JDP

Be careful buying anything secondhand from lowrance or simrad. I used lowrance products for over 20yrs but replaced them all at about 2yr periods. Many mine had been replaced under warranty issues. Simrads, especially the larger screen units seem to be going through a tough time at the moment. The commercial boat I skipper from time to time has its second 16inch simrad in 6 months and the new one shuts down for no reason as you are heading along. The new boat I posted on here a few weeks ago also has a 16 simrad which after the second trip out has now been replaced after just 4 trips. My own boat has both Garmin and a simrad evo3 simrad which again shuts down as Im going along and takes so long to boot back up I tend to leave it off and just use the Garmin all day. One of my daughter's boss's boat has a 24 simrad which has just been replaced under warranty, which is now for sale still in the box as he's installed a Garmin instead. A couple of things to consider before you dive in and buy sidescan (structure scan etc) what depths are you going to be searching for wrecks and fish in and what power does the head unit punch out. Last time I looked at the Navico (simrad lowrance) offerings only had relatively shallow water performing sidescan where Garmin have a 260khz sidescan transducer which works very well in depths double the others can do. My Garmin transducer will scan out to around 250m each side of the boat in 140m of water but the 60-80m is where it performs best because of my smaller screen size (10inch). There are plenty of tricks to using sidescan to get more out of it rather than just trying to plug and play so if you do get one check out some of the online tutorials on getting the most out of them, many people dont get good results as they dont know how to use them properly.

Weather window here, 45kts of wind and 100mm of rain 😔 Was meant to be testing a new boat.

I’m only 3hrs from the snow fields ( mountains) but also mid winter broadbill night fishing gets well below freezing and I sometimes have ( had ) all the kids with me. Initially they were for trying to keep lithium camera batteries warm while on several days of climbing on ice-cap mountains here. The cold soon flattens batteries.

I don’t use petrol in mine, I use zippo lighter fuel or this other fuel that is virtually the same as the zippo stuff. These cheapies like mentioned seemed to out perform the far more expensive zippo. Just realised, these aren’t Chinese lighters but Japanese, which might be why they work so well, they were very cheap though.

Yes I have the genuine zippo version and some cheap Chinese copies. I find the Zippo harder to light and keep alight unless it has a reasonably good ventilation, where the Chinese ones have been much easier to keep going. Not that I need them right now, in fact I only used them a couple of times in the last 5 years when I head into the snow. Today is perfect 28'c on the coast and a barmy 45'c inland, just about the right temp for a slow cooked pull part lamb!!!

Hope they were killed in accordance to the new regulations you have!!!!!! https://vegnews.com/2021/11/uk-lobsters-octopuses-crabs-sentient-beings

Our prawns are dropped into boiling sea water from the location they were caught, with many people taking large boil pots to cook them where they catch them (also ice for rapidly cooling them). Prawn shrimp differences https://www.southernliving.com/food/seafood/difference-between-shrimp-prawns

Size and a slightly different shell as well as prawns have claws on three legs where shrimps have two. There is a really quick way of removing the meat from the shell.

Glammer conditions, you can keep that chilly stuff though!!!

I recently made a big jump forward in all our cooking of meats and fish by investing in a Thermapen mk4, which I believe is a UK manufactured high end calibrated temp probe. Cooking meats and fish to that perfect temp has been a game changer.

Much has to do with the prawn species themselves, they don't simply all taste the same and the way they are cooked also has much to do with taste as well as how fresh they are. I never rated them when I lived in the UK, even the ones we caught ourselves. In saying that even the local lobsters we get are considered the better tasting of the numerous species we get here and the highest in value but still rank bellow slow cooked pork in my opinion. I eat a fair amount of fish and locally hunted deer (six species), goats and pigs so rarely eat any bought meat.

