Huxstang

Sweating on Tuesday, up the coast Monday…seems one of the worst blasts of weather we have had since last year - sustained crappy weather for weeks and no respite in sight.

Looks like Tuesday might be the pick of the days next week at this point…..

When you say “interesting” I think scary

I am a braid fan personally. I like the increased feel and can accept its limitations. I have been using it since the mid 90’s and its improved a lot since then and I have learnt how to fish it a lot better too, especially since starting using octopus circle hooks with bait. Hey Bob Cheapest place for 200m spools of YGK Pentagram..although Japanese rarely have much heavier than PE3. https://japanlureshop.com/ygk-xbraid-upgrade-x8-pentagram-200m.html

I am a braid fan personally. I like the increased feel and can accept its limitations. I have been using it since the mid 90’s and its improved a lot since then and I have learnt how to fish it a lot better too, especially since starting using octopus circle hooks with bait.

Never been up that far. I thought it was all just muddy banks?

Especially with a nice offshore boat gathering dust!!! At least if it calms out a bit you can get out, mine is a bit more biased towards a nicer day if I want to stay a bit dry

Holidays start at Easter…good time not to use a boat ramp on a weekend or plan on going camping

Hoping to get out before school holidays start - a bit more peaceful especially if I use anything other than my local ramp at Colmslie

I am sure I am not the only one sick of what appears to be never ending crappy weather in SEQ. Anyone got some clue when we might see a bit of a break in the weather?

I hear you, the weather has been tough this year already. Fingers crossed winter settles it down. Even at $20k it is reasonable….easily spend over $10k on a good electric. I know Suzuki have electric steering and throttle available on their motors from 140hp up but not the real benefits of an electric helm like you have.

Personally I go with the lighter line option with the FC or nylon leader option. Seems to work well enough in the reef areas but I know your fishing is quite different with huge fish likely to hit cover outside of a normal 2 rod length leader I guess? It would be interesting to see just how much extra protection you get from heavier braid over lighter - I havent seen anything online where people have done tests.

Its great looking kit and seems like its probably a good alternative to trying to fit an electric onto the front of a larger boat - and using one where you need to go and deploy it or put up with the unreliability factor of the auto deploy units. I guess only downside it you are using engine hours? But gives you the key benefits and also work better when its fairly rough. I am guessing its probably cheaper to add than a suitable electric anyway?

Interesting Bob - just did a Curado DC 200 and it took 150m of 30lb Sunline Cast Way - thing is Sunline dont quote the thickness and the new DC 200 doesnt quote capacity in thickness only x amount of mono. With a new FM Stradic 5000 it easily took 300m of PE1.2 Varivas and I think it could have taken maybe 300m of 1.5 (only wanted to load it with 1.2 so its a moot consideration). However the specs say 300m of PE2 which I would say it has no chance. Thing is maybe their is fault on both sides - are the line thicknesses as quoted? I am not addicted to any one brand of PE but for same PE rating they breaking stains vary remarkably and the thickness for breaking stains are all over the shop. I guess the question is - how important to you is line capacity beyond the annoyance factor?

Now I know why everyone complains about sharks in southern bay…..don’t get Livescope unless you want to see the bastards hanging constantly around you is all I can say. Couple of pannies for the comp. Better than nothing - both on 75mm Squidtrek. 40 &50cm

Fingers crossed I am working on one of my goals tomorrow. Wind is supposedly easing so launching at Cleveland and have a look at Peel area for first time. The artificial and reefs around the western side and lazaret. But if its not too windy/choppy will look at Harry’s However I am 2 down on my goals….got my first jew on a vibe last month and reckon I am about 50% there on using Livescope. Bought a new zero degree mount so should be a lot more accurate with casting at what we see now.

