Huxstang

Wow. How good was he at getting back on board though. I have never tried a bar crossing in a tiller steer is standing up normal to see out? A mate of mine’s dad who is a really experienced boaty (long term water police) had a bit of a turn and was thrown out of his tinny and got a head knock. Would have drowned except someone saw him and got him in time. Just reinforced that it can happen to any of us.

Man these camps must be fairly windy with all that braised steak and onion you guys eat. Personally a big fan of baked beans with cheese for a nuclear mouth burn. However for an epic jaffle, go plain tuna in springwater (drained), red onion, cheese and sliced jalapeno’s.

Fished Bribie when folks moved up there in 1990 through to @1998. We didnt bother much because as you say, catches were sporadic. Always got a great feed of diver whiting out on the cockle banks. Passage hold good memories though as got my PB flathead of 82cm on a little Nilsmaster on a Starlo 2-4kg baitcaster with a Quantum low profile (I still own that whole combo) was up the passage but land based at Mission Point in @ 1997.

Out of interest did a comparison between my Sustain 3000 and 5000 (same generation reels) and a Stradic 5000 (new model). The two 5000’s have minimal rock whilst the 3000 (and same on an earlier Sustain 3000) has a reasonable amount of rocking. If I recall correctly the larger size has a lower and upper drag stack so that would hold the spool much more from any lateral rocking. Hope that helps put your mind at ease.

Is spool fully seated on the spindle? Not sure on that model but if any of the metal drag washers didnt index properly on the spindle the spool may not be fully seated. Did you remove spool at all?

I am contemplating upping my rod one class….its a 7 foot, medium spin, 10-40gm cast weight Ocea Offshore. I didnt feel comfortable putting any more load on the rod - the reel had plenty of drag left in it IMHO. I know the bay holds some huge tuskies and they always hang around heavy structure and they definitely are pound for pound one the hardest pulling reefies around. But isnt it the great part of fishing that there is stuff down there that gets you wondering? Although I do wonder if it’s the fisherman’s lament or the fisherman’s joy.

Just sounded up the structure, although got it marked pretty well. Didnt bother spot locking on it as it was a really gentle drift. All I know is that the smoker gave me zero chance, I had the rod fully loaded and plenty of drag one the Saragossa 6000 and I made about 3 metres before it decided that the structure was more attractive than coming up and looking at me. Very similar take to the slatey. My 40lb leader came up with all the signs of loosing a fight with structure I did have the Livescope down for a while and nothing was reacting to artificials so threw down a dirty old bit of squid on a 7/0. That north side of Moreton was crazy alive with bait fish but only one small bust up of tuna once and nothing else. There was something hanging around on the surface - there was a floating stick and initially I thought dolphin fish but they were just sitting fin out and almost stationary. Only saw one close enough to say it wasnt a pelagic as it was a large flat sided looking fish. Not sure if anyone else has experienced this, we guessed bat fish or something like that.

I dont know if anyone here is from Perth - you can be our Perth expert in a year or so.

A bit rough out there today and so was my photography. 3 grassies - 40.5, 39 & 38 1 slatey…they arent in the comp from memory…66cm. Got bricked by its daddy one drift earlier….absolutely smoked me. https://photos.google.com/u/1/share/AF1QipNZg3pijBjwQGyGZCu5K5t_C9VillVOhVsjALmyOfIHF9KCGXZ-LCN_adCwq4BjJw/photo/AF1QipNOxdi9aHHq1U1r0Rxi13bsnR71VjcE4Y4ellXW?key=Mm1JY0RtVXZ5Z0JCc1MySV9ZTDR4Y0hjQThJaFpR

Yes seen the same. Has anyone tried it for comparison? I should hit my nephew up for a few tuna recipes. He is head chef at an upmarket Melbourne venue and they have been doing a heap of tuna lately. He was telling me last week they were buying some massive blue fin in for the current menu and the head alone was 35kg.

