JDP

Its amazing how electricity will draw corrosion through the entire cable if salt water is allowed to get around the connections. Its also not good investment to use low quality cheap wire when replacing on any 12v system. One of the best things I bought was a battery and load tester, especially with a family of 5 who all have vehicles and boats etc https://www.foxwelltech.com/product/item-190.html. Informative young fella explaining wire quality

Headed into the mountains on Saturday targeting trout but the weather was so bad I gave up after copping a flogging from both wet and snowy weather. The 3.5hr drive each way drains it out of you after a sleepless night buried in snow sleeping in a swag and gale force winds sounding like a jet engine through the alpine trees.As soon as I got home I heard from my son who had been working the other side of the snowy mountains and wanting a lift home. Shame he hadn't asked the day before when I was only 2hrs from him!!!! Anyway like any parent would I agreed to head off the flooring morning on the 500km drive over the mountains to get him.On the morning extreme weather warning of 100kh winds, snow blizzards and fallen trees had me having to turn back and take a different route around the mountains rather than over them. It was still a wet and wild drive but I managed to reach him by lunch time and decided to take the shorter run (by 45km) over the mountains, knowing the snow ploughs would of cleared the way. I had also taken my dog so she could experience the snow for the first time!!!!All went well on the lower parts of the mountain and the dog loved the white stuff!!!!!...however up higher the roads were packed solid and the wind was again driving snow sideways making seeing the road only possible by the side depth markers. As a brief break in the snow appeared we came across two people who had just rolled their vehicle. This area is remote and the nearest help was 95km ahead or 80km behind, to add to this there was no phone reception on three of our phones, the fourth did. Luckily one phone was able to reach emergency services who I had the most frustrating experience with as they didn't seem to understand we weren't simply close to a road intersection that we couldn't give an exact location to. I did offer gps numbers but they said that wouldn't help. I explained we couldn't stay where we were due to the weather conditions and getting stuck ourselves, I also explained we were in a two seat 4x4 already loaded with my adult son, large dog, guitars etc etc. Not a problem they said, help is on the way and it was ok to leave the people with their vehicle in bellow freezing temps on top of a mountain in a blizzard.The people spoke very little English but enough to understand that a rescue was on its way, however I insisted they squeeze into our two seater while we all wait for the rescue. Soon the weather turned pear shaped and even with the engine running and heater on full our vehicle started turning into a large snowball and ice. After 30mins we saw a vehicle approach with flashing lights just before dark and we all felt a little relieved. Not the case this was just a road worker making the final pass along the mountain road on his way out of there. He was shocked to find us and told us there had been no reports of anyone stuck up there and there certainly wasn't a rescue on its way. He also stated the road was now very bad in both directions and how no other vehicles would be using the road until the snow ploughs clear it the following morning. Next the fire brigade calls us to tell us we were now the rescue and they were leaving it in our hands!!!!...So now it was a case of push on with four adults and a dog in the two seat 4x4.We did some slipping and sliding but made it to the closet town two hours after dark. Stopped at the service station that does the vehicle recoveries who pretty much said they are closing and come back tomorrow, couldn't find any accommodation in town for them so ended up squeezing them back in the vehicle for another 60k run to the next town where we were at least able to find them accommodation. From there we had another 3hrs drive to get home, 13hrs of driving, 2 1/2 tanks of fuel and we made it home feeling well and truly over the snow.

No, I haver a far more sexy head and less pot noodle storage.

Picked up a Shimano 3 piece grappler last week ready for the winter run of bluefin and yellowfin tuna. This is an 8ft lure casting and popping designed for lures in the 120g size. Had a couple of casts the day I bought it using a 10,000 twin power and 80lb braid, which banged lures an impressive distance considering the heavy line class. Had to wait 5 days to try it with light lures having went down with Covid but back in action again today. Due to wanting to test it on small fish and light lures I used a 5000 stradic with 20lb 131 suffix braid and 50g metal lures. Ive got other 8ft rods built for casting 50-60g lures which is far lighter than this but to my surprise this thing was actually getting lures further out. Soon hooked a salmon but unfortunately this was almost instantly intercepted by a shark, so both fish and lure gone. New lure soon found another small salmon which was good to see that a rod designed for fish in the 60-80kg size still managed a nice little bend with a small fish. The rod is light and even though a heavy class I didn't feel any fatigue casting continually also considering I was sick on my back two days ago with the plaque. Looking forward to taking it to the tropics in a couple of months. The swell was pretty big with virtually no wind at all, in contrast to the sea the lake behind the beach shows not a ripple. Over all very impressed with the rod and how small it breaks down. Tomorrow heading into the mountains and snow chasing trout.

Fantastic, even though it was relatively quiet the buzz of getting to know the environment from beneath the surface is something those who have strong opinions against spearing will never understand. You get home after a day under the water and play back all of what you've seen over and over in mind, something a day with a rod and reel in your hand doesn't come close to how ever good the day was. This feeling doesn't ever stop even after years of diving and some of those memories stick for life. How did you feel for buoyancy ? had your weights slipped in that photo or do you have weights all around and the clip at the back or side ? I cant tell from the photo but if you dont already have the rubber dive belts these are so good as they don't slip as your body compresses at depth. We tend to wear our weights more towards the back as it helps assist the angle of your body at the surface when you need to get some air and re-rig the gun. In regards to strong tides etc, I always used that to my advantage on the IOW by getting in at places and drift diving. These would often mean getting out walking the shore and drifting the same run a few times, St Catherins was great for this and surprisingly good in very shallow water on various sized pollack.

Been so long since I had my own boat out, headed out at the weekend and a thermostat kept sticking, forcing the motor to shut down. Not good to have the engine cut out crossing a bar with big swell, got home and went down with the poxy Covid but starting to get my head back into another session this weekend. It seems weird being off the water for a week.

