Keith, thanks for taking the time out again and again to give such great reports.
Wow that sure is covering a lot of country in two days!!
There was a big cat come into the lagoon just after dark and anchor straight in front of us, so I gather it may have been your boat, just too dark to see.
If you ever want to take a quick trip out of Burnett Heads to do some exploring out at the top of Breaksea, give me a yell and I'll take you out.
Ross
100 ltrs per kg.... You got me!!!Originally Posted by Back In Black
Shark - no worries mate I will bring along the powerhead and hopefully not shoot a hole in the bottom of the boat
I am keen whatever time you guys can arrange.
Dick - yep sort your electrics and hopefully your CHIRP will be nearly as good as my CHIRP and we will go give it a try - sounds good
Dick - Ronnie made quite a few friends on this forum and many of them reached out to him as well - it was precious
Cheers
Trev
Cheers Greg your right on the distance it was a long way to travel in 36hrs somewhere around that 500k's mark.Hi Keith good to finally meet you mate even if it was at the ramp. Nice to see you trying to out do Captain cook mate
Talk soon
Greg
The catch was defiantly bettered with the 39876 photos I took to make the catch look respectable. I turned Dick's 5kg Cod into a man-eater....lol Ive just got to find someone to do it for me. All my pics ever show is a fat F#@k with half a dozen chins holding up tadpoles. Maybe I'm just fat and can't catch fish but I'm positive its the photographer. Look at Dicks pics... he looks great in them and no way does he look like that in real life!!! Even Gav looked like a machine... Im getting duped!!
We'll have to catch up for a beer one time so I can pick your brain on patience rather than building a bermuda triangle from the tip of Frazer to nth reef and back to 1770... Never again....I hope
You need one of these to sort those sharks out Trev
These are an awesome reel.
Gav its not the size of the dog in the fight... Just look at that avatar of yours. You can make an undersize squire look like a knobbie. Its a real talent and one I need on my boat. You can bring your long arms on Giddy up any day champion.
Trev my advice is if you have to do anything with a shark keep Dick away from it.
Mate you smashed that bait like a knobbie. You better put him on some reds next trip mate or you might not get paid for any variations...lol
I thought Gourmet was your regular crew?? How did Tom get on there....Hmmmm
I'll give you a call tomorrow.
Cheers Ross , yeah that was us mate. Pitty I didn't know you guys were there or I would of came over and said gidday. Next time.
Im heading up in about a month with a few guys weather pending for another crack. Should meet out there?? This time i'll just fish the 50-70mtr country and get some red grounds early through to about 2pm then I'll head wide and chase bar cod this time. Next day i'll just re target a few reds again. New ground to me so not overly confident but should find something. Awsome ground up there. I'll watch Gregs DVD again to fire me up so i don't get impatient this time and head back to the bunker group.
I did a deepdrop trip with ShaneC once and he had two of those Kristals and both were in for repairs- we got 3 barcod each mine 15/20/23kg and last trip was a 23kg model it was up to it. I am thinking an X4 for the deep pearlies. They have to have a levelwind otherwise a waste of time. A mate of mine got a 24v X9 and that is a machine - 30% faster than the 12V easily and it pulls hard - awesome unit. I had a look at the megatwin and it only has 20kg pull - sure it's 200m per minute but the X4 at 30kg pull is 160m per minute and the real test is winding these up with some load and without the pull they slow up big time. My two bobs worth
With the Kristals I think they aren't so much for the dollars and can't believe the levelwind is an extra and I think only on the bigger units.
Yeah keep Dick away from the sharks! I like that
BTW Keith I take good pics mate!
Cheers
Trev
Wow, thats a pretty good appraisal of the reels Trev. Truth be told I run a few of the big Kristals now, once I worked out that slow blow fuses made all the difference. My first Kristal has accounted for 6 tonnes of fish and my new is at 2. Do that with a cx4 mate......
I am not putting the X4 into that equation Shane - it is a reel for smaller fishing that the X9 tears apart - I see it as a reel I can put onto a rod to fish holding the outfit fishing for pearlies and snapper in 100-250m where the X9 in the rod holder just rips the hooks out of their mouth as it has no finesse at all - I found the rigs break on 60lb droppers and on 100lb droppers the hooks pull - so it doesn't work - it is a D9 dozer doing a bobcats job. I am not suggesting for one minute using a X4 for cod fishing.
The Kristals I see as too expensive for what they are with the smaller ones and with no levelwind is not appealing.
The 24V X9 is twice the reel the 12V X9 is.
I am happy with my 12V X9 for what it does.
BTW good to hear from you.