Have you thought about connecting them through a VSR? I think Victron call them just a battery joiner but essentially they are the same…a voltage sensing relay. They seperate the batteries under certain conditions and join them under set conditions. IE join when voltage on the alternator charged battery reaches preset voltage (usually @ 13.4v) and separate when it hits the low voltage setting (@13.2v from memory). Sort of guarantees you can run them as a joined pair without fear of flattening both. The best part of them is that you can connect a charger to the secondary battery and it works in reverse….once that battery hits voltage it opens circuit through to the other battery. Hope this makes sense. Pretty much what any 4WD dual battery setup looks like. Look up Victron Cyrix-ct

Around Brisbane there are quite a few dams loaded with australian bass and the like. Rayke is the resident expert on them IMHO as he fished two of the dams every week. I hope I am firing as well as him when I get to his age is all I can say. Head about 4hrs west and south and you get into the dams stocked with murray cod - an absolute trophy fish and australias largest freshwater fish….by along way. Just google them. An absolute beautiful fish as well. Only thing better is a wild murray cod and they are in all the western rivers from the QLD border down (some areas more than others). Head about 4hrs north and you get barramundi (on steroids) as per Manga’s post. Another hour from there is another dam also stocked with barra. Barra in the dams get probably an easy twice as heavy as a wild barra. Best we have gotten in Lake Misery (aka Monduran aka Fred Haig Dam) is 122cm and estimated at 30kg. Only estimate because mate and I are not exactly weak and it was a tough lift. The biggest thing you will have to adapt to when you come here is we treat 4 or 5 hr drives as around the corner….

Google Chris Britton Rods. He is a custom rod maker - lists the specs of rods he makes. If any of your rods dont match the rods he makes then I would say you wont use it. Really here in Brisbane you can fish: Light Tackle Game Heavy Tackle Game Offshore (pelagic and demersal) Inshore (Moreton Bay) (same but the smaller species normally) Beach (ie surf) Estuary Impoundment natives Freshwater native fish Depends on what you want to target but personally I think for inshore and estuary the 2500-5000 size Shimano reels are about right depending on how heavy a stick you want to use. For overheads Shimano 200 class mainly though you can use 150’s as the water isnt that deep (not much over 20m is the deepest part of the bay) Offshore Shimano SW reels from 5000-14000 for spin and overheads up to @ Shimano Talica 20 depending on the stick you match with. (20m-100m is the normal depth ranges with the closer reefs in the 30-40m depth and then 100m before you get into deep dropping) I just use the Shimano sizes because I dont know Daiwa and other brands very well. If you are a tournament fisher then you may get into the bream or bass tournament scene they will fish ultra light so if you have anything in the 1-3kg and Shimano 1000 size reel you may want to bring it.

We always used to use snaps in the old days with barra (back when u used wire as well) because the old style lure retrievers need something like a swivel to lock over when they snag. Now days only do a loop knot. Its quick and like the others can change a lure quicker than dicking around with a snap where the trebles are swinging around. I do have snaps for the odd occassion casting stickbaits and poppers offshore so you can quickly change the lure. https://oceanslegacy.com/product/hdultra-access-swivel/

Thanks for providing a fix mate

https://photos.google.com/u/1/share/AF1QipNZg3pijBjwQGyGZCu5K5t_C9VillVOhVsjALmyOfIHF9KCGXZ-LCN_adCwq4BjJw/photo/AF1QipO2ArWZCv5KEzmN5IPG0Xq-AT0HrTzexR_dBkG5?key=Mm1JY0RtVXZ5Z0JCc1MySV9ZTDR4Y0hjQThJaFpR

Yes hopefully its useful for other people. Not sure what happened to the original poster, maybe my post scared hi away - lol. Like I said, my knowledge is all based on experience travelling and living off grid for long periods where keeping food and beer/wine cold is a massive priority. And all before the advent of lithium and affordable solar. We have had and solved more than our fair share of problems with electrics travelling the country and yet to have to resort to hot beer so doing something right. There are cheaper options if you want to wire in the ebay watt meter (listed as 200amp watt meter)…I still use similar on my solar blanket when charging the 4wd drinks fridge battery. Lot cheaper than when I bought mine over 10 years ago but its still going. At a glance tells you how much the solar panel is putting out and at the end of the day how much its generated. Can put it inline with a fridge to see how much it consumes as well. Pretty good value for @ $24.

