fragmeister

Well you certainly made up for it with that report Basil! Very entertaining post. Cheers Jim

You're not wrong there Dave, I have been to that many funerals in the last 12 months, - not a lot of fun. Dealing with estates over the last 12 months has been part of the reason why I haven't been able to get out. Fortunately, I have quite a few activities that keep me going apart from fishing, and they are also very therapeutic. If I can't go fishing, I still find time to chill out with other hobbies. Cheers Jim

Thanks Neil, Its just been one thing after another my end and fishing goes to the bottom of the pile... you know it must be important stuff if fishing has to be put on the back burner! Cheers Jim

LOL. Yep, I can even blame that mistake on being tired after fishing because I posted the next day after a good sleep. With that sense of time and direction its a miracle I found my way home!

Lol! Into the harbour perhaps!

Lead acid. My smart charger can handle many battery types but like most it can’t handle dead flat ones. They can get low when they are absolutely dead flat. Like I said…I recovered the battery and I have done this before in similar circumstances. It won’t work on sulphated batteries but there is a different strategy for that. This battery was only 2 weeks old and had been flat for about a week.

Hi Raiders, I had a battery issue last weekend and how I dealt with it may be useful information to some Raiders. My boat batteries are about 5 years old. I have 2 deep cycle batteries for the minkota that are showing signs of age and a dual battery system for the boat itself. I replaced the two boat batteries last week and topped up the charge before covering up the boat again. There are a few things in the boat that draw current directly from the battery (mainly the sound system) so I have to top the charge up about once every 2 weeks. However, there is some issue causing excessive drain that I will need to resolve but the result was when I checked the batteries two weeks later one was absolutely dead flat. I hooked up the charger ( I have two anderson plugs conveniently loacted behind a panel in the gunnel so I can plug in the charge easily) but the charger just came up with an error message. This is because modern chargers are designed to be "Safe" so they will not commence a charging if they are not sure that it is a battery they are connected to. My battery was dead flat and had a terminal voltage of 5.5 Volts. So the charger is not sure that this is not a 6 volt battery and it may be unsafe to charge. Fair enough I think. To overcome this I took a charged battery ( I have a small 12 Volt backup battery for my shed alarm) and I connected this to my dead battery , (positive to positive and negative to negative) and then connected the battery charger. The charger commenced to charge and I left this for about 30 minutes until the dead battery had a little surface charge in it and then disconnected the good battery. The charger continued to charge the dead battery and after 2 hours the terminal voltage of the dead battery was up to 12 volts and I was able to turn the charger off and then back on again and it recommenced the charge process without issue. 12 hours later the battery is fully charged and at this stage I belive that it is fully recovered. I learned this trick many years ago from a training course I did at Exide batteries when I was working as an electirican on battery opperated forkifts. In the "old days" chargers were not as sophisticated and they just pumped in the current as long as they were connected. This was far from ideal and could result in overheating, excessive electrolyle loss, excessive gassing and shortened the life of the battery, but you never had a problem where the charger failed to at least try and charge the battery. I hope this helps anyone who has a dead flat bettery and a charger that fails to "see" the battery Cheers Jim

Hi Raiders, Headed out for a fish outside the heads on Thursday. Fire red sunset as I headed up the harbour. Fishing trips have been few and far between for me over the last 12 months but I hope they will be more frequent and I can start posting my regular Friday outings again. My main aim was to drift my usual spot in 40M off Diamond Bay for some Blue Spots but I stopped at the reef about 1k off North head and came up with a PB Sergeant Baker... for what it is worth. It went back of course. After the sun was well and truly up I headed over to my drift but I was plagued by small spikey flathead. I tried closer in at the 30 meter mark and then further out at 50 meters. I picked up 2 at about 40 CM and they became dinner for that night in a tempura batter. Headed home at 11am and reached the Wharf Road boat ramp at 12:00 where I met an older guy fishing from the wharf who had just landed a nice bream. That wharf, like many along the Parra can be very productive particluarly for bream and Jewies. Was a nice day on the water albeit a little unproductive. Cheers Jim Homepage

That is one comprehensive guide! Good effort Derek! Cheers Jim

OUCH! I can feel it now!.

