JDP

She simply doesn't get time, poring with rain this morning and strong wind but she was still out of the house at 4.15am with her first charter of the day and won't get home until later tonight (often 4 trips per day now we are in summer). Any time not fishing or hunting is spent running, cycling or gym work. She's certainly not a girl who can sit down and post fishing reports.

She's been bouncing around the house like a crazy kangaroo all evening. An extremely happy girl.

Im hoping it will be mostly within 20km as its a smaller version of the one we had before (500pro). She plans on taking it on road trips further afield, with most of the boating nearshore. She has friends with similar sized boats that all plan on doing a bit of island hoping along the southern end of the barrier reef. These islands are about 80km offshore but quite sheltered once they reach them, even when they get hit by storms. Her skill level has certainly raised since driving the charter boats, I feel like a novice around her now!!!...my concerns are more with what's in the water but she's even started becoming more responsible there too.

They are pretty light little boats which makes them very responsive with the 60. Sitting at around 20kts at 4200rpm should see some pretty decent fuel economy. Its got just 38hrs on it, so represents like new.

I spotted another little zodiac on gumtree and showed it to my daughter yesterday. Normally she finds it very hard to make any decisions especially when her own money comes into it, not such the case when she saw this, it was love at first sight. Weather was to bad for this mornings charter meaning we had just enough time to drive up the coast and get back in time for her afternoon charter. Managed to squeeze a quick test run after her charter which gets the full thumbs up from a very excited young girl!!!

Trouble is most people don't realise quite how big the country is and how long it takes to get a good feel for it here, each state is quite different. Most tourists only get a glamorous view from operators but getting away from this is what the true country is all about. Ive caught up with a few people off the forums but the last 12 months with the fires and Covid has messed many peoples plans from the UK who were heading my way for a fish.

With safety foremost in mind, the insulated air bubble floor and the fact the sides of the life raft would stop these young ladies from falling out its a win win situation. As for the drogue, well I don't see much use for it!!!...

Yes that's right but its not just the water side of things, Ive always been fascinated by reptiles which there is an amazing variety of here.

Ok before you get your hopes up some of you may of seen this and the sharks are simply swimming around, even big dogfish!!!!..sharks are toward the end. My daughter might be buying herself a rib like the one we had, which was why I ended up looking back over this one. Much has changed since this, she now skippers a couple of local charter boats and has become even more addicted to the water. Her working day starts on the boats at around 4.30am and often doesn't finish until after 10pm. Days off because of bad weather are often the only time we share on the water from our boat these days. If its to bad for the ocean she heads fishing and deer hunting in the mountains. For me these are mostly memories now as Im to slow to keep up with any of her activities, hence why I enjoyed looking back on this video when we did far more together.

Well I did quite expect it to be removed but I thought we had run out of things to say about anchors now!!!

Oh but there are.

Its a very serious sport which I find very interesting.

The live view should be able to keep you out of trouble. As for free diving, my current dive fitness is keeping me around 8-10m, my daughter is hitting 25m and her best friend (another girl) was hitting 40m at 16yrs old. Thats not 40m down and straight back up, its staying there a couple of mins to shoot things. Some of the older spearfish guys, one being a 70yr old still gets down 60m to shoot fish. We can spend all day free diving large areas where scuba only allows us to do two dives over relatively short distances. Funny thing is while writing about the pro's and cons of diving a delivery arrived with my replacement dive computer which has taken 11 months to get back. There are quite a few cheaper versions of the GoPro available, in saying that the GoPro 9 is under 300 quid here and old 3-4-5 models are before image stabilisation are almost give aways now and you don't need stabilisation for that kind of thing. Im going to be doing some GoPro work using my downrigger and panoptics.

Now I wish I hadn't cut the one up we used, it would of made a great slime wrestling pool!!!

The ones we used were part of a survivor at sea module on a recent training course. The rafts had what looks like a thermal silver heat bubble wrap in the floor which Ive found useful for a few things. Firstly I keep a section on my boat to use as a thermal blanket if I find anyone suffering from the cold. Ive also used it for extra insulation on 12 volt camping fridges and cooler boxes and bags. Even the survival kits are handy to keep on your boat. With lockdown you could inflate it, fill it with water and carp so you can fish from home, even indoors!!!!

An alternative and something you have already in the back of your mind is a live view transducer. Using one of these in combination with a downrigger with a GoPro (or similar camera) you can simply make up or buy something to get the camera down and pointing directly at the wreck. The live view could allow you to concentrate your efforts around the fish and see in reel time exactly where the fish are in relation to the camera and also keep a close eye how close to camera is to the structucture. There are camera leads that allow for a direct feed back to most modern leading sonar brand head unfits too. If you don't have a downrigger, well that's something you wouldn't want to be without if you do get a live view. Using a downrigger where you can see exactly where it is in relation to structure and fish is a game changer to fishing. You see fish at 43m and you simply drop a bait, plastic, jig or what ever right on them, if they don't take any interest you change the lure. Im taking a researcher out who has a pretty impressive underwater drone. In the past its been more a case of lowering it down on good looking reef and randomly filming around, where now we can see fish live at different angles to the boat and head straight at them. Even at anchor you should be able to anchor over a wreck and use the anchor line pulled at different angles from the boat to swing both left and right to cover filming more of the wreck. To me divers are full of problems and rarely get decent film anyway, they could even spook fish away before they get close enough to get them on film.

