JDP

No not been back for a while but things seem much the same on the IOW according to family I have there. Im not planning on heading back over until JonC gets the spare room ready and a tank full of fuel in his boat!!!!!

Doe's he busk at all ? my lad was doing very well at that age busking at markets and fund raisers. I suppose it's a fair amount easier doing his acoustic and vocals at those sorts of venues than heavy metal, though it was heavy metal that first attracted him to the guitar.

Ive not had an issue ever with the hobie kayak getting line under the feet paddles, can't you position your feet so the paddle sit flush with the bottom of the hull. Various rods but the little ones are a 1-3kg ugly stick which is very light and the other doesn't have a brand name and doesn't seem to come up in any searches. The no brand one is the one which has landed the best fish and became very popular even on charter boats. This shark was caught using the little white rod, people I was fishing with bait it couldn't be done. The hard bit was trying to cast a big bait out far enough with it, not landing the shark. I had to do a sort of a discus rotation and get the release right to get the bait out, luckily these sharks come very close to shore. The lighter ugly stick was used in the same location with very light line 6lb to see how many species I could land from the shore on the remote island I was staying at. I can't remember exactly how may but Im sure it was around 14 species with some of the fish getting up around 8kg. Im not sure of this species but possibly a sandbar or a bronze whaler with a humped back, any ideas ?

I don't have TikTok but Im pretty sure that's where my son gets better views from for his music videos also. I will get my son to show me Neil's stuff later today when he gets home. That sounds strange though how it just suddenly stopped at 520. How old is your son and does he play publicly anywhere ? My son has just hit 18 and though we live in a very quite small population town, my wife says he's had 27k on one of his from a month ago, while better songs have had under 10 in several months.

I don't do mine like they do in the video posted on here, I use a jigging master bobbin and do the join the same as the manufacturers do in their videos. I don't do a tight wrap followed by a second tight wrap over itself, rather more like one row of wrap over two straight strands. The start is tricky but for me I do the start with around 10 wraps pinching the start between my thumb and finger nail. Once those first 10 wraps have been laid I drag them firmly and tightly towards the start of the join, this will often lose a few wraps meaning I only have 5-6 tight turns but from those I can continue the wrap down the line and simply finish with back to front half hitches like in most videos. Getting the bobbin at the correct tension for the line class doesn't take long to get the hang of. As for time, even having done lots of them for myself and friends outfits, I do find they can be a bit time consuming just like fg knots. If anything though I can normally do a pr quicker than an fg and like mentioned never have them fail, hence why I end up doing so many for game fishing buddies after their fg fails on a big tuna etc!!!!!!

That's why I didn't post a link to mine. How many hits does he normally get after a week ? My youngest daughter (not the one who fishes) recently started posting a few of her outback adventures where they encounter various snakes and crocodiles which can get a few thousand after a week but none have gone crazy. Like I mentioned Im not trying to gain publicity, I simply post so my family in the UK can see them. My son posts music videos but more on other platforms, which can get several thousand views in a day, where YouTube gets very little traffic. I will enquire which ones he uses when I next talk with him but Im sure he doesn't do anything special to attract views as he's worse than me in regards to tec. What sort of video's is he making ? is the content interesting and exciting. Ive posted more pictures of myself with fish than Ive seen of yourself, though I don't like posting pictures with dead fish much as I cop to much grief from the greenie sector over here, so I take pic's of the people I take instead. I tend to only fish with my family or one other family, who's kids have grown up with with my kids. Though I do take a few fellas from time to time from various sites and old UK fishing buddies and can't wait until you head over for a fish with me. When you head out here I will post pic's of us both together 🥰

I do try to consider him all the time, I feel we are sole mates!!!!!

Im always surprised when I see people all wrapped up for cold weather, all we ever see of fishing in the US tends to be hot glamorous conditions with plenty of bling!!!! I am curious about the big lad on the Yak sitting so high, how his stability would be with a bit of chop and a big fish on.

This was going to be a comment on another Yak fishing video but for obvious reasons Ive decided to post as a new thread so I don't get in trouble again!!!!! Tricky trying to get decent fish away from snags and caves etc in a Yak on long fast action rods and light drags. I use 4ft kids rods (well built ones) which are extremely parabolic, which brings the leverage close to the angler rather than 6-7ft away at the tip of a fast action rod. This greatly helps with stability in a Yak and becomes almost like hand lining big groupers and small sharks etc as the power is brought so close to the angler, which obviously helps in terms of safety in choppy water. The rod is just 3-6kg rating but easily handles the saragosa 6000 at full drag with 65lb braid and 80lb leaders. With these rods being so light they also have great action for working soft plastics. We first bought these about 5yrs ago simply as a challenge to see who could land the best fish using them but soon discovered just how much fun they are. Ive used this particular one on all sorts from shore sharks to kingfish off the reefs and even almost landed a small black marlin with it. Obviously little rods such as this aren't going to have decent casting range, so for that we use 6ft light rods in the 2-4kg or lighter size with c4 stradic 3000 and 8-10lb braid. These light outfits are used on Au salmon and bluefish in the 4kg size and small tuna.

flat conditions.

I rarely post on there but like mentioned its weird how some get heaps of hits while others not so. Personally I post mostly so my family can see what, where and how we are doing. I did a quick video test with a second hand compact camera a few years ago and put it on YouTube which got a fair amount of views (750k) . Then my account got hacked and I had to start again under a new name as my name is now being used by someone else. Funny thing is that same video is now back up to 431k. Now my account is so full of adds I just don't bother with it, which is a shame as most of my views were from JonC.

It shouldn't effect it to much. The paint wears off anyway simply from saltwater use (if you do enough hours).

Don't they just use them upside-down .

