JDP

Not all boats obviously, many have have more power. More power better economy and longer lasting engines.

TBH, it doesn't matter what "We" think. What matters is the manufacturers recommendation. And if I were you I'd be getting the vessel with the largest manufacturer recommended engine. This doesn't always equate to the highest fuel burn, because more HP means less revs so less fuel and less engine stress. 

merry fishers don't like a chop, at planning speed you'll be slamming all over the show. You would need to slow down to Semi D speeds. But then even my 4 tonne tub slams in chop. I boat in the Solent and there is plenty of it here!!

I had an external mount Airmar 260, you might even be able to find my review on the other forum from years back which I did. At the time I was using Lowrance hds mk 3 head units. It was the worst transducer I've owned, even comparing against transducers a fraction of the cost. Side by side offshore in deep water the 260 would lose bottom and not find it again until I got back to water depths of 100m (ish). 
When it did pick up bottom in shallower depths there was no advantage in detail to what the stock standard lowrance transducer showed on screen, to be totally honest it was worse. The narrow 6 degree beam at 200khz only shows a very small footprint of the bottom, so fish would need to be directly under the beam to show on the head unit. Being such a narrow beam also means it needs to be set at the perfect angle to send and receive a signal. Even after many adjustments to get the angle spot on, rough sea's would see the signal missing the transducer on its return in deep water. Most people here go for the wider beam angle especially targeting game fish that feed on large schools of mackerel. 

Setting my 260 to 50khz for its wider beam signal meant having to drive the boat so slow that I could not pick up bottom at all at cruising speeds, unlike my Lowrances $150 transducer. I would have to know where a mark already was in deeper water then drift over it to have any chance of picking it up. Much of the time though the two head units would fail to receive any signal as the seas always have some chop and swell. Just pointing out though that the Lowrance head units are the equivalent of 600wt units and the 260 is a 1kw, however they should of been able to drive the transducer well enough. The $150 200-50khz remained my go to transducer for many years. It could pick up bottom in 600m of water and show jigs, bait rigs, small fish and large fish very well. I often see the 260 for sale on the marketplace and ebay where Ive never seen any of the wider beam transducers on the secondhand market.

There are transom mount sliding brackets which allow transducers to be raised for boats on moorings. I have used these (still do) as I run three transducers even on my 15ft boat and being able to raise big transducers out of the water when running can assist boat performance when you are racing your mates!!!!!

You may have netter luck if you are committed to getting it now.

 

Glamour conditions to be out there. As for the doggies, you know how it is, without pic's they didn't exist. 

The young lad who fishes with me much of the time jumped ship to fish with my daughter. Ive tried numerous was to post the short video on here without luck, so given up and just grabbed a few screen shots. Its hard to tell from these though its size, which they estimated to be around the 60-70kg which is about average on them. They are considered a pest, as like many of the ray family, put up very little action in a fight. They were chasing hounds which we eat here and managed a few of these smaller ones, however the target was to get one over 25kg.

Out searching for marlin tomorrow if the weather allows.
 


 

 

 

Well that's fair enough, and guess what?? Yep, I'm not worried by that!! 🤣

It was cold, it was a lovely sunny calm day, I got a new speed record of 25.4kts. I caught 3 dogs and a small huss. The end. 
 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

On your YT account, upload the video and then tick it as ‘unlisted’
Then only folk with the link can view it, as it won’t be listed on the YT site. If anybody views your channel, the video will not been seen by them as it is effectively hidden.
🤣 @Andy135 beat me to it, for some reason I didn't see his post on my phone.🙄
 
 
 

When uploading the video to YT, set the visibility to "unlisted". You can still share a link on here but the video won't be searchable/viewable on YT.

The young lad who fishes with me much of the time jumped ship to fish with my daughter. Ive tried numerous was to post the short video on here without luck, so given up and just grabbed a few screen shots. Its hard to tell from these though its size, which they estimated to be around the 60-70kg which is about average on them. They are considered a pest, as like many of the ray family, put up very little action in a fight. They were chasing hounds which we eat here and managed a few of these smaller ones, however the target was to get one over 25kg.