I take both divers and snorkelers and also do it myself. Like mentioned a clearly visual dive fag is important and make sure the wind doest make it hard for other boaters to see. Also be on a constant lookout to wave arms and point in the direction of your divers to the people who haven't a clue what dive flags or any other kind of marker means. I have full confidence in taking care of my people in and around my boat. If they get into any difficulties under water they should be more qualified than you and the fact they should be buddied up together should mean they outrank you in that field if there was an issue, which wouldn't be your responsibility. You are only likely to get in trouble if you injure them with your boat. Turn off the engine when they are in the water close to the engine and make sure your boarding access can hold their weight. Getting in a rocking boat can be tricky, hand rails and strong ladders are a must with scuba divers. Once a diver is ready to go over the side you will need to make sure they aren likely to get hooked on cleats, ropes or anything around the boat, they become heavy and cumbersome at this point. Knowing a bit about diving is a great help as you will be aware of dive times at different depths but much of this comes down to a divers use of the air they carry in the size cylinder (tank) . An average fitness diver I drop at open water (basic qualification) will get get around 35-45mins on a 12lt tank depending on how hard they've had to work down there. Fitter people don't use their air as fast. Rebreathers are a whole different challenge, avoid divers using these. Divers should carry an inflatable marker which sits upright around 2m on the surface. This comes in handy when the current makes it hard to get back to the boat, or simply following a drift dive watching the marker. Your skill as a boater will need to be able to work out any drifts to pinpoint dropping them on a wreck. Remember visibility can be quite poor so if you can't put them on a spot and they spend 35mins swimming around, you will of wasted your time and theirs and theirs costs money in tank refills. Things like Lowrance point 1 will greatly help getting the accuracy you need but then you have to valuate how long it might take them to get down, some people fart around with getting their weights, buoyancy and cameras ready and miss the mark!!! Dropping a grapple line they can follow to the wreck is a great help (though I don't use them). Dive gear is pretty immense in a small boat, two people will often have two tanks each, heavy weight belts and camera gear that can be very large in housings with strobe lights etc. This gear needs to be secure underway and can often damage your boat. Getting divers back onboard can also be tricky if the sea has turned choppy. Mostly I get divers to remove their gear in the water which I clip to a short float line, their bcd and tank should have enough air in it to stay afloat at the surface. Weights are often integrated in the bcd but some are still old school weight belts, make sure you have a good grip of any weight belts before a diver lets go and get them to show you where to hold the belt so the weights don't slide off!!! They will need to remove their fins to get onboard most of the time, so you will need to assist in all of this. Almost forgot, taking the camera gear and placing it on a towel so the front lens is not face down is vitally important (these can cost $$$$). Once I have my divers onboard and they have caught their breath I get them to lift their tanks and bcd's onboard as these can weigh up around 40kg depending if they have integrated weight. This usually bashes the side of your boat a bit!!! I know its another long post but I really think you need to be aware of a few facts before considering this, for me its the fact boats can get knocked about when working with scuba divers. Rather than continue with this I will start an alternative which I would recommend.

When you say change mid season, what would be the reason to change ? The thing that Ive found with the 131 is that so far its been on the outfits I use and punish the most (two years now) and I haven't even needed to reverse it, it looks like new braid still with no fluffing and virtually no fade, which is what I need casting light lures. Other braids in the past were lucky to get 6 months, with Powerpro being on of the quickest braids to discolour and fluff up for me and spider wire being the most prone to breakages. I was always checking my rod guides thinking I had damaged rings to wreck the braid so quickly, not the case with ocea and 131 though. The fact these braids are 3x the price of the likes of Powerpro puts people instantly off but the fact so far mine has out lasted Powerpro by 4x and still not reversed makes them some of the cheapest braids Ive ever used really. Great thread, good to hear peoples experiences and it seems while you can get good Chinese line you can also get rubbish. I bought an 150lb 1800m spool of saltiga braid from Melton tackle for deep drop Ellectric reels at around $450 and my mate bought what he thought was the exact same product from China on flee bay for $150. We compared the two spools side by side and the difference was quite shocking (I thought Chine would of coppied a little better). There were spell differences, smell difference and the colour rubbed straight off the fleebay braid. Strength test was simply a joke, where his could be broken by hand and mine will pull bycatch makos straight to the boat using 145lb of reel drag on the ellectric. Lucky for him he paid via PayPal and got his money back, this is just one of the reasons its not worth it to me and I have numerous friends who've had similar experience with other copies.

