JDP

Looks like a new rig apart from the rusty anchor chain, will you be replacing that for stainless or a better quality galvanised one, or just put up with the rust stains that will stain into the fibreglass.

Which one of us is he calling a child. He's mean and Im telling.

More of a shared post due to been busy commercially fishing followed by a stuffed back. My last trip in my own boat for a fish was after seeing big numbers of snapper while commercially catching abalone (shellfish). I took my daughter along on the 60km each way run to find the snapper truly on fire. I got off to a good start but after a deep cut from the gills of a snapper things went down hill, to the point even getting seasick!!!! My daughter continued catching snapper after snapper on plastics, resulting in over 40 fish caught and released to around 15 by me. The plan was to shoot a few fish to take home. A few days before I'd had to get my divers from the water at this spot due to a large great white showing interest in the seals and snapper at this spot, so I wasn't keen on her diving alone. Still vomiting we hopped in and soon had the first fish, a perfect kill shot. Still vomiting at the surface and gagging while holding my breath at around 10-12m I must admit I wasn't feeling the best. It was still amazing to see these fish in such numbers that rarely interact with humans given the location we found them. The day after we popped her on a plane, where she headed off to NZ on a hunting holiday due to the charter boat she skippers being quiet this time of the year. Target species was Tahr, a species she hasn't shot before, so she was even more excited than her normal hyper manic self!!!!! This hunting was pretty remote extreme stuff, first getting dropped by helicopter high into a remote mountain area for 7 days. Target species found and knocked off the list and several nights of fresh meat. So with the New Zealand trip done and dusted she headed home for two days before deciding to head north and try some new toys from Daiwa (her sponsor). First target was freshwater murray cod. After a tough day and hundreds of casts she managed this thumper cod, not bad for a freshwater fish. There were a few smaller ones around the 55cm size. Next day was back to one of her favourite river species, barramundi. Barra can be quite common in some areas especially the smaller fish. Last year she caught and released over 100 on one tide with a fishing buddy but the holy grail of these is a fish over 1m. Last year she managed a 1.30cm and sure enough after hundreds of casts she's managed another cracking 120cm specimen. Not bad for first fish on the new barra rod and reel. So with a new trailer and my back on the mend, I hope to be posting a few of my own catch reports soon. I was meant to be heading offshore tonight targeting broadbill and tuna but my fishing buddy stuffed his shoulder. All part of the getting old syndrome.

Been off the water with a stuffed back and also my boat trailer with a stuffed back too!!! I had planned on having my trailer repaired but after pushing my thumb through one spot and two cross members cracked, I decided a trip the dump for that one. So a 7hr drive each way to pick up a new aluminium trailer was the go. Did the drive over two days rather than cram it into one, given I had to go over the snowy mountains to get there. Must admit the -2’c overnight temps were a shock, which made packing the roof tent away while covered in ice not so easy. As you can see all parts of this trailer can easily be replaced by simply bolting on and off. I’ve also upgraded to a heavier max load rating allowing 250kg for carrying items in the boat. Just need to replace the centre rollers and skid's to suit a fibreglass boat, then adjust heights to fit my boat and I will be back out there in a few days wetting a line. Doubt I will be able to do any trips further afield to avoid winter this year now the budgets blown, so local fishing only.

Either are used here, keel roller ladder rack with either side rollers or marine carpeted side skids.

I've used a few different smokers including the large version of the Cameron's with reasonable success but now use a Kamado bbq. The advantage with the bigger Kamado is I can use large chunks of wood, rather than the very expensive fine wood chips and also it doesn't create steam. I did find that I sometimes got a more sweaty steamed fish or meat using those metal styles in comparison. Making sure moisture doesn't drip onto the saw dust will help. Some people dampen the wood chunks or chips but again makes for sweaty fish which allows the fish to dry out to much. Have you experimented much with different wood ? After trying all these bellow I now pretty much use cherry on everything, which I buy in 10kg bags for the equivalent of about 3 quid. Chunks are about the same size of the charcoal I use. For all the fish species, I use a dry mix of 2 parts brown sugar to 1 salt completely covered and allowed to sit in the fridge for 2-3hrs. I then rinse under the tap, pat dry with paper towing then leave on a drying rack until the surface of the fish turns sticky. If it doesn't form a tacky surface its likely to dry when smoking rather than remain moist inside with a golden surface. When its tacky its a good time to crack some fresh pepper over it before smoking. Once the charcoal (3 05 4 chunks ) has completely turned white, I place a chunk of cherry wood on top of the charcoal and shut the bbq down to a very slow burn at around 50-100f for 30-40 mins. Once cooled I will vac pack some which will last a few months in the fridge. With meats such as pork or even venison which are the most common we smoke, I use around 8 chunks of charcoal, 2 chunks of cherry and one of hickory and leave for an 8-9hr slow cook at 100f. This is good for tender pull apart meat. There are some really good video tutorials on Kamado cooking which could be applied to the Cameron smoker to a certain point.

I use Garmin blue chart g3 vision which has been extremely good in both 8410 and 8412, one off purchase, no subscription. I also had the simrad Navionic vision for simrad, which I gave to the owners of the commercial boat I work on at times. I also had the phone app version but dropped it after the subscription doubled. I also build my own quick draw charts in areas which haven't been surveyed. To be honest though, Ive been busy on other boats and stuffed with my back for a while, so will need to get my head around using it again now, especially given the boat Ive been working has Simrads. Building your own charts and setting various colours for different depths can be very useful.