Thanks for all the stories! I can think of how many close calls I have had over the years. I guess that's just the deal when you work hands on with dangerous equipment. Careful as you may be, there will always be a few near misses, as it is just a function of how many times you do slightly dangerous things. Here's a couple more (not all me). 1) Grinding metal near a charging forklift battery ... BOOM! One cell up through the roof. 2) Young apprentice with a framing nail gun who left his finger on the trigger and caught the tip of the gun in his trackies... FUDDUMP! ... nail in the femur! His carpenter boss pulled it out with pliers and took him to the hospital for a check. 3) Removing decking (nailed with timberlock nails) by cutting between the joist and then levering off the decking boards. Phone rings... gets distracted... Comes back and walks over the cut-off boards and falls through the deck. Twisted ankle. 4) Working in a client's roof installing network cables.. "Just walk on the boards in the roof space" says the client. I did... fell through the ceiling onto the receptionists desks... She didn't miss a beat... just moved to another desk to work. 5) Built an attic on my house. Had the largest and heaviest canvas tarp in the world covering the whole house. I was spreading it out again after working on a very hot day, and I asked my mate to tie off all the ropes down below while I was spreading it back out again. The tarp got caught about halfway along, and I crawled underneath to free it. Meanwhile, my mate secured the tarp with me stuck underneath it! I wasn't under that long, but it was like an oven under the tarp on a tin roof in summer. Best beer I ever had when I got out though. 5) Was checking whether an apprentice had greased the steer axle of a huge container handler forklift. The forklift was running, no driver in the cabin, so I just stuck my head under one of the rear wheels to check... in the short time it took me to get around the back of the forklift, the driver had returned and was in gear and taking off. Got my head out just in time. And that's about as much stupidity I am about to reveal. I can understand why you might think I am lucky to have all my fingers , toes, limbs and, let's face facts ... my life. Stay safe guys and girls and don't take anything for granted. Cheers Jim

Oh yeah! I remember that! Not a lot of fun.

Yes... the 9" grinder! What a beast of a tool. Fast, heavy and a fife hazzard to boot.

There is a lot to be said about the operator! Good advice too about positioning your self out of the direct line of the spinning wheels where possible and about being balanced. Keeping a clean workspace is also good practice. I've had that happen too.

62 years old. Spent many an hour fishing the rivers from the Tweed to the Shoalhaven, fished the ocean from SW rocks to Eden. Been fishing for Luderick since they were called something that you can't call them now! Not once did I hear of or think about using peas as bait! You never stop learning!

Hi Raiders, I am sure there are lots of handymen and tradies out there in the Raider community. I would like to hear some of your stories about power tool acidents, near misses and your opinion on the most dangerous tools or at least the ones that scare you the most! I will start the ball rolling by saying that I have never injured myself directly with a power tool and I have just about every tool known to man and some! I have come close, I might say, with numerous kickbacks on circular saws, near falls off roofs weilding various power tools but as I said, I have never had an injury directly related to a power tool. The closest I have come to an actual injury is when I got a paper cut last week putting my new router back in its box! My most feared power tool is the table saw. This was one of my most recent acqisitions. I had watched all the videos on Youtube about kickbacks and lost fingers but I needed to expand my tools to cope with some finer joinery work so I invested in a cheap Ryobi table saw. That was my first mistake. I made a few cuts and very quickly put it into storage. I normally don't buy budget tools but I just needed a table saw for a single project and I didn't want to invest too much money. The Ryobi saw was just not precise enough and I didnt think it was safe, especially for someone who plays guitar and would rather keep all his fingers! So I invested in a Sawstop tablesaw. Much better quality and so much safer.Check them out , they are amazing. Anyway, thats my story. I would love to hear your thoughts and some of your stories. Cheers Jim

Good advice above from some very experienced fishos. All I can add to that is for whiting, I would use a super slow retrieve... aside from the fact that it fires them up it also usually ensures that they get lip hooked. Ususally, gut hooked fish are the result of just soaking a bait on a slack line. Cheers Jim