Out searching for marlin tomorrow if the weather allows.
 


 

 

 

The young lad who fishes with me much of the time jumped ship to fish with my daughter. Ive tried numerous was to post the short video on here without luck, so given up and just grabbed a few screen shots. Its hard to tell from these though its size, which they estimated to be around the 60-70kg which is about average on them. They are considered a pest, as like many of the ray family, put up very little action in a fight. They were chasing hounds which we eat here and managed a few of these smaller ones, however the target was to get one over 25kg.

Out searching for marlin tomorrow if the weather allows.
 


 

 

 

The young lad who fishes with me much of the time jumped ship to fish with my daughter. Ive tried numerous was to post the short video on here without luck, so given up and just grabbed a few screen shots. Its hard to tell from these though its size, which they estimated to be around the 60-70kg which is about average on them. They are considered a pest, as like many of the ray family, put up very little action in a fight. They were chasing hounds which we eat here and managed a few of these smaller ones, however the target was to get one over 25kg.

Out searching for marlin tomorrow if the weather allows.
 


 

 

 

The young lad who fishes with me much of the time jumped ship to fish with my daughter. Ive tried numerous was to post the short video on here without luck, so given up and just grabbed a few screen shots. Its hard to tell from these though its size, which they estimated to be around the 60-70kg which is about average on them. They are considered a pest, as like many of the ray family, put up very little action in a fight. They were chasing hounds which we eat here and managed a few of these smaller ones, however the target was to get one over 25kg.

Out searching for marlin tomorrow if the weather allows.
 


 

 

 

The young lad who fishes with me much of the time jumped ship to fish with my daughter. Ive tried numerous was to post the short video on here without luck, so given up and just grabbed a few screen shots. Its hard to tell from these though its size, which they estimated to be around the 60-70kg which is about average on them. They are considered a pest, as like many of the ray family, put up very little action in a fight. They were chasing hounds which we eat here and managed a few of these smaller ones, however the target was to get one over 25kg.

Out searching for marlin tomorrow if the weather allows.
 


 

 

 

The young lad who fishes with me much of the time jumped ship to fish with my daughter. Ive tried numerous was to post the short video on here without luck, so given up and just grabbed a few screen shots. Its hard to tell from these though its size, which they estimated to be around the 60-70kg which is about average on them. They are considered a pest, as like many of the ray family, put up very little action in a fight. They were chasing hounds which we eat here and managed a few of these smaller ones, however the target was to get one over 25kg.

Out searching for marlin tomorrow if the weather allows.
 


 

 

 

The young lad who fishes with me much of the time jumped ship to fish with my daughter. Ive tried numerous was to post the short video on here without luck, so given up and just grabbed a few screen shots. Its hard to tell from these though its size, which they estimated to be around the 60-70kg which is about average on them. They are considered a pest, as like many of the ray family, put up very little action in a fight. They were chasing hounds which we eat here and managed a few of these smaller ones, however the target was to get one over 25kg.

Out searching for marlin tomorrow if the weather allows.
 


 

 

 

Not much going on at them moment so i'll share this. 
I took part in the 'Small Boat Sea fishing' groups species hunt and did ok - the rules are simple - small private boat or charter boat (but cant be a mix), no kayaks, the fish are on a list (only fish on the list count), photo the fish with your card to count - no min size)
I ended on 23 species, and came 19th out of over 100 entrants - my prize was a lure bundle from Lureshed UK - soft plastics and jig heads! some very well made lures!

my 23 species were....
Mackerel, Garfish, pouting, conger, Ballan, Corkwing, pollock, poor cod, dogfish, scad, whiting, smoothound, spotted ray, thornback ray, blonde ray, undulate ray, tope, red gurnard, tub gurnard, black bream, cuckoo wrasse, bull huss, thick lipped mullet.
Notable species for me this year were a few firsts - first ever undulate, bull huss and thick lipped mullet - and I always enjoy a cuckoo wrasse


