Evets

Hi Leonardgig, I built a beach rod to live bait off the beach for Jewies. My blank was too short so I built it with the same notion in mind. But what I did was glue in an alloy tube that fit inside the rod blank. The alloy tube was about 4 mm smaller in diameter and I then rolled some masking tape around the tube on top of it self to form a strip until it was about 2 mm from the blank to ensure that the alloy was exactly in the center of the rod blank. I made 4 or 5 of these strips. I then epoxied the tube in, slid a new grip on over the alloy and rod blank, made a new sand spike (on the lathe) and epoxied it into the alloy tube. Turned out perfectly. And is still going strong almost 25 years later. The alloy tube will need to be epoxied at least as far into the rod as you want your extension to be - otherwise you risk breaking the rod blank itself through the extra leverage you are exerting on the rod. So if you want a 2 foot extension to the beach rod you'll need a 4 foot extension. Maybe also need to consider how far up the blank your reel seat will be with an extension as well. To take the rod grip off you can carefully slice down its length with a sharp blade and pull it off. Many foam grips are merely held in by friction as they usually smaller in diameter than the rod blank and slid into place using water (or other things) as a lube and they stretch around the bank so it may not even be glued into place.

Port Kembla harbour to hill 60 is a realitively short run. Once you are out past the breakwall you can see hill 60. Should only take 15 mins or so. When you are there you can steam through a gap between the islands to get to the more productive southern side - but I would advise a first timer to head the long way round and go around the island. only take a few minutes longer. On the southern side I have trolled up some good sized kings. A bit further south out along port beach is a great place to drift for flatties.

Nice setup. Im thinking that you could slide your bracket towards the stern of the yak and use the existing paddle bungee to secure it. Or just tether it to the paddle leash. Have you used the garmin yet? What are your impressions of it? Its exactly the same one im after for my outback so Im curious as to what you think of it. Cheers Evets

Im wondering if the hull has deformed somewhat. Could be because of the boat hitting something or sitting on an incorrectly adjusted trailer for an extended period. need to look down the side of the boat from a few meters away. Sometimes shining a light on it at night will show up otherwise difficult to detect deformities. A panelbeating mate might also be able to spot damage that you miss. the listing appears to be fairly significant and it would take a lot of water to make it lean that much - hence im wondering if it has anything to do with any damage to the hull.

Bending the propellor blades back may not fix your problem Dorta. If you have spun the hub (ie seperated the rubber bushing on the inside of the propeller from the shaft of the engine) then youll need to get that fixed as well. This is actually designed to save you a more costly repair. Just imagine that you hit something in the water (such as a log, mud, sand or a rock) and the prop goes from spinning at high or relatively high rpms to suddenly stopping. If that should happen without a rubber bushing seperating the propellor from the engine you could be up for very expensive repairs to drive gears, internal shafts or bearings. Sometimes if you have spun the prop you might still have enough friction for the propellor to move your boat but your hole shot will suffer or you will rev the engine but the boat wont move any faster. And sometimes your boat wont move at all. Given that you have obviously hit something (because the blades are bent) it would be very wise to check to see that you havent spun the hub and/or damaged the engine/gearbox. Try and turn the prop by hand with the boat in gear (make sure the battery is off or even better disconnected before you do). If it moves , even a tiny bit, youll need to get it checked. Steve

Nothing wrong with slowly charing the battery. HOWEVER if it is too slow between uses you may find that the battery sulfates and will not properly hold a charge. So long as the battery is fully charged next time you use it it should be fine. Nothing kills a battery faster than discharging and not properly charging it before the next use. So how do you know how charged your battery is? The only real way is find out the batteries specific gravity by usinging a hydrometer - but you cant use this with a sealed battery. You can also use a multimeter to give you an idea. A fully charged battery will be at least 12.7 volts. At 12.2 volts (depending on the battery) the battery will be around 50% charged. At 12 volts the battery is about 25% charged and at around 11.9 volts the battery is close to dead flat.

Hey there, Not so much a berly but you can spray an attractant that onto your jigs called EGIMAX . In my experience it makes a huge difference to the amount of squid I catch. I remember reading a few posts years ago by NETIC that explained the virtues of egimax. I have used it religiously since and can say that I catch heaps more squid than my fishing buds using the very same jigs fishing at the same time / spot. Its a bit exxy but worth the coin IMHO Evets

Fishingphase, Need a bit more info. From what you have written it sounds like you already have a rod. If you do, then the rating of the rod is important to know. We also need to know what lb line you plan on using and how much line you need. A price range would also help. A lower gear ratio (around 1:4 -1:5) is better for jigging as you can generate much more torque when jigging which reduces fatigue - especially if you are jigging for hours. I prefer a star drag because Iin my experience they tend to bind much less than lever drag reels especially at the heavier drag settings. This equates to more power and less effort to turn the handle at heavy drag settings. So having said all of that my favourite overhead jigging reels are the Shimano TN40N and a Jigging Master PE 4. I have an Avet MXJ which is pretty good as well. The smaller Shimano TLDs (15 or 20) are cheap and I reckon pretty good jigging reels considering their price. I havent fished the Diawa saltist/saltigas but my jigging buddies sweary by them. A bit more info would help guide you. Evets