We’ve had a fair amount of issues with 16 NSW evo Simrads. They certainly don’t handle the bash bash very well and the touch screen is not so good compared to other brands. Also one of the boats I use recently had new autopilot fitted, linked with Simrad and seems to have a mind of its own.

Just to add with point 1 as long is it is linked in the nmea network it will work on other units. I still have my old Lowrance point 1 which works with both my simrad and Garmin.

Not quite true that they are all similar. If you look at the spec on that raymarine unit you will see it only has a res of 800 x 480 which is pretty low res on the down view, in fact its what sounders were 20yrs ago. If not being used in deep water or searching for fish then low res from the surface to the bottom is fine but for showing structure and fish detail at depth higher res screens will show fish that this unit will not. In comparison my Garmin has a res of 1920 x 1200 gpsmap 8410 as finding fish is more important for me. There was a big shift towards Garmin for both commercial and offshore game fishers over here. I use mostly Garmin and a few simrads on the boats I skipper commercially over here but the simrads are prone to shutting down and not so good with the touch screen at times. The rescue boats I used to be on were all fitted with Raymarine but 90% of their use was in charting not sonar. Many transducers can be interchanged with either wiring adapters or cutting and changing plugs etc. Garmin have the largest choice in transducers and also the option of most airmar transducers to choose from s well as useful Garmin tutorials on YouTube.

Not sure if it’s common knowledge in the UK but Berkeley have bought out savage, resulting in all stock being greatly discounted. Picked up a bag full of lures normally $20-$26 for $2-$5 each. Might be worth checking out if you have such offers your side of the pond.

It was a wet weekend which didn't stop the group of kids we took to the snow chasing trout, biggest went 7lb but some far bigger fish were lost. From the mountains back to the ocean was also very eventful (stressful). From big seas, great white, blown air hose on one of the divers, water hose blown on the honda 🤨 its been a crazy few days. Anyone who is using the big Honda's, be sure to check if yours has a known issue with these hoses as the water pressure will fill inside the cowling in seconds. The water also destroyed one of the coils and will no doubt have follow on issues in the future from the saltwater.

Heading into the mountains later today for a bit of trout fishing. My daughter had a few good trout of 10-12lb on Monday. Frost and ice before a week of commercial boat work next week.

Sharks will follow the sound of boat engines here, they also turn to full adrenalin mode when they hear spear guns go off and also come to check out boats when the anchor chain rattles over the side of the boat. Obviously this is mostly because they have become tuned to knowing they can steal fish from us. What I find quite amazing is that if I head into the water with camera gear and no speargun is that fish sense they are not being hunted and will approach very close when I have just the camera. Those same fish soon disappear out of sight when underwater hunting with a gun. However, by using flashers set at different depths using floats at the surface we are able to draw certain species close for a brief moment. I feel sure these would work on bass and pollack etc. Diving on air can also be a good attractant and Ive often considered setting up a small compressor with a weighted hose to create air bubbles. I regularly skipper commercial dive boats for shellfish, where the divers encounter fish that are attracted to the fact the divers are removing shellfish from the reefs but also larger pelagic fish cruise above them in their air bubble trails. Unfortunately this kind of work also attracts large sharks that are dangerous to the divers. Fads are another way of bringing fish to nothing more than a rope with a float. There will often be hundreds of dolphin fish and other pelagic species close to the surface but also bottom feeders where the float is anchored. Fads normally take several weeks to get algae growth on the floats and rope and its normally not until good growth forms that fish will hold at them. The video link I posted in a thread the other day shows how sharks are tuned into boats over here.

Should of kept quite and just put them in the freezer. These little goats got to close yesterday and will be roasted later today.

Speed demon!!! Looking at the sheer amount of wrecks on Navionics charts you would think that some must still have good fish on them, what's the cause of lack of fish, do they normally fish so poor these days ?

Spiders have feelings, mostly they feel hungry!!!

Garmin have numerous Youtube tutorials which Ive found helpful in the past when I moved away from Lowrance products.

Yes Im aware of the 32gb, mine is maxed out, seems to small for the amount of area you pay for and as people already know having to upload sections can be an issue where they keep changing the upload process. I have double the problem because I have both Garmin and Simrad in the same boat and both with the reveal vision charts but not able to share between units. Ive also got both variants on my phone for when Im on other boats and Im far from a computer person. For now its all working and Im to afraid to update anything!!!! Soon to replace the simrad with a second Garmin to simplify a bit. I find panoptics deserves a screen entirely to itself.

Im in. This has been a little project for the last couple of months and part of the reason my 15ft boat has been neglected. Van now finished and back onto tinkering with my 15.

I believe that 32gb is for the normal charts, the downloading through active captain is for the sea floor surveyed charts, could be wrong.

Yes Joe, he came out here with Danny for some sharking but didn't get the mako's unfortunately but plan on having another attempt. I used to work with them back in the day!!!!! Its going to funny taking them sharking in the 14ft centre console.

Yes it is a tricky area to fish in regards to tides, also you have to be right onto of some of the marks. The guys I know, do well because they keep marks close to themselves, also one of them is a pilot boat skipper so on the water all the time.

Hopefully not with his spearfishing gear.

Having seen you slay the pout in that last big trip I might leave them to you. Haven't done a big trip for a while but have a 9000km road trip coming up followed by a run 80k offshore where I will be based for 10 days. Not my vehicle, boat or fuel. Also have another relatively long distance trip possibly before that one, again not my vehicle and boat. Wow that sounds terrible, in saying that my friends from the IOW have been catching pretty well.

Another of a wreck off the Needles, with the gps numbers included.