Yes agree totally, when I look back at the ridiculously big heavy gear I used to use in the UK with wire traces more suitable to jaws, all on outfits that were so hard on the angler and not the fish. The thing is these days with social media there's so much info on targeting bigger fish from other parts of the world where they've been doing it for many years. Now you can use small virtually unbreakable rods that put the power curve to advantage the angler in using far higher drag settings in order to release fish quicker rather than have an exhausted fish slowly kick away most likely to keel over and drop to the bottom. Ive targeted marlin, tuna and sharks from small boats for over 30yrs and constantly changing techniques and tackle doing so. Traditional broomstick rods with big 24-37kg reels are extremely difficult to use with heavy enough settings to catch and release big fish in small boats. On a big stable boat with a crew fully prepared is far different as the angler can then use the gear fully loaded.

Why the long leader and not simply a wind on that you can literally wind the hook to the tip of the rod if you like. Lucky you didn't get the line wrapped around the rod ending in a snapped rod or even wrapped around the prop in a big mess. Theres also the chance of getting wrapped in heavy loose line yourself, which could end badly with such heavy fish. Not being funny but these bigger fish really need two people for catch and release, different matter catch kill. Its fantastic to see so many of these fish about, not sure what's going on with tuna generally but here we normally get a 2 week opportunity on bluefin and about the same with yellowfin (both like different temp water). However we have had around 7 months of combined tuna and albacore which at times are in land based reach. This isn't just our part of the coast but a stretch of water 15000km long has been getting similar catches which hasn't been heard of in many years. Bait fish, mostly mackerel have been in such massive schools that you quite literally drive over them all day along the continental shelf. We are pretty lucky that most of these bluefin are small 20-40kg which are easy work fishing solo with quite light spin gear.

My daughter just popped in front of our place with the scoop net for a few prawns. Not bad for 30 mins effort, not as good as pot noodles but at least these are free😉

So true on the hours, marine outboards with high hours isn't a bad thing, especially when they have stuck to the service schedule. We just replaced the Yamaha 250 with over 3000hrs from tow years of faultless daily work on the abalone and urchin boat I often skipper. It was only replaced as financially it doesn't cost anything to swap them them every two years under tax schemes. River tour boat operators here have been clocking 10,000hrs on twin f70 Yamaha's before replacing them, pretty much run all day every day.

Yes that right, maybe these guys after sole.

Pretty certain scallops used to get pulled from that area years ago, from memory they only had a very short season on them. Might be wrong but my nephew owns a commercial boat and only seems to target them for a short period, then back to crabs.

Great boats and so much fun to drive.

Its surprising how far we have to travel in many parts of the country to get to decent reefs. When I head up to QLD many of the Barrier reef areas are 90k offshore. This is why you see so many small boats with deep V hulls and big fast engines, to get there and back and still have time to fish. I remember my wrecking days from the IOW taking major planning around the weather and tide and a long boring trip for a short amount of fishing.

Most likely be the best catch those trawlers will catch!!!!!

So with poor weather we decided to head inland, up into the mountains for a few trout. Just three hours drive had us up in the frosty snowy mountains, with a little snow still on the mountain tops. A couple of hours sleep in the swags before a 4am rise and shake off the ice!!!! Just before sunrise my daughter managed a nice little rainbow which was soon released as we hiked further upstream. A mix of small brown and rainbows with a few better ones up to 4-5lb were the order of the day and a first for us was a brook trout which according to everyone we've spoken with aren't found there!!! Kept three fish for the smoker and headed back to the coast for some warmer weather, funny how you can have 26-27'c on the coast and a max of 9'c durning the warmest part of the day in the mountains. With a mix of wind and swell we've only managed three trips offshore this week but those have certainly been action packed. Tuna and albacore have been just about everywhere once you get 40k offshore. They are taking anything you throw or drop at them. The fish aren't big with most in the 10-20kg which are great fun on 10kg outfits. The tuna, both southern bluefin and yellowfin have been in incredible numbers now for months and to top it off the yellowtail kingfish have turned up in big numbers closer inshore. Back to wind and rain again today, great opportunity to grind some coffee and make a few flat whites.

Lucky it wasn't the trawler guys going about their everyday work dropping that bucket into the sea😁

Pretty sad to loose a tired fish with a gaff shot in it. Maybe think about doing this style of fishing with another person onboard for the welfare of the fish until you become experienced enough to target them solo. The truth can be harsh but this kind of report doesn't favour regulations to be changed.

One of my fishing buddies who fishes with me here is a pilot boat skipper in that area.