I missed out on a few relatively easy fish that I've had in the prior year - they just eluded me! - Bass, Launce, Turbot, Grey gurnard and small eyed ray - would have seen me on 28 and in 10th! 
I should also be able to get plaice, spurdog, brill. so I must try harder next year!
the winner was Jake Davison from Muscle fishing (youtube channel)  and he had 38 - he was fishing from a tiny Polycraft tuffy and was able to travel the entire country with it on the roof - from Cornwall to Scotland for the Skate. 
thoroughly enjoyable to take part through the year as it makes you try for species you might not normally target, and with a wealth of prizes - over 30 this year - there's a real incentive to keep on it!

weird thing was it wasn't cold - phil was in shorts lol
it was dark early though!

jon c oh glorius leader scaffolder serpream off course.

Which Jon, New year was so yesterday, easter sales are on now but Im waiting until after easter to buy my eggs.

£500?! It’d be £700 just for the reel over here….
Need to organise a shipping container for @JDP old gear, ship it back and it’d pay for my dream cheetah cat 😂

Been busy doing maintenance on mine and the boats my daughter skippers, as well as doing a bit of commercial abalone dive boat skippering.
The rod and line fishing has been excellent over the past few months, if anything to good which has made me a bit bored with it. Trying to get motivated to turn my sights on the marlin season now but I just feel I’ve been there and done that to much.  
 
I took my youngest daughter and her partner out who managed 3 marlin species in a day. He also manged to catch and release over 40 coral trout to 80cm in one session from my boat on my annual northern trip. The tropical fishing was simply incredible thanks to being able to download satellite images into my GPS showing every detail of shallow coral reef systems. Northern bluefin tuna were in schools which could almost be guaranteed in sight from any location we fished, which also had various large trevally species following under. 
 
The beaches are currently thick with Aus salmon in the 3-6kg size with packs of whaler sharks getting among them. I am planning chasing a few mako solo but again feel a bit lacking in enthusiasm, however I will fill the boat with fuel this morning so I can at least head out to try and grab a few lobsters for Xmas dinner.
Oh yes, it’s been bloody hot here too, 37’c when polishing one of the boats ( three in total ).

There are several large schools of salmon in this shot, the salmon which are off the right of the screen had some decent sized sharks I estimate in the 150kg + size.  I had to use my wife’s polarised glasses over the front of my phone camera to help see these salmon. Aus salmon are not related to normal salmon, these are a far more powerful tough fighting fish. The fact they are more powerful makes their flesh strong and meaty to eat and less desirable.



 

Been busy doing maintenance on mine and the boats my daughter skippers, as well as doing a bit of commercial abalone dive boat skippering.
The rod and line fishing has been excellent over the past few months, if anything to good which has made me a bit bored with it. Trying to get motivated to turn my sights on the marlin season now but I just feel I’ve been there and done that to much.  
 
I took my youngest daughter and her partner out who managed 3 marlin species in a day. He also manged to catch and release over 40 coral trout to 80cm in one session from my boat on my annual northern trip. The tropical fishing was simply incredible thanks to being able to download satellite images into my GPS showing every detail of shallow coral reef systems. Northern bluefin tuna were in schools which could almost be guaranteed in sight from any location we fished, which also had various large trevally species following under. 
 
The beaches are currently thick with Aus salmon in the 3-6kg size with packs of whaler sharks getting among them. I am planning chasing a few mako solo but again feel a bit lacking in enthusiasm, however I will fill the boat with fuel this morning so I can at least head out to try and grab a few lobsters for Xmas dinner.
Oh yes, it’s been bloody hot here too, 37’c when polishing one of the boats ( three in total ).

There are several large schools of salmon in this shot, the salmon which are off the right of the screen had some decent sized sharks I estimate in the 150kg + size.  I had to use my wife’s polarised glasses over the front of my phone camera to help see these salmon. Aus salmon are not related to normal salmon, these are a far more powerful tough fighting fish. The fact they are more powerful makes their flesh strong and meaty to eat and less desirable.