No, only the PR knot. I see to many fg's pull apart on decent fish over here from experienced anglers who think they have perfected them. My PR tool is set with a tension screw to allow precise tension and has yet to fail on joins in the past 10+ years. So many people targeting bigger species here have turned to pr knot tools. The first knot against the spool can be the lumpy one, hence a bit of tape over it.

I had a few Fin-nors many years ago but wasn't overly impressed with the smoothness of the drags, how are yours and have you needed to do anything to them.

Choice is yours, a mono leader does leave a bit of a bulky knot lump. Those don't look like they have the braid gripper on the spool like many reels do now, so you could just tie braid direct then a wrap of tape once around the spool. Ive done this and never encountered any slip, I also tend to use the tape over any mono knot if I use that as a rubbing leader.

Not something you could simply do yourself ? Do you pay a bait boy to put the bait on your hooks too🤠 I bet you don't even stir your own noodles.

Looks like the charter special has a slower level wind to the other. What strength are you using ? like the others are saying, looks pretty beefy. What drag do the reels put out at max.

Those 6/0 senators out of the box new with standard drags only put out a measured 7lb of drag pressure. They really were primitive bulky reels that relied more on line capacity to eventually wear a fish down, broke handles and side plates on mine. Where now a small Talica 12 can put out around 40lb of drag and hold 700m of 50lb braid. I use my lever drag Talica 12 as my offshore heavy game outfit on a very light Daiwa Saltiga rod. I can cast with the Shimano Talica but admit its not a decent cast but that's mostly down to the rod its used with. As for Penn reels generally, well I have a battle 6000 which is used on anything big from the shore and also picked up a slammer mkIV two days ago. The slammer is going back, regretful purchase. Though I like the battle for its price, I won't be making any big moves over to these Chinese made reels.

Also a circle hook with hermit crabs could well be the issue of missing those fish. I would of thought a pretty large hook in a light gauge around 10/0 would be needed to leave enough gape to hook tope in the corner of the mouth with those as bait, even then you will miss some. With a J hook in 7 to 8/0 and the reel set so very little line could be pulled, you would stand a better chance of that first bite hookup. I rarely get a deep hooked fish when leaving my rig set at fighting drag as the sharks tend to hook instantly rather than being left to get the hooks in deep. If the bait is dropped on that first bite they will most likely come back and hit it again as the bait will not of been badly damaged normally, though almost every shark species I hook if from that first bite. This is what I will use on tope sized sharks up to far bigger whaler shark species. I don't use any crimps on my short wire biting leader and find 90lb has yet to let me down. The short wire leader is joined to 50lb to 110lb mono trace, rigging without crimps. The 110lb leader allows me to get hold of the trace and apply a fair amount of pressure when the sharks are close to the boat or shore, crimps will only weaken those links. The fact you mention screaming runs sounds like you had relatively light drag settings. Test all your joins and be confident you can hit that fish with a fair amount of pressure right at the start to set the hook.

On those dropper loops I have a swivel on two hook rigs as this is targeting smaller fish that can spin around twisting the line on the retrieve. Yes many species I don't use swivels with and suffer no line twists, however these tend to be fish that don't roll in their fight, staying the right way up like they naturally do. With plastics and live bait I don't need swivels as these don't spin around, if they did they wouldn't be rigged right. Most hard body lures are designed to work and hold in a certain position, not spin and twist up tackle, though depending on my target species some will need a swivel. Dead baits, will obviously need swivels as these can often spin about. From the shore or boat tope are common here, as are various other shark species. When I first moved here I fished with all the booms clips and bits that I brought from the UK (even had more sent out here if I couldn't make them. I also missed a fair few fish by targeting species that way. It didn't take long to discover a rig fished with well exposed correct sized hooks and no free line to pull got solid hookups, where rod holding and letting fish take line often resulted in those fish spitting the bait and moving on. If a fish pulls on a bait with well exposed hooks, it makes sense those hooks will hook. With every re-bait I check my hooks for razor sharpness. I've just spent a couple of frustrating evenings with an experienced and sponsored angler who two nights in a run stuffed several decent sharks by holding the rod and allowing the fish to pull line each time he had a bite. Only one shark was landed which was when he walked away from the rod sitting in a holder with the drag set at strike (10-14lb). However, even that was lost by the erratic high sticking of the rod and allowing no tension on the line on the retrieve after the pump. Like the saying, Can't teach an old dog new tricks" was true.

Ive done the same with older ones but was advised not to on the newer ones. I stay way from doing much to my outboards and leave it to the mechanic, who comes to my house to work on any engines I need looking at. The mechanic has a commercial boat that I often skipper, so looks after me well in terms of priority and price.

It should do if its simply a case of keeping the oil topped up ahead of every trip instead of every three trips like I was trying. Once I found out, I could simply keep it filled and not have issues. The rectifier was a known issue is you did what I did and turn on the battery isolator while the engine was in the start position, if I had known before hand I possibly wouldn't of made the mistake. Also, it was simply a bit of a piss take on the merc, they are very good motors these days, I would happily buy another (already have a 75 merc 4 stroke which has been faultless).

When I had a piece of crap 90 merc two smoke, the oil chamber needed to full and the engine trimmed down fully. I had much the same issue where it cut out, so went through checking isolation switches etc etc but when I turned off the battery and back on with the engine key still in the on position, it burnt out the electrical rectifier (costing $500). With mine the oil reservoir needed to always be a minimum of 3/4 full . Soon replaced it with a Yam 4 stroke 70 which surprisingly gave much the same performance but without the high fuel use (once propped right).

Yes, if only I could head back😩 Every time I've looked at flights and hire cars etc, I realise how many big trips away here I can do with the trailer boat. Got a three month one coming up, not your sort of thing though, its not down at the marina. Splendid specimen and what a massive sinker (lead).