Het Blackfish, One of each of the three bread and butter fish species! Top effort from the young fella for his first lure caught fish. Cheers Jim

Great report Ash! I love the detail in a fishing report because its often much more about the experience than just cathing fish. Good job on the cathcing fish front too BTW. Cheers Jim

Hey Neil, Thanks for asking. I have been luking around mate but I havent been out for a very long time. I was fully fit again after the foot surgery a while back but then we had a bad run with some older relatives needing our help. I was half way through a shed build at home with building materials in the driveway stopping me getting the boat out so even if I had the time I would have been able to get on the water. In the last 12 months we lost a few family members on my wife's side and there were complex property issues to sort out. She wasnt in the best frame of mind to deal with all that so I have been dealing with the legal stuff. I was selling part of my business so that took some serious energy. So... been a little busy mate. I can heard you thinking now... wasn't Jim about to retire? Anyway, I decided I need a break so I am clearing the way for the boat so it wont be long before you see a report from me. Cheers Jim

If the are King George Whiting ( not sure why they wouldnt say that) then they are nudging $90 a Kilo at the moment. Here are some frozen ones if you what a bargain! (not) https://www.fergusonaustralia.com/shop/fish/king-george-whiting/ 200 gram pack for $26 Bucks! I must admit fresh KG whiting are excellent by not $90 a kilo worth. I suspect that most fisherman are like me and they know how good really fresh fish tastes so I would have say a fresh flattie fillet than a KG whiting fillet bought from a fish shop. Cheers Jim

No personal experience Neil but good to see you ticking off a few more species! Cheers Jim

They look like you could stick them to the wall in the lounge room like the old fashioned plaster flying ducks! Good job picking up some fresh bait though... it makes all the difference. Cheers Jim

Hi Raiders, I thought I would share an interesting video on drag settings with you. I remembered this video after watching a guy in a video with his drag almost locked up trying to contain a fish. He was jigging in 100M and the jig was taken quite close to the surface by the look of it. The fish, a kingie I presume, was taking some line, but he didn't look in any danger of getting reefed in the deep water. Many have seen this before, I am certain, but for some of the less experience members this is a great video about how your drag is impacted by a fish taking a lot of line off the spool. Here is the video Its worth a look. Cheers Jim

Hi Dhutchy, My wife goes there every year, and it costs around $4,500 including flights. She is part of a group that removes weeds from the island, so she gets a group rate and there are no touristy things that add to the cost. So depending on where you stay it could be less or it could be more. I have been there a few times and the fishing can be red-hot. Big bluefish, drummer and trevally off the wharf in the lagoon... just burley them up with bread. It can be slow off the wharf as you need time to draw them in over the sand that lies between the reef and the wharf. Most times I have burleyed schools of garfish turn up, and they are great bait for the kings. You can hire kayaks in the lagoon, so perhaps that could be an option for fishing? The rest of the island had a lot to offer, but the rock platforms can be a little inaccessible. Clear Place Point is a popular spot on the east coast. The last time I was at LHI there, was a double hookup on yellowfins at Clear Place. It was absolute mayhem for about 35 minutes as the two guys tried to play the fish around each other. One was lost and one was landed and from memory it ended up on the menu at the Pinetrees Resort. I have caught some good kings at Clear Place, but I have been smoked more often than not. It seems hard not to catch jumbo sized kings ... I don't know where all the rats go! One thing to be aware of when travelling to LHI is the likelihood of cancelled flights. The Dash 8's that fly there are small planes and the LHI Airport only has a single strip which limits landing and takeoff options. I reckon my wife has been delayed by weather 4 times out of the last 10 trips anywhere between 1 and 3 days. So, don't plan anything a few days either side of the trip. Also, don't rely on getting anything you desperately need in the fishing department - even if they have something you want it will be costly. Wifi Internet is very limited - from memory you can get is at the Museum but it is very slow. There is no mobile reception and just a few public phones. Cheers Jim Cheers Jim