GregOug

Well done @Allnighter. Although……….. You’re a Southsider aren’t you? If so, I’d just like to point out that the required signal for this month’s comp is a Thumbs Up. Your thumb looks distinctly sideways, not up in the photo so I don’t think it qualifies. If, however,  you are actually a Northsider forget I said anything. Great fish! 🤪

So long as the bend’s the right way, no problem. Lol.

I'm just awaiting delivery of one of the new little 5 door Suzuki Jimny 4x4's.
I've been looking at the upgrades I want to put on it and a car fridge is must for me, cold drinks, weekend meals and of course keeping fish cold on the way home.
I was going to put an under seat 60ah lithium system in but while I was at the 4x4 shop today they showed me the Invicta range of under bonnet lithium hybrid batteries.
It works as a normal starter battery but doubles as a deep cycle battery. It keeps a reserve amount so you never have to worry about running it flat. 
But I've got zero experience with something like this, and I'd love to know if someone has tried one or something similar before and what their experience has been like.

Things to consider with Lithium batteries.
They do not handle high temps well.
They definitely do not like cold to sub zero temps....Will you need to start the car early morning in sub zero temps?
Is your Jimny charging system suitable for the Lithiums and it's BMS?
From what I can see lithiums are best suited from 8c to 35c.
What extremes of temp will you likely encounter?
Invicta has been around for a long time and well regarded....unfortunately nearly everything you see on the net will be a sales pitch for them.

I had considered the high temperature which these were built for, but I failed to think about low temperatures.
I'm not to worried about high temperatures, I've followed some long time use (independent) with use in the desert, but not much about use in cold climates.
But another thing to consider is if it's under bonnet then it's not really going to get any colder then if it's under the seat, which is my only other option.
One way or another I have to go lithium.
I know it gets to -5 to -8 at night, but if I know that and expect it then I can wrap it if I'm concerned. But my mate runs a lot of lithium batteries there without much trouble, when we are there to watch them. There has been trouble with them when nobody is there, but a lot of that has to do with the solar.
This battery won't have a problem with the jimny alternator as its 65amp and the battery is built to run on up to large high amp alternators in big 4x4's.
I don't need it to start 1st thing in the morning when its cold, I don't, I put wood on the fire and drink more coffee until the day warms up.
But there will be times that I will, I'm sure. But it won't be often either. And it won't be used as deep cycle often either.
1 positive is its got 1000cca, the usual lead acid battery in the jimny is 480cca, so if it is a little slow it should still be well above what's needed.
But I'm definitely going to ask them about it's performance in the cold, and confirm about the alternator.
Cheers for that.

60 Ah may not be enough to run your fridge for long enough (say overnight in winter) if your fridge is a decent size ??

Invicta are a great brand…7 year warranty on straight LIFEPO, says a lot.
The new hybrids I have not looked at sorry but like all compromises - its a compromise :-))
Personally I say run a separate LIFEPO for your camping etc and safeguard cranking for just that.  100ah with say a 40l Engel (2amp draw) is 2 days without charging as they run down to basically 90% capacity.  

Hahaaaa yea i know Greg, my thumbs aren't the only thing that's bent 🙄

Well done @Allnighter. Although……….. You’re a Southsider aren’t you? If so, I’d just like to point out that the required signal for this month’s comp is a Thumbs Up. Your thumb looks distinctly sideways, not up in the photo so I don’t think it qualifies. If, however,  you are actually a Northsider forget I said anything. Great fish! 🤪

Hopefully  I can find some live bait on Monday.

Thanks Brian, yer we got lucky with only a brief shower or two and a slight southerly so the southern bay was relatively flat 🙂
We caught 5 all up, kept some smaller ones for a feed but released the one in the pic.
Yakka's are in abundance atm, but thankfully the sharks were not today 👍

Nice one, Darren. Braving the rain pays dividends.

March winners - Team South !!