Airmar https://www.airmar.com/Catalog/Marine/Chirp-ready There are numerous styles of adapters to make many compatible. I've got one Simrad transducer (airmar) connected to my Garmin and two Garmin transducers all into an 8412.

We tend to hook a fair few from the shore, which can be very large stubborn things to land and unhook. I have some good friends who moved to Maroochydore and my daughter is up there at the moment fishing.

Like I mentioned, never been tempted in buying one. Those who buy them head out and never come back!!!!!.....Well one came back, however he was minus the ski.

Ive used a couple over here in Aus, the seado is considered the best as a fishing ski. Never been tempted to actually buy one though.

I love my Yam, however the guy Im working with at the moment owned a Yam dealership and also a die-hard Yam person but put a Merc on the commercial boat Im skippering the next few days and can't fault it. He's ordered another for next month having clocked over 2000hrs in just over 12 months. Yes this boat is on the water running everyday, all day carrying up to 1 ton of shellfish most days.

They'll be back again, one most likely again later this year and both next year again. Both have travelled pretty well and caught hundreds of sharks in UK waters. I believe Danny has had over 60 threshers from his boat now and 200+ porbeagles. We used to work and fish together back in the UK, just felt bad not being able to get them a mako to the boat.

I don't know how they've gotten such a good reputation, had nothing but issues with my Suzuki 140. Sometimes it wouldn't go over 3000rpm, oil alarms kept going off and needed a new gearbox under 400hrs. Ive owned 3 Suzuki outboards and all have had issues.

I had to do this with my three in the back of our landcruiser using cardboard. Any treats had to be in three seperate bowls, worked very well on those big 1200km per day drives.

Just had some old sharking friends stay with me from the UK targeting mako's. Just before their arrival I was feeling confident of ticking the species off their list, with mako just about everywhere from inshore reefs to offshore, even the day they arrived a 264kg mako was landed. However the weather turned to pretty much to 2m swell on 1.5-2m seas for the entire period they were here, not to mention a couple of boats I had lined up falling through due to a split fuel tank on our first day and other issues. So it was down to my 15ft boat to get us offshore each day. Seals were a menace soon finding our burley trails each day, then thieving us out of baits. We had mako's just 5m from the boat very reluctant to take baits and those that did simply grabbed and dropped baits, even live bonito's weren't enough to keep their interest. Whalers sharks on the other hand weren't so fussy and took baits without issue, however it wasn't those we were targeting. Plenty of hammerheads also checked out the baits but typical to hammerheads, none would take a bait with wire. A thresher smashed a bait on the surface but only stayed connected for about 30 seconds before pulling the hook. There was a fair amount of tackle failure, with 14/o hooks straightening and specially bought from the USA mako wire traces getting bitten through. I think a serious tackle review will need to be considered before heading out again. One day we had 9 runs to just one shark staying connected (which happened to be the only bait I rigged). We worked hard at it but just didn't manage the target, one mako even decided to jump cartwheels in front of the boat just to tease us!!! We flogged awful conditions, I even got seasick and took waves both over the bow and stern of the boat but it just wasn't to be. However one of the guests managed to top up 47 species and some 250lb+ stingrays the local bearded greenpeace warriors wanted to string us up for. Weather is still terrible.

Ive been using one when I skipper a friends boat which has been good but that boat is constantly maintained at the highest level. The boats my daughter skippers have them to but often need work at around 1600-2000hrs, which comes around pretty quickly given those boats are running everyday of the week.

Not sure if this link will work or if anyone is looking for a boat at the moment. A friend of a friend has put this on the market which looks like a pretty decent outfit https://www.facebook.com/jason.williams.56829 Cygnus Tornado 28.

What will you do with them when you get them running. Does anyone still use those old two strokes ?

Great bottom.

Stella's also go wrong and they cost far more to get serviced. I have a penn battle mk3 which has been used and abused which equate to around 50 quid new. I wouldn't buy another as they are simply to heavy but for a cheap beach sharking reel to lend to people I often take shore fishing its been great. I did also have the latest Penn slammer at more than 3 times the price, again heavy and not what I had hoped for so sold it on. By far my favourite is the Shimano Saragosa for heavy beach or boat work but unfortunately outside the price range you want but worth it in my opinion. This was caught using the battle mk 3 6000 and has managed many more sharks and rays of around the 100kg size and still performs like new.

Do you have Shimano fj available ? good value budget reels.

We have some pretty strict rules on what can be used as baits here. Locally caught and frozen prawns are ok but we are not allowed to use any imported prawns, even though they are sold for human consumption. Also most shellfish can't be collected and used for bait but again can be used for human consumption. The reason being viruses can be spread from one part of the coast to another. The commercial shellfish we catch has extremely tight regulations as viruses have been spread in the past. https://www.agriculture.gov.au/biosecurity-trade/policy/risk-analysis/animal/prawns/prawn-imports-and-biosecurity#:~:text=Never use supermarket prawns for,affect our native aquatic animals. https://agriculture.vic.gov.au/biosecurity/animal-diseases/aquatic-animal-diseases/abalone-disease

Is it an old picture or has the weather started warming up, noticed the shorts.

What do you mean by the top end of the solent ? Would assume the mainland side beaches to be the top side (north side). Funny coming from the IOW I've not heard that term of top end before when fishing anywhere in the solent.