker, plus I am more accurate casting with my right hand forward. Having said that I was born a left hander but my primary school forced me to be a right hander, because in those days we used ink pots and quills (the younger folks here may not know what those are) to write with and using your left hand you might smudge the still un-dried ink as you wrote sentences. So as the old saying goes, " if it ain't broke... don't fix it". As I have 10 overhead reels, there is no way I am going to replace them with left hand winding versions just for the sake of it! You should wind which ever way you find most comfortable.

Nice Carpet snake, just warming itself up on the warm tin roof! With the weather we are having I don't blame it.

My bad, I forgot to put the link in, but yes that is the one.

Here is a link to a Youtube Video which compares the Shimano, Daiwa and Abu reels and has a look at the way they are made, it goes for about 54 minutes so you may want to get some pop corn.

Hi Hweebe, I had a tough choice to make as I had to justify this reel to the missus, she said I had already had too many reels as it was, as well as having to justify this one to myself as I had to consider how much use I was intending to give it. So price was an issue as I didn't want too spend too much for a reel that was going to spend 99.99% of it's life on a rod in a rod rack. As for the Tica brand, there is a distributor in Australia but they only sell a limited number of models and they hadn't even heard of the Uzio model when I asked, the brand is quite big in New Zealand and I think as well in the US. but they don't do as much advertising as they should, they do have a small range in the lever drag game reels, but it seems that over the years their range has been slowly "consolidating" to just a few models. Probably can't or don't want to compete against the bigger 4. In the fishing sales market, advertising is King and unless you have a decent budget your product isn't going to be known so you will sell less, then hard to justify a higher budget, ect, ect.. It's a bit like the Okuma Metaloid 5, I was looking at a 2 speed model and the Aust. Distributor didn't bring it in, as they said their wasn't a market for the 2 speed model in Australia, my view is if you don't have it you can't sell it, so I bought 3 Penn Fathoms 2 speeds instead. I have bought a couple of Tica reels before and only just sold a smallish game reel about a month ago, (ST-458) as it was mainly a spare reel for guests on my boat and I think that it was only used once in all the years I owned it. And as I said, the missus was starting to count the number of rods and reels I had, so if I wanted to upgrade then some had to go. So after selling a couple, I was looking for a replacement for my very old Daiwa PMF-57H which I have had for about 40 years, it has good line capacity, but a poor 5kg drag, no ARB and just a single dawg anti-reverse so quite sloppy in the handle. I still have it and keep it for sentimental value as I did catch quite a few nice GT's (about 12-15Kg's) on it in W.A. Anyway I started to do the research and my preference would have been the Daiwa Lexa but at the time they were about $450 and the Tica Uzio was about AU$150 and I think that was delivered to Australia, so whilst I really would have liked the Mag control, the Daiwa was 3 times the price so I settled on the Uzio. I just checked and the price has gone up to about AU$192 + delivery, so I must have got it on special or the Aussie dollar has dropped compared to the NZ$. It looks like the Tica Titanclaw is the same reel just with a lower gear ratio. They are both 300 sized reels. https://www.actionoutdoors.kiwi/Tica-Uzio-GCB300-731-RH-Baitcast-Reel-1 https://www.actionoutdoors.kiwi/epages/shop.sf/en_NZ/?ObjectPath=/Shops/ActionFishing/Products/TICTC300 The Daiwa Lexa HD in the 400 size is about AU$430 (EBay) the 300 size about the AU$380 plus there are a couple of other variations in the Lexa models. Good luck finding these sized reels in stores as most won't carry the larger bait casters in stock to look at. Apparently no demand!

Hweebe: Forgot to mention, if you are local to me (Caboolture area) you're welcome to come and try it out.

In the big 4 brands you could look at: 1) Daiwa Lexa 400HD (3 different ratio models) 2) Abu Garcia Revo Beast REVO T2 BST60 3) Shimano Tranx TRX400AHG, there may be a 500 model as well. 4) Okuma Komodo KDS-463LX Undoubtedly there are more but these are the ones that grabbed my attention when I was considering getting one last year but never ended up doing so, instead I ended up with a Tica Uzio which I got from New Zealand for less than a 1/3 of the price than the above 4. There is now also a Tica Titan but not sure what the difference is between that and the Uzio. Only thing I don't like about the Uzio is that it only has centrifugal brakes and I prefer the magnetic. Having said that it has never given me a birds nest. For me, my preference would have been in the order I numbered them and in the highest gear ratio available.

I think that on my P3 you have go into a menu and tell the controller that you are reversing although I have never done that

Depending on the reason it broke, if you inserted it in properly and then broke off the chip, and if the rest of the chip isn't too far in you could try using a straightened out big paper clip, just press the remaining edge of the card in and release, the card might release and pop out a smidge. They usually lock in place when you insert them, if you still can't get it out, you might be able to put a small drop of superglue on the end of the same paper clip and carefully hold it against that remaining card edge till it sets and then try to pull it out, making sure you don't get that superglue on anything else. If however you tried to put that chip the wrong way without realizing it, and then tried to force it in till it broke off, try to pull it out with the dab of superglue without trying to push it in first. Hope this helps. If this also fails.... well you did want a reason to upgrade the unit anyway!!

Have a look at this in the size 20 it is the cheapest I have found and nice specifications: https://www.freddys.com.au/products/okuma-makaira-overhead-reels?variant=29246157226077 or this one at half the price. https://www.freddys.com.au/collections/overhead-reels/products/penn-fathom-2-speed-lever-drag-reels?variant=32497035608157

I think that Northern conquest charges about $15/day for rod and reel or their condition but you would have to check, all the pics show spinning gear, but can't make out type or brand though. All the larger reels will catch all the fish you probably tangle with but some are nicer/better to use than others. In the olden days many a humongous fish fish was caught with just a hand line on a spool with 80-100 plus pound line but we have been accustomed to using high end reels which can cost 500 times more, and big reels are much more fun! Having said that, I once tussled with a huge ray at Shute Harbour that swam up and took my bait intended for Spanish mackerel, it was on a $2 80lb hand line and after about 25 minutes of getting my arms stretched and many times I thought the line would break, eventually it swam under a moored large boat and went around the oyster encrusted pylons on the jetty and the line did part, even though I didn't land that ray I did have massive fun as well! When I was living in W.A as a deckhand on a cray boat I knew a lot of professional fishermen who still used hand lines and they out fished me 10-1 when I was using a rod and reel. I had fun and they caught the fish!