I love a fish curry and mackerel are a great ingredient for curries. I had some school mackerel on the weekend that I made with my favourite fish curry recipe. Very simple but really tasty 
https://shop.rickstein.com/pages/madras-fish-curry-recipe

Thanks Steve, I was pretty stoked to get him actually as a spotty was the last thing on my radar, the plastic he took didn't have a mark on it, usually the mackerel slice the tails up a bit.
The yeild off that fish was considerable too, having devoured that little Tuskie last night, I'm looking forward to sampling him this evening.

Unreel efforts there wazza. Jew and tuskies pull as well as they taste!
I reckon that’s a small largemouth nanny, aka saddletail snapper. 

Great report @Another Wazza That spotty is pretty handy bycatch, and a big fella to boot. 

Top Story.
Keep on Truckin.

Towards the end of February I headed out in the bay in search of some Jew, I found them and had an absolute shocker!, I lost 4 fish (& plastics) to line break as I was going extremely hard on these fish to try and avoid being sharked, I also got snagged once, got snipped by a mackerel, and when I finally managed to get one close to the boat it got sharked about 3 metres away, I was devastated but not willing to give up, having lost 7 plastics & jigheads I headed off to BCF that afternoon to restock & get some new line.
The plan was to head out there the next day and see if they were still around, well, what a difference a day makes, I dropped the first fish, but managed 2 in 2 casts after that, the 1st went 95-96?, there was a little bit of chop out there and they weren't behaving themselves on the brag mat

I'll admit I took a pretty ordinary pic of him, but you get the idea. After I gave him the treatment and got organised again, this little guy paid me a visit

With 2 onboard in quick succession, the decision was made to leave them be, as its just too risky sport fishing for them with the sharks never too far away, so I decided to move on in search of some more fun.

That fun came via a little 30cm small mouth, which was a first for me in the bay, a Trevally not much bigger came after him, then I headed back in. It was a pleasant few hours all up.
Fast forward a month or so, with very little fishing taking place because of some average weather, when I saw the conditions for Tuesday just gone, it was an easy decision to head back out in the bay.
Jew were on the menu once again, so I deployed the same plastic from the previous outing and after working him for about 15 minutes I hooked a big grinner, now I "technically" didn't land him, no leader was touched, I swear!, I just let him chill next to the boat while I grabbed the pliers, when I came back to the rod he was gone, result!, the scoreboard remains unchanged.
Not long after that incident I hooked up to what I initially thought was a small shark, it hit the plastic just off the bottom and started to scream off, then it started coming up, rather erratic mind you, thinking it was a shark I wasn't interested in playing it out, with a heavy drag set to try and beat the sharks, I wound it in with little respect, that was until I saw it was a nice Spotted Mackerel, perfectly pinned in the centre of the top jaw there was no way he could've escaped, I swung him over the side and swifly gave him the treatment.


A surprise, and very welcomed addition to the esky, Jew were still on my mind so I kept plugging away, I missed a good hit, then the next flick resulted in a nice little Jew, success!.

Another dodgy pic, he got a little bent out shape in the esky. So far that 1 plastic has nailed 3 Jew & a spotty, he's almost earned his retirement I'd say??.
After that Jew I headed off in search of some Tuskies, having arrived at the spot and deploying the bait, I had a few enquiries early up which saw nervous anticipation almost reach fever pitch, you just never know how big it is until you set the hooks, this one sadly was no beast, and I made very short work of him. Still a very tasty fish though.

Thinking the bite might be on, I hung around for a few hours but couldn't manage anything else, which in all honesty wasn't such a bad thing as the esky already looked pretty good, and I'm well stocked for the next few weeks.
I pulled the jewels out of the Jew this afternoon, they are something I don't usually keep but I might start doing so in the future as they do look kinda cool.

 
 
 
 
 

Yep. The world’s gone mad. 

I did think of that but I wanted to give you guys some chance!

And that’s different from previous years, how?

And us poor b…….s  down the bottom don’t even show up. Which is probably for the best.

Not sure but I definitely need to change my diet!