garfield28

Good fish has had a go at that Jeff

I've pulled the pin as I have to be somewhere else at lunch unfortunately. Nice to meet a few of you briefly at the BBQ at ramp this morning. Shame about the weather and conditions today but I'm sure if we weren't all meeting up it would have been 1 metre swell, no wind and sun shining haha Big thanks to Scratchie, Job well done mate for the organising of the event and putting together some info, maps flags etc for the guys that don't know the area or spots that well. Shame about the weather mate but Murphy's Law hey, but cheers for the effort to get it all sorted mate 👍 Hopefully this can become an annual event, or maybe even another crack in a couple of months time again when the snapper are well and truly on the chew. Good luck for the remainder of the day all, I'll keep an eye over the thread throughout the rest of the day. Geoff

Thanks to all who replied to this thread really appreciate it. Update is I went and bought a new battery to replace the battery which was causing problems when switched to number 2. Anyhow put the new battery in and when I switched the battery switch to number 2 the tilt and trim was working fine, so at a guess I would assume my other deep cycle battery was no good? It is out of the boat so I may still chuck it on the charger, charge it up and take it to get tested still. Thanks again for the helpful replies. Geoff

I haven't mate, and wouldn't know where to start... how would I do that please? I think this was happening even when we had the warmer weather too The connections seem to look OK, and if I did a continuity test would that show normal if I had an inside the cable issue? Where would I get them tested, and what the cost involved with that mate? Is there any way I can test them myself? Yeah the boat is a 91 model from memory, but I bought both batteries brand new back in the end of 2015 or beginning of 2016 I think from memory when on both is was still surging as well Rick... is there anyway I can check the alternator?

Hey Raiders, Been having a few issues with my electrics the last few times I've been out and just looking for some help in maybe finding the fault. I have a dual battery set up, and of late it at times felt like it is surging, like little jolts when I am at top speed, on a couple of occasions it has actually just cut out and the sounder etc has turned off., but as I day it's happened my twice to three times max. When this has happened I've had to turn the switch to the other battery so I could start it again as it was like a dead battery if I just tried to start it again after it suddenly for no apparent reason cut out. It seems the issues are occurring when the switch is on battery 2 which is a deep cycle battery that I use f\mainly for my electrics when I am at rest to run my live tank, sounder and lights when I'm out in the dark. The last 2 trips whenever I have the battery set to the house battery and I am underway for some reason my tilt and trim won't work from the throttle but as soon as I change it back to battery 1 it starts to work again. I had an issue a while back with something similar with my start battery and it got worse, top the stage where I couldn't start the boat, but in the end I found that my leads were very badly corroded, which I found by cutting the leads with bolt cutters to find the copper was basically black. Anyhow this afternoon I pulled the leads off the second battery and rather than cut them I used a multimeter to check for continuity and if I did so correctly they had continuity. So if my cables are OK, any ideas what it could be? Is there a way I can check that my deep cycle battery is OK and not needing replacing? Any advice or ideas much appreciated. Thanks Geoff

Good Luck Baz, I'm sure you'll get a few with him on board.

Hasn't he what! He'll help anyone he can get onto them. Good man Jeff, another Raider with some beautiful Port Stephens Snapper.

Good read mate, and well done boys. Does he's best to put ya on the fish and shows you all of his techniques ol Scratchie!

Hey George, Great to see you on fishraider mate. You are more than welcome and certainly glad we could help out, it would have been very hard getting your beautiful boat off the sand for a few blokes let alone you and your wife. Sorry to hear your wife has been through that, but knowing from experience as my mother-in-law went through it, the long days sitting in a room on dialysis until she received a transplant kidney. I'm sure it has already made a huge difference in her life, but she won't know herself now. My mother-in-law has just hit the 10 year mark with her transplant kidney, and it is still going great, I very much wish the same for your wife mate. Now that you are a member of this great forum we are having a meet up with other members next month, if you and the wife are not busy mate feel free to add your name to the list come down and meet a few of the other members. I do not know how to add the link but Jeff (Scratchie) would, so he might put it in this thread when he see's this post so you can have a look through it. Also mate, as I said to you on Sunday George, give Scratchie a shout if you are looking for some help finding the fish around PS. He'll show and talk you through the rigs, on the different target species and show you all the danger areas outside etc. Hope you enjoy the forum George and look forward to meeting you again. Geoff

Yeah mate just over getting nothing, then the Mrs carries on every time I mention the boat or buy anything fishing related, but I guess it can be quite expensive at times and when you come home empty handed you have no come back.... did this trip though :-) some very nice fillets off the big red and beautiful whole baked snapper with the other lot. We'll be right Frank fresh in my mind Frank, and I believe Jeff is giving some marks of his and will fill everyone in when they turn up for the catch up also mate, so hopefully the weather turns it on and more importantly we can all get a few fish, but if not I'm sure it will be a great weekend either way. Looking forward to catching up with ya Frank Geoff

