Ed.

Bit of Betadine antiseptic and your good to go! One thing to be mindful of, is to let someone know exactly where you are walking because if you were to suffer some serious damage and not able to walk out then no one would find you in the long grass. You can't rely on having a mobile on you to call for help if you aren't able to use it for whatever reason!

1 hour ago, Bretto77 said:

I spilled 10 litres in Kat's boat and made a lot of work for myself.... So I hate to think what that much might have done....

Since no one else is curious or too polite to ask,.... how did you manage to "spill" 10L of petrol?

If you wanted to go heavier,  have a look at the Ugly Stiks

Depends on the rod you get, provided the guides are suitably sized and spaced. That Daiwa 6500 reel isn't a huge reel as spinning reels go but it is a reasonable sized one and it holds an adequate  amount of line with enough drag so should be able to do the job. Seeing as you will be in a Yak you should be able to chase down the fish if you need to, but most likely a very large fish will just tow you around in the yak for a little while, so line capacity shouldn't be an issue.

If you had a huge reel on a smaller rod it will feel mismatched so just take your reel into a store and try to match it with a suitable rod, you will soon see and feel it if it is matched properly.

This is probably a setup video but still you have to wonder, nothing would surprise me nowadays.

20 hours ago, rayke1938 said:

Lens replacement surgery

And here I was thinking about getting cataract surgery...Not any more!

At least our house build got started on Monday, it was constantly raining but the tradies were still working and they put up all the wall frames, hopefully the roof trusses will be up by the weekend. So looking forward to more sunshine. I went out fishing on the jetty just before the rain started for a total amount of zilch fish. Not even any nibbles, the baits were in the water for over two hours and not even picked at. So eventually I got the hint and went back home. All I caught was dose of sunburn.

There you go! Hope it helps.

15 hours ago, Junky said:

A big meccano set. 

Currently putting it together... 

 

 

How's that moon? 

That's a decent size!

Were you disappointed when you turned up with a shovel and large trailer just to check it out??

Thanks Angry51, not looking forward to doing that sort of stuff in the summer heat but it has to be finished in 4 months, so will have to force myself.

Cheers

Ed.

Only kidding, I am several hundred kilometers away and I also wouldn't do it out of honesty!

I could use some gravel!

17 hours ago, Bretto77 said:

I just clicked the photos quickly mate @Kat was in a hurry to be elsewhere, so I didn't actually check the plate. The title might be a little misleading. I was eluding to the driver/ owner making sure that he was "good to go".

I estimated 2.5-3T in the trailer. It would appear that the draw bar was not manufactured to take whatever was in there anyway...

I think that the steel channels for the drawbar were probably strong enough but most likely the welds to the body were done poorly/incorrectly as the channels have ripped off,or maybe rusted away from the body as well, as it looks like it is an old trailer. Either way it isn't going anywhere in a hurry.

Should have put on more duct tape!

As Old Scaley posted above, Game reels aren't designed for casting and the bigger the reel the worse it casts.  Lever drags are better than star drags fishing wise but don't cast very well. There are some exceptions, eg: Okuma released the Solterra SLR-15CS which had a magnetic cast control which worked reasonably well but the next model (SLX) after didn't have it. There are other brands that also have some sort of cast control but there are a couple of things to consider.

1) It all depends on how big a shark are you chasing, the bigger the shark the more drag you need and more line capacity. Some people consider a 1.5m shark to be a big fish whilst others consider a 4m shark to be big.
2) If you are land based then you need a reasonable amount of line to stop a larger model, in a boat you can chase it down. Don't forget that you may have let out 100-200m+ of line to get the bait where it is supposed to be, and that is even before you start fighting it.
3) Your definition of large shark,ie; if under 1.5m then most medium sized reels can handle them, but once you go up to 2.5m+ you are talking about a serious fish and you will need to go to much larger sized reels with more line capacity and more drag, but castability goes down the drain. With 3m+ sharks and you are into specialised equipment, ie; game reels, rods, fighting harnesses and lots of heavy line.

So to answer Hamish's question, yes technically the TLD's can catch sharks depending on the size, but it depends on what size you want to catch, not to mention your budget. There are better reels than the TLD's out there, in Shimano the Tyrnos reels are better, but pricier.

Penn make a reasonable larger game reel that shouldn't break the bank, ie; a 50 sized reel in the Penn Squall range, is about the $175 range new and there is a special on them at the moment $155. I would choose that one over an old Senator any day.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/304633461755?epid=1267461957&hash=item46ed91bbfb:g:yR8AAOSwsedjKBle:sc:AU_ExpressPostParcelSignature!4655!AU!-1&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAwJQ054wPkFkYAOV1tpDGK1G4kz8dB7cM1OChwLj%2FkIrBkv2GPCN3%2FkmwfShCIlYNNnE6LByA8DeRuJlT3rMhe9HFtR5HH1Hn7wePIUA7tM4aqPkek97fYt%2Fn%2BpDowd2mOSwepwaGRLhlHX0QNQIP4%2FEo%2BPyfbiNea2DVRoKjPe9tc4T973oBbSFdvwUZQSRosJsJdzglyCi1tElP%2F60jJUwCHMQSd0OThgJb%2FtclR6gHOrntEvxppudOa5R1OCL%2FVg%3D%3D|tkp%3ABlBMUPaR1-KXYQ.
It has a reasonable amount of drag and line capacity, but downside is the body is made out of graphite as are the TLD's.

Personally, once I am looking at catching fish that require 30+ sized reels then my preference are the Okuma Makairas, but they are true heavy game reels but also start in the $600+ range. There are also Tiagra's, Internationals, and a stack of compact game reels such as the Fathoms, Talicas etc.

Hence I asked about the budget as you wouldn't use them to catch snapper and so forth and mainly used for ballooning and trolling.

Just my 2cents worth.

The senator reels are quite dated and there are much better reels out there which are more suitable for that purpose in my opinion.  I prefer to use a lever drag reel for that type of fishing, not saying that you can't use a Senator, but I think that you would enjoy a more modern lever drag reel and have better results when fighting a largish shark.

What size sharks are you thinking of targeting and what is your budget as that would dictate what type of gear you could use in relation to the target size of shark you want to chase.  Lastly, are you wanting to chase them from the land or out in a boat?

Cheers

Ed.

Congratulations to you, and now the sleepless nights start again!