Gama SL12 hooks would fit the bill for those using 15 KG or less. The have a realitively wide gape and have a turned down point. And they can be easily straightened on the leader should you wish to release the fish

I bought a camera online from Japan recently. I received a note in my mail box from Australia post saying that it had arrived. The note also said that I had to pay 10% of the total cost of the camera (including the shipping cost) before I could collect it. Paid it at the post office and picked up the camera. Other times I have been lucky and had the items left at my front door - even though they were worth over a grand. Evets

Ummm 12.47v means that the battery is not fully charged. At that voltage it is somewhere between 80-90% charged. A fully charged battery will be over 12.6 volts. But to properly determine the state of the battery you need to fully charge it (what type of charger do you have?) so that it has 12.6 or more volts and then load test it. To do that you would attach the battery to the motor and measure the voltage drop as you crank it over. On the very first time - only crank the motor over for a second. This will remove any "surface" charge the battery has. Re measure the battery voltage. It still should be 12.6v - if it is less than 12.6v pop the battery back onto the charger. Once you are satisfied the battery is fully charged crank the motor over long enough to get a reading on the multimeter. Do this a couple of times. Post up the resulting multimeter readings. We can then tell you if the battery is OK or not. Evets

x2....... though I have had most success with very very fresh squid. Evets

Mr KS Fist of all you will need to make sure that the sounder is set up properly and you know how to use it. You will need to read the manual to work out how to use the gain, bottom lock/zoom, depth etc. This will let you tune the sounder so that you get the best possible image from it. This is probably the most important part because tuning the sounder to suit the dept you are fishing will make it sooo much easier to find what you are looking for. It will also help you find the schools of kings/ bigger single kings you are no doubt after :thumbup: The way I find my kelp beds with my sounder is that I look for a really soft return just above the bottom. On my sounder a hard bottom looks like a solid thick red line with a second (or third) echo below it. A soft bottom looks like a thin red line with out a second return. Kelp looks like a soft blue/green area just above the red . Don't worry that you don't have a color sounder. Your sounder will work the same as mine except you will have a greyscale image. The darker and thicker the image the harder the bottom. Similarly the lighter and thinner the return the softer the bottom. Once you have worked out how to recognize the bottom you need to look for soft returns just above it. This is where you need to start looking for the kelp . One way of learning what each kelp looks like is to go to a spot where you know that kelp is and carefully look at at the sounder image. Concentrate on what the return signal looks like above the bottom. I have found that in the Illawarra the kelp beds are usually found over a semi hard bottom, have a layer of silt/sand and then the kelp sits on top. Unfortunately I dont have any photos of my sounder in action but google is your friend in that regard. Evets

Yes the double will provide you some benefit.It will allow you control the fish much better when it is near you. It also gives you much better abrasion resistance if you are fishing near structure as well. I plait my doubles in 15 KG and have them at least 1.5 times the length of my rod. To that I attach my leader. I use this rig when I am live baiting or trolling. No problem whatsoever. Having said all of that I am now starting to use long wind on leaders and I must say, with my overheads at least, I find this a better way to rig up. A short double and a double cats paw to join the leader. With my jigging set up I favor a PR knot to join my leader. BTW I have never had a problem with mono having a memory either ??? Evets

Fishoman, I have exactly this problem with my driveway and boat. I also pull my boat up into the garage with a winch. You will find that mounting the winch to the floor will not be the best place for it because when the boat is down the driveway the winch cable will rub on the ground when you pull the boat in. Youll need to mount the winch at off the ground on the back wall. How high does it need to be? Run some fishing line from where the back of the trailer will be up to the back wall without it touching the floor. Thats your mounting height. Mine is about 1.1M above floor height. I welded a couple of pieces of checker plate together to make a big "L" shaped bracket and mounted it to the wall with a few dynabolts. My winch is a $100 cheapie from the net. It has a pulling capacity of 1500kg (and double that if I include a pulley in the winch cable). My winch must be powered by a battery from my boat. At full pulling power it uses something like 100 amps ( I cant remember the exact number and is probably a lot more) so a power pack will not cut the mustard. My winch does have a winch in / winch out function so you can get them. :biggrin2: Having said all of that though.... You may find that the solution to your problem is as simple as half backing the boat into the garage so that the trailer wheels are on the garage slab. You will be able to easily put the jockey wheel on and push the boat the rest of the way into the garage by hand. I did this for a while before I bought my new car that caused the tow ball to bind as you describe. I then had to resort to winching it in. Evets