100% he is mate! I know the feeling mate when you wanna go but have no one to go with.. I used to fish a fair bit with my young bloke, but about a year ago he discovered girls and the old man and fishing became a distant 3rd to everything else

Thanks for the replies guys 👍

Hi Raiders, Been a while since I posted, main reason no fish I guess, so makes it hard to do report. Saturday before last I ventured out to beautiful Broughton Island with my son, full of hope and eager to get onto some fish and was really confident we'd get onto a few, but as per the norm we had an absolute shocker of a day and didn't land anything, so naturally after so many failed trips of late I was down in the dumps and considering selling my boat and my fishing gear and just be done with it. While I was out I had a call from Scratchie as he'd seen I was out and was checking in to see how we'd gone. I told him we'd had a crap day and that I was done with fishing... Jeff said Noooooo don't give up mate, you just need a couple of good sessions to pick you up and go again, "how about we organise a day out and I'll show you a few spots and techniques that I stick to, that produces me fish more so than not"? - Scratchie didn't have to ask me twice! So through the week Jeff checked the weather, swell and wind, all was in our favor so got a call from Jeff on the Wednesday night, and we planned for a morning sesh on Sunday and then plan to be back in by lunch... sounds simple enough hahaha not with me!! Told Geoff I needed to look at my bearings to make sure they were doing OK as I hadn't checked them in nearly 12 months. So Saturday I start to pull off one side on a trailer I'd only just bought just under 12 months ago, and was shocked - disappointed and p@ssed right off by the state of it in such a short time, but this is a post I need to put up for others so that they don't buy this particular brand - but let me just say anyone looking at a Spitfire trailers, please PM me first and I'll fill you in on them and tell you what mine looks like in under 12 months!! But back to the story, so basically I pull the right side off the bearing is OK by the looks of it and just needs a clean and a repack, got it done, start the next side and it looks like milk and needs to be inspected closely, so I get started on it late Saturday arvo as the young bloke had footy in mid-morning, but I get started, this side is worse than the other for some reason, the hub and bolts are rusted quite bad and you'd think the trailer was 8 years old not less than one! So while trying to take the brake assembly off I brake a bolt, it's now I think 5 - 5.30 on Saturday evening and I'm no hope of getting it done in time to go out fishing early the next morning, so I call Scratchie and fill him in - he laughs because most times we've been out, I've either forgot something or lost something while on the water. I tell Jeff I'll be up early to go get a replacement bolt, and if finished early enough I'll buzz him and see if we can salvage a trip out. So get the boat all done and by now its 9ish in the morning, I call Jeff and say mate are you still keen? to which he replies I was just casting in my pool hahaha, he says lets go get'em and refresh a few things for ya. Meet Jeff at the boat ramp around 10am, the bay looked a bit choppy to be honest and the temperature was a bit cool from the wind, I was worried he might pull the pin and say we'd missed the window, but Jeff said the wind would be dropping off and we'll be sweet, so off we went. First stop was to grab some bait, so we stopped off at cabbage tree island to grab some livies, sounder showed a heap of bait but most turned out to be garfish that were absolutely everywhere, skipping on top of the water and nudging the bait jig but we could only manage to get one and Jeff wanted yakkas and more so slimies, so we moved to another spot and Jeff found what he was looking for yakkas and plenty of slimies! Got what we needed and then hit up the first spot. Once we got there Jeff basically threw all of my leader and braid away hahaha - that's rubbish, don't buy that again, that leader is crap, use this stuff, then he tied my leader to my braid, and then my leader to my jighead with a few nice looking knots, went through where he positioned the boat and why he did it that way, what he was looking for on the sounder, the structure where the bait was holding up etc. So once we were set up, well Jeff was he had all of his gear rigged and ready to go like any good fisherman haha, so once he set my gear up :-) he said lets get into them! Well you wouldn't read about it, my first cast was in the water for a few seconds and bang, I'm on! Couple of nice head shakes and a short tussle and I pull in a nice 40 cm red. I no longer had the hook out of its mouth and Jeff's livie that he puts about the back goes off, it bends his rod over, it's a decent fish, real decent, Jeff gets a little line in and then loses some, gets some in again and donk, its gone he loses it. While flicking the livie rod goes off again, but this time Jeff calls it for a bonito which it turns out to be, and quite a good sized one too. So after a few more cast in this spot we see the bait has thinned out and the wind has picked up a bit again, so Jeff takes us to another spot to have a crack. Next spot we start our drift and Jeff is getting heaps of hits on a colour change of his plastic but can't seem to hook one, but all of a sudden he thinks he's nailed one I turn around see the bend in the rod, at first Jeff gets a little line on it but then this thing just goes bang and heads straight to the reef and snaps him off! After a few choice words and a look of devastation we continue on for a little and then reset our drift in a spot close by and start again. New drift and I decide to change to the plastic that Jeff is having success with and straight away I hook up but because the fish is swimming at me I didn't set the hook and it spits it out and I miss what I predict is another good size pan red, Jeff says I told ya pull that rod back and set the hook! Yep he did and he was right, I didn't yank it back, so I was a bit dirty on myself, but did what Jeff said he's motto is "just keep casting" so I continue on. About half way through our drift Jeff hooks what looks another good fish. It straight away peels line and Jeff pulls hard and sets the hook, a bit of a battle and this thing is big you can tell it is, at one stage Jeff thought he'd lost it as it seemed to adjust and take a massive dive, he thinks its going to reef him like what happened earlier but persist to let the shimano gear do its thing, he starts to win the battle and then you just see this beautiful big red behemoth start to come to the top. I'm filming the fight but had to stop and grab the net for the big girl, think I would have jumped out and swam back to the mainland if I'd cost him this one after the other 2 big bust off haha. A few high fives and a couple of pics, I was so pumped to see this big thing landed, it was 1 o'clock in the arvo too mind you, was just so pumped to see him land this thing! We start flicking again, Jeff brings in another pannie and keeps getting bumped but not hooking, so with the wind dying right down, we basically have no drift and we decide to have a quick flick for some squid near the island, we only half seriously tried for 10 mins and then decided to drop into a few other spots on the way back and try micro jigging, but the wind had kicked up again and the current got petty strong underneath so we couldn't really get into the strike zone and decided to call it a day. Was a bit windy and choppy heading back in but we cruised back at about 35kms an hour and was back from Broughton to the ramp in about 22 mins. Once back, we beached the boat and by this time the wind had really kicked up, so getting the boat onto a trailer on the ramp was going to be hard on its own, but actually getting it off the sand if you beached it was another! We spotted an older couple struggling to hold their boat and control it in the strong wind, it was beached but turned side on in the strong wind and waves, so it couldn't be moved. Jeff being the great bloke he is was straight over there to help them out, but even with him and old mate they couldn't budge the boat off the sand. We sorted mine out first, got it up out of the way and then helped these guys out, the entire time Jeff talking old mate through what he needed to do so he didn't damage his boat, as he looked like a novice boater with an absolute beautiful boat. After both getting quite wet and sandy we got the boat onto the trailer. To finish off was a top day on the water with a top bloke. Jeff has a real passion for fishing, but an even bigger passion for showing others how to do it too. I personally appreciate the times you have jumped on board with me and the young bloke mate. Nearly 5 years ago I moved up to beautiful Port Stephens, I had a boat and fishing gear, but no clue on how to use either of them. I reached out to you on fishraider and within a week you took me and the young bloke out and got us started. That was the start of me falling in love with offshore fishing and the start of a friendship. Thanks heaps for sharing your knowledge to not only me, but anyone who asks!.... and yes mate ya got the fire in the belly going again!! haha Hopefully we can get out there together again, sooner rather than later. Thanks for reading Raiders, and can't wait to meet a few of you at the Snapper meet up, hope this report fires you all up!! Geoff Pic of Scratchies thumper below, unfortunately I didn't take pics of the others.