I actually discussed at length flushing with the guys I bought my boat from. They were quite firm that for us average punters, flushing after every use was a really important thing to don. They didnt support the use of the head flush port but the use of either a flush bag or muffs. They did say if using daily the flushing was fairly pointless. They pointed to a commercial fishermans boat they had in with a 200 Suz on it that they do servicing on. Said it never gets flushed because its in use basically every day. Had over 2000hrs on it and no signs of any corrosion when doing their maintenance (that was from the actual mechanic). Pro’s might work their boats hard but they dont want either unreliable or expensive maintenance, so I reckon what I have been told has to be pretty reasonable advice. Went up to Cooktown and in 5 days only flushed it after last trip. Will do the same on any other long trips.

It has been a long time coming. They will actually sit within the Qld Police as a separate agency. Should be good to standardise their vessels and admin etc as they move to being a professional state maritime rescue organisation. (BTW I dont mean they dont offer a professional and dedicated service now) I know a few of us are old enough to remember the old QATB - its probably like when the old ambulance services were funded by the local chook raffle to where the QAS is now. Properly funded and standardised services.

Need more detail. What are the fridges or do you know power consumption.? How are they wired…separately to each battery or is their a common power bus. Fridges cycling on and off is normal behaviour, but if its shutting down most camping fridges have a low voltage cut off. So it does come down to how its wired and how you are using things. What is the state of your batteries? do you have a multimeter? Measure your batteries at full charge ie with no draw then measure again before dark and see what the state of charge is on each one. Do you need more solar…this is fairly detailed but the below is fairly long winded but for me I would not make any change until I fully understood the actual problem…as you have only given a small amount of information that does not allow all the issues to be unpacked. Not sure if this will help but hopefully it will give you more understanding of how your batteries and solar work. Your lead acid battery bank - assuming your only using house bank for fridges gives you (when new) 150 amp hrs of usable output (50% depth of discharge). If you have discharged them deeply a number of times you have shortened their lifespan significantly. Deep cycle batteries won’t give more useable capacity just a longer life for your depth of discharge. Now whether your need more solar or different batteries depends on your actual draw really…if they are say Engel 60l fridges running as a fridge you would say around 2-4amp/hr draw…ie 192 amp hrs max in 24hrs. Once they go to freezer you can expect more like a constant 4-6amps plus. I use Engels as an example as they are one of the most efficient 12/24v compressors in use for 4WD/camping. Some other brands will be more like 10amps plus. Your 160w solar theoretically is putting out @ 8amps of current, although actual depends on many factors - age/cloud/clean/etc etc. But you should expect @ 80amp of input into your batteries over the day. So during a theoretical 10hr daylight period your existing battery bank is not being reduced from its existing state of charge based on what two Engel fridges might use. That means your current draw might be no more than 112 amp hrs where solar is not charging which is inside the theoretical capacity of your existing house bank. I say theoretical because if you have deep discharged your batteries a number of times your actual capacity could be quite a bit lower. However, that does not take into account any other draw such as lights/TV/ water pumps etc. It all adds up. PS I am not expert just done lots of remote area camping where I needed to be able to maintain power for extended periods so have taught myself a fair amount - helps that a mate is an electrical engineer and the other a electrical tech. Personally I would put a smart shunt in so I could see the variables and actually understand what is happening before I charged batteries or solar panels. Once you can see just how much you use and how much you generate you can make a much more informed decision. Personally I would have one regardless as its the only way to reliably understand what is happening in your 12v system. I use Victron IP65 Smart Shunts that you can read via blue tooth on your phone via their app (I have one Smart Shunt on my cranking/house lead acid bank and another on my lithium bank for trolling motor). However if you have space the BMV-712 has a nice gauge that allows you to read it without a mobile device. I would recommend Springers for the best prices in Brisbane.

Grassy Emperor….34cm..that is my little finger

Yes mate, big trip but thats what retirement is about isnt it. Do it while you can, you dont know whats around the corner. You are 100% - those islands do look inviting.

Goals…well jewie on a plastic. Not so worried about the size for starters. Explore more of the southern bay and be more comfortable with the spots Learn how to drive my Livescope better before we go up to King Ash Bay in November

Welcome to the forum. Good bunch here…unlike FB no inhabited by DHeads and no bullying rubbish, good mix of the young and not so young. Just retired myself - old saying - you can only buy time on one side of the ledger.

I guess only issue in the end will be that when you want to sell it very people will know the brand.