Cheers
Trev
Shane & Trev,
Guys when i was talking with Joe Rolly he was absolutely adamant to keeping the drags backed of even on smaller fish but especially important with the bigger boys.
Not saying you don't do that but it doesn't seem that important to have a massive amount of drag??? not sure if this is right or not but he seemed to know his stuff. He was also insistent on heavy leads to keep connection with the bottom and pressure on the hooks at all times.
Funny thing was I was looking at buying a Kristal and now having second thoughts. I want something with a quicker retrieve than the x9 but obviously beefier than the megatwin.
Shane what models do you use??
I am no expert on these electrics but I have seen the 12V-X9 alongside the 24V-X9 and at 30% greater speed on retrieve I do like the 24V model.
I didn't get to see Shane's Kristal reels however he got a good enough look at my 12V-X9 to give an opinion on comparison with his reels.
You will see the X-9 soon enough I suppose.
The low drag approach is new to me - with 150lb line and 400lb main dropper I do go pretty hard at getting these things ooglies up. Only time I really struggled was with a 24kg blue-eye and a second much bigger fish on that busted the 250lb dropper swimming against the much smaller 24kg fish. The reel gave no line but the motor tripped out a number of times. I still think I had to get them rising to stand any chance as they tried swimming down and got no where but tripped the reel out and then swam against one another till the rig busted (only several seconds later) and the smaller fish was winched up easily enough. After that I just use the electric and wind hard in addition if the fish seems big - I haven't had too many chances to try it on big fish as I only get one fish a trip - but it worked okay on the 23kg model last trip - would love to try on something a lot bigger. I wonder how they go on deep-drop with a string of 10-15 fish over 15kg a piece - surely they pull pretty hard to get them up? Once they are off the bottom and in open water and heading in the right direction I go easier as there is no point in risking losing them - I just slow the retrieve down and let it do it's stuff.
Shane I don't recall either of us fishing with anything but pretty heavy reel drag for cod?
I can see the drag issue with light lines on pearlies as I just don't get any good feel with the set-up on smaller fish as such bust up the rigs or pull the hooks by dragging them up - hence thinking a lighter outfit both rod and reel along the lines of the epoch X4/daiwa seaborg megatwin/tanacom/WFT1200 on a softer rod because fishing with the X9 on the broomstick I can't tell if I have a couple of fish on a few kg each or one fish 6" long - it feels the same and I get the rig up and have no idea if I am about to lose a decent pearlie and hook as I lost two fish on one drop along with the hooks and next drop felt the same on the lift for one pissy little fish - so how do you know how fast to retrieve if you can't tell if there is anything worthwhile on the line - it doesn't work. If I stop the retrieve and jiggle it about they have slack line and drop the hook. Anyway smaller reel and softer rod for pearlies and I think my X9 is adequate for cod but I reckon there are better things about - I saw a $5k US electric once - if commercial I suppose there is the Beltronic stuff but then you may as well go hydraulic then?
I am keen and interested to listen and learn from those that have the runs on the board - especially if the lesson is at sea showing how well it works.
Cheers
Trev
Keith Shane uses that reel above.
He has 2 now and is looking at buying a third one very soon.
That's where I see things a bit differently with electric gear Trev.
I see so many people buying Tanacoms and other small leccies and then go and put them on a big bent butt rod.
Once you go that sort of outfit,they are extremely hard to fish shallower waters properly so they tend to be left in a rod holder all day due to their weight and awkwardness to hold on to.
My outfit I use a Tanacom 1000 on a Shimano Deep Jig 400 and it is prefect to use all day long and sensitive enough to fish for snapper and other reefies yet powerful enough to haul cod and blue eye on.
The Kristals are on very heavy short rods and will haul a string of Blue Eye or cod with ease.
Even large sharks in 400m have no chance against the Kristals if they don't bite through the trace.
You must fish the drags appropriately just like any other reels and types of fishing or you will pull hooks and snap traces.
The beauty of the 100kg drag on the Kristals is when you do get a string of fish or a large shark you do have the pulling power to get them moving off the bottom and never do you need to help the reel out by winding the handle.
We winch at about half their speed and half their drag capacity so they do have a ton more of pulling power if we ever need it.
Same as when the gear is snagged in with a good tide running,you can push that lever up hard and motor back towards the show of fish to get the gear off with the reel just ticking over nice and slow so you don't break the line or traces.
We have caught everything on the Kristals from Reds,Trout,huge Amberjack,Snapper and Pearlies through to cod,blue eye,bass groper and sharks
The best thing about them is their speed,over a full days fishing we get about 15 drops extra for the day compared to the slower Miya Epochs and that can add up to a lot of extra fish.
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