Thanks Frank. Also Frank, I know you'll know, I snapped a bolt that holds my hydraulic brake cylinder to the suspension arm is that a special kind of steel? I'm going to head to Bunnings this morning and try and replace it but only just figured that they might not sell it. Is high tensile what I need please mate? Thanks Geoff Thanks for that

Hi all, Can anyone tell me if L44649 is a Holden or Ford bearing please? I don't know and cannot find it on Google. Thanks Geoff

That's no worries at all Frank... Looking forward to it mate

Legend Scratchie mate on everything you're doing for the weekend 👍

Frank, I have room for one on my boat mate so more than welcome to jump on with me old mate if you'd like. If Frank has teed something up in the meantime and doesn't require a ride I'll have a spare spot maybe 2 if my Son doesn't come along which could be a possibility... will post as soon as I know

If my Mrs sent me to fetch anything from the sea she'd be disappointed hahaha... well done mate.

Yep, definitely be up for it Jeff

Scratchie's ya man Antony he knows where the fish are and how to catch them, I just know how to catch live bait 😁 which I was also shown by Scratchie how to do that haha. Try not to let you down or have something on when you're up next time and maybe we can tee Scratchie up and we can all head out on my donk

Cheers mate for the reply and advice, but I ended up buying a new trailer mate.

Good report Baz, and good to see you nail a feed, so well worth the trip.... Question how did you get the perfect pic with the fish solo?? :-) Also, were you at the FAD at first light or a bit later? I'm told the fishing at the FAD is better at first light rather than later in the day. If all goes well I'll be heading out to the FAD myself on Saturday morning for the first time also, so fingers crossed the conditions stay as good as they are meant to be and that I can land a few Dollies myself.

The bloke is a legend!! On ya Frank... maybe I should put an order in mate, would make launching and retrieving the boat a bit easier for one bloke as my Son gives me the big brush most times I ask him now he has found girls.

Nice fish and well done. Good on ya Scratchie for once again teaching a few new fisherman how its done, you're a good man 👍