My reading any beach I fished in the UK came from first visualy looking and then snorkelling. Much of this had to be done at times of the year when the water was clear enough and then hitting those spots when not. It was mazing to find just how close many species were that most people cast 50m past!!!..The well known surf beaches I explored from Haverford West down through Newquay had bass in water of around 1ft deep that barely spooked as I would come from the water. The IOW had areas where large pollack were literally 20-30m out, at times closer depending the rocks (St Catherine's). Getting in the water you soon learn regular hangouts and behaviours in places you wouldn't normally fish, also bigger bass tend to be quite curious in approaching you unlike the smaller ones.

I sold the big para style I used to have as it was overkill for the boat I have. I do have a couple of basic drogues, one from an expired life raft. If I had a boat your size I would take a serious look at this particular make, they are smaller but far more effective than most. Most people don't realise how many other uses drogues can have, especially things like emergency steering and even to reduce boat rocking if you do have to sit side on to swell etc. If its good enough for a ginger beard🤘

So even though you sell line you don't use what you sell and buy cheaper stuff for yourself, or do you also sell the Chinese line you get for yourself. Goes to show there can't be much of a markup on braid if you find doing it the way you mention works out better. Do you have a shop or sell online and how are you finding supply lately ? Its gone crazy here, with shelves empty and supply not able to keep up (bit like the toilet roll craziness). Do you also sell gps's or use that title for another reason ?

They have a fair amount of staff, not quite sure how many but he music store I took my son to last week has increased their staff from 45 to over 70 since Covid and their sales have increased by huge amounts. When ever Ive been into that particular store there have been staff who specialise in each section, the game fishing section had two staff members and is only a small section upstairs where the picture is taken from. This is part of the tackle store team but there are plenty of general and part time staff that aren't in this list https://www.motackle.com.au/our-team They do know their stuff and give fantastic advice and service, problem is you are so overwhelmed you forget what you went into unless you take a list!!!!...Tackle stores are struggling to keep up with demand this year.

When the skinny little rods that looked like kids outfits first came out they flooded the markets to the point these are all you tend to see on boats these days. Most have names which are hard to keep up with. The likes of jigging master, carpenter, black hole, ripple fisher, ocean legacy etc etc have taken over the rod world by storm. I still get the odd Shimano and Daiwa rod but not many. Unfortunately the choice is just so big these days its become a nightmare. This is the kind of thing you are faced with here when walking into a tackle store!!!.. this store has over 10,000 rods on offer and doesn't really specialise in any of those names I mentioned above.

What do you mean by being in the trade ? are you a tackle store owner supplier. I would of thought being in the trade you would test as many different braids as possible so you can advise your customers or at least hand out samples for customers to test, we tend to get given a fair amount to test direct from tackle stores and the rep's who come out on our boats. What is the spectra tabled as, is it labeled as power pro or simply spectra ? I contacted major companies over a discussion from the other forum on different labelling being used for different parts of the world. I received reply's from three companies assuring me the same line we get here and labels was the same as what comes from factory to both us and Europe. This to me doesn't make sense as virtually all the braids that were independently tested to industry standards were so far off the strength according to the label it didn't make sense. Powerpro was one of the lines where 20lb actually had a breaking point more than double its stated strength, as did many other brands. Even the 131 I now use braid dint seem to make sense to me when I removed about 100m of 20lb power pro from a small full spin reel to put 300m of 20lb 131. This would have to indicate 131 was 1/3rd the diameter of the pp. No wonder people are saying they haven't had problems with power pro breaking if the line they are using is double the strength they think it is. Being in the trade, you would know places that do industry testing, have you considered getting those lines tested to see if they are actually what they state. One of the big issues I hear from China braids is quality control and the fact some simply aren't even braids at all and just a rip off scam ( Which I know people have fallen for). As you most likely know my daughter is sponsored by a franchise known as the Complete Angler who have stores all over the country, she also skippers what's considered one of the best game charters on the south coast who are tackle testers for both Daiwa and Shimano. They get tackle to test which isn't labeled at all, including rods and reels which they are able to totally punish and break if possible (that's the point of testing). Not that she would want to pester these reps who she has a great relationship with, however I feel she would be able to get honest info from them though. When I got my reply from the companies I questioned, people on the other forum weren't interested in the answers I got because they didn't match what they'd heard on Facebook. Im simple keen on knowing the truths and can only go by the info given but do admit I find it quite interesting delving deeper. We all want accurate info and not to be ripped off, so it makes sense to delve deeper, hopefully you have some test results on the lines you mention if you are trading them.

Heres an example where you can see the difference in strengths when you compare 12mm ropes. Just compare the first two very similar 3 strand white ropes to see what I mean. Once you get into braid ropes and spectra the price goes up as does the strengths.