Welcome….we are a friendly bunch - stay in contact when you arrive. Just remember its a big place so you cant drive from sydney to brisbane to go fishing for the day

How good is fishing….pic from Monduran 2 weeks ago

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNZg3pijBjwQGyGZCu5K5t_C9VillVOhVsjALmyOfIHF9KCGXZ-LCN_adCwq4BjJw/photo/AF1QipOzecOZWGj3v2Ydb2zmH1e4x-OfI-DdaqJ8cnXn?key=Mm1JY0RtVXZ5Z0JCc1MySV9ZTDR4Y0hjQThJaFpR Dad and I used to always get a pile of diver whiting on the cockle banks. If anyone wants more specific marks just ask and I will grab them off the garmin navionics maps.

This is actually an exceptional forum. No keyboard warriors, everyone is helpful and respectful. So nice compared to the Facebook pages.

Good fishing Bob.

Keep an eye out for a Formosa 580 Offshore or a later 595. Might struggle to find a 595 for that money but a decent hull.

I am keen to try it in deeper water. They say 100feet is fine. Next time I venture out to Harries and the like will try it in that 20m range. As I said, just playing with it got a better understanding of how to adjust the manual ranges better and what it means so really keen to try it in down mode over the wrecks or forward mode around any of the beacons. I had a great time looking at the geen channel marker at Clara rocks yesterday which is in 12m of water - should have recorded it, you can clearly see the base structure of the beacon and some form of platform that is well below water. Sort of like a bell shape. Quite interesting but no fish around it worth talking about.

I thought I might share some of my experiences with Livescope so far. First disclaimer - I am a tech head (even though I am almost 60). I studied IT and have loved every bit of nerdy gadgets that has come along even though I never actually followed through and became an IT professional - just managed them for a while. So got my new boat in September and decided that it needed all the gear - yep all the gear no idea. But thanks to the wonders of the internet, youtube and the like I was able to do a crash course on using live sonar, what the settings were and how they affected what you saw. Now I do not claim to be an expert but i think I am learning pretty well the more time I spend on it. Now I have Garmin Livescope Plus (ie LVS34) - in my personal opinion they were the originators and are very heavily invested in it and at the time I made the decision were a generation infront of others. Also I like Garmin screens….I like the menus etc and as a bay/estuary guy their transducers generally were going to suit so I didnt have to have a mixed bad of brands. I have shared two videos so far - on in fresh water and one in saltwater. Both in relatively shallow water however have been in as deep as 18 metres with it. Quite a few learning there as it is best to manually adjust the depth range and as I discovered you need to push your distance range at the same time (or reduce it) to ensure you are seeing in a usable range. Suprisingly they are quite easy to use out of the box. Garmin have two different settings (its called focus) which are optimised for salt or fresh. Other than that its the gain (which is the sensitivity) ie the clutter you see on screen. Colour is personal - most like amber….same for me. Once you see it in action its really easy to understand, you can see your lure, if its in the beam, you see fish move around and you can see the distance and depth. Benefits I have seen so far is that you can actually see things your other sonar will not show eg big barra stalking in tight treed country. Up under lilly banks and like today schooled fish that are easily seen in a lot of other clutter. Like all marine electronics time on water is the key…. https://www.facebook.com/1276354345/posts/pfbid024w7ydeKsQMmWQBETN1XZyz9r2xFL4Pmiy7T5HPo44TUF8XqszGbXUgNwjNTCdQzVl/?

Yes mate. Didnt see them on side scan at all - mind you we didnt do a major scout around. And with downscan and the amount of crap in water at moment you really cannot tell. So dropped the pole in and spot locked just on city side of southern pylon. I’d say there was a solid 20 or 30 fish. They were moving around quite a bit but staying in that @6m depth. Current was just dropping out so plastics werent getting a lot of interest so changed over to the nemo Zerek vibe and it converted. I recorded the fish again…just need to find a better way of sharing the livescope capture. https://www.facebook.com/1276354345/posts/pfbid024w7ydeKsQMmWQBETN1XZyz9r2xFL4Pmiy7T5HPo44TUF8XqszGbXUgNwjNTCdQzVl/?