Just an update to keep this thread from fading into a distant memory.
I haven’t been out for the past two months. I decided I would rather wait until the fish come back then go burn fuel and drink beer for little in return.
While I’ve been waiting…
I stripped all the wiring out of the boat, replaced the batteries and rewired everything with blueseas fuse blocks, marine tinned wire, new battery isolator and neg buss bars. It’s now done properly as opposed to 20 years of previous owners running wires back to the battery whenever they added an accessory.
I serviced the engine oil and leg oil, replaced all of the internal and external anodes, new fuel filters, spark plugs, did a valve set, cleaned the thermostat, greased the driveshaft and changed the water pressure poppet valve in the leg.
I pulled every bulkhead and through hull fitting out of the boat and resealed with sikaflex. I installed a timer on the bait pump so I don’t have to remember to cycle the pump and a waterwitch float switch on the bilge so I don’t have to pay attention to it.
I pulled my eight trolling reels down, cleaned everything. Replaced all the bearings with ceramic hybrids, lubed everything up and decided the factory felt drag washers looked pretty average.
I built new carbontex washers
And installed them greased.
The drags run so much smoother now (with a kid running away from me) but the true test will be when a marlins swimming away from me. They also provide more max drag which doesn’t really help but I used to set 14lbs at strike and maxed out at 32lbs at sunset. No I see 14 at strike and 40lbs at sunset.
The reels got respooled, some got new braid, all got new top shots in 8, 15 or 24kg mono. The 8kg has me worried. Fishing with 5lbs max drag seems impossible but we will give it a rip.
All the lures were checked and rerigged/repaired as required. Another doz or so lures were added to the tackle selection. These two are the prettiest of the bunch.
I brined up some slimy mackerel for skip baits although ideally we catch some fresh ones out there.
I head back to work today but in two weeks when I get home the juvenile blacks should be back in Hervey bay which will kick off this marlin season. I was up there with the family over the weekend and it had me very itchy to be fishing. Coincidentally that’s where this thread started. Fingers crossed the weather cooperates at the beginning of oct and the currents have brought the fish down. The plan is a minimum of two three day trips to the bay in oct/nov and I’m looking for 30 marlin tagged out of those trips.
My goal is 100 billfish tagged this summer.
We will see how that fleshes out over the coming months won’t we.