Mounting transducer on transom wheel brackets

[Steve509926]

Seems a good price for that 7ah LiFe battery & charger Croolis. I'm tempted by the 18ah & charger at £89.

[Croolis]

Battery worked well, had it on for 4 hours or so with 13.5v to start, 13.3v to finish. Apparently you can go down to 12v to 12.5v, 12.5v for best life, though the number of cycles you get out of them are in the the thousands, allegedly.

I did have a problem though, there's a loose connection somewhere. I don't know of it's in the battery or my connection cables. I did bend the spade connectors on the battery down a bit as they were a bit proud, would be disappointing if that induced a bad connection. But could be anywhere l. Did get it working though and it stayed on.

The charger that comes with it is very basic, not even any LED lights. Battery came with 13.5v in it, I ran charger for a bit. When I switched it off, multimeter read 14.4v but 5 mins later 13.5v again, so I guess the BMS is sorting it.

But after all that NO FISH again. Very depressing. Saw a few mackerel shoals, I think, or maybe just weed or some very big jellyfish (never seen anything like those, scary lol). But no hits. Tried jigging with feathers, cast and retrieve with lures, trolling line way behind boat, nothing. Area tried was Gimblet Shoals couple of miles south of Pwllheli on rising tide. Dunno if that's garbage. Very depressing. Lot of of effort amd money for no result so far.

[Pikey Dave]

Originally Posted by Croolis

.... Very depressing. Lot of of effort amd money for no result so far.

That's why it's called "Fishing" and not "Catching". If you're seeking instant gratification, you're barking up the wrong tree

[Croolis]

Originally Posted by Pikey Dave

That's why it's called "Fishing" and not "Catching". If you're seeking instant gratification, you're barking up the wrong tree

razzfrassinrazzle

[Brinormeg]

Originally Posted by Croolis

razzfrassinrazzle

Not wanting to rub salt in the wound or anything….but

4 fishing outings on the sib….4 buckets of good sized mackerel and a few haddock to top it off

Was just catch and release after a while as we couldn’t be bothered taking any more.
Then travel sickness set in being bent over unhooking them all the time, so that did cut the trips short.

Never really fished before, so no real idea to be honest, but are you looking out for likely fishing locations in advance or are you just throwing a line in any random bit of water?

[User name]

Originally Posted by Croolis

Battery worked well, had it on for 4 hours or so with 13.5v to start, 13.3v to finish. Apparently you can go down to 12v to 12.5v, 12.5v for best life, though the number of cycles you get out of them are in the the thousands, allegedly.

I did have a problem though, there's a loose connection somewhere. I don't know of it's in the battery or my connection cables. I did bend the spade connectors on the battery down a bit as they were a bit proud, would be disappointing if that induced a bad connection. But could be anywhere l. Did get it working though and it stayed on.

The charger that comes with it is very basic, not even any LED lights. Battery came with 13.5v in it, I ran charger for a bit. When I switched it off, multimeter read 14.4v but 5 mins later 13.5v again, so I guess the BMS is sorting it.

But after all that NO FISH again. Very depressing. Saw a few mackerel shoals, I think, or maybe just weed or some very big jellyfish (never seen anything like those, scary lol). But no hits. Tried jigging with feathers, cast and retrieve with lures, trolling line way behind boat, nothing. Area tried was Gimblet Shoals couple of miles south of Pwllheli on rising tide. Dunno if that's garbage. Very depressing. Lot of of effort amd money for no result so far.

That's a shame. It's gotta be a poor area or something. At this time of year, catching mackerel is almost an inconvenience.

[Croolis]

razzfrassinrazzle

Originally Posted by Brinormeg

Then travel sickness set in being bent over unhooking them all the time, so that did cut the trips short.

Never really fished before, so no real idea to be honest, but are you looking out for likely fishing locations in advance or are you just throwing a line in any random bit of water?

Funny you say that about being bent over - that's the only time I ever feel anything approaching seasickness - when I'm head down fiddling with the tackle, tying knots etc.

Yesterday I deliberately chose a spot after looking at Navionics - Gimblet Shoals are either a sandbank or reef, not sure which, either way a feature where I thought fish bait might be pushed against by the rising tide. We drifted across it a couple of times. It's pretty shallow water around there Tremadog Bay, so on the shoals more shallow. On the previous visit, we went down south of the islands at Abersoch where there's deeper water and a rising tide theoretically forces the bait through. Yesterday I was trying to see if shallower, open water made any difference for mackerel jigging as I'd caught nothing at the islands.

It's a bit funny when searching for advice on mackerel, there seems to be this thing that they're just everywhere and there's not much (reported) strategy for catching them beyond how to jig and feather rigs. Maybe I'm wrong in this and I just haven't seen the advice.

I have a book coming, some old well regarded title I've picked up second hand Angling Guide to Wales by Clive Gammon. Maybe that'll give me things to think about.

End of the day, there's many factors, miss any one of them and could struggle, and then even if you get it all right there's always just bad luck. Like the man says, perseverance. I should have like to have served my lad some pan fried mackerel caught by his own hand though, would have been nice.

edited: Tremadog Bay, not Treaddur Bay

[Croolis]

Originally Posted by User name

That's a shame. It's gotta be a poor area or something. At this time of year, catching mackerel is almost an inconvenience.

The lady who takes the money for the slip always asks how I got on when she sees me pack up - she passed comment that someone else had said to her "where's all the mackerel gone?"

It's a busy area for recreational boating, lots of posh stuff motoring about, luxury and/or masted posh, not as many small fishing day boats, good smattering of jet skis and speedy boats. Dunno if that affects it.

[User name]

Originally Posted by Croolis

The lady who takes the money for the slip always asks how I got on when she sees me pack up - she passed comment that someone else had said to her "where's all the mackerel gone?"

It's a busy area for recreational boating, lots of posh stuff motoring about, luxury and/or masted posh, not as many small fishing day boats, good smattering of jet skis and speedy boats. Dunno if that affects it.

Ah, that may well be the issue. a boat will spook them so if you stay close to shore in a busy area then it can be a bit baron.

[Brinormeg]

Was going to suggest Navionics, because we did look out for some kind of structure/reef area, but luck definitely as much to do with it than any kind of skill on our part

Maybe try some baited feathers to widen your chances of a bite from something else outwith the Mackerel, and avoiding the really busy areas might help as said.

Just seeing my son catch so much, and the look of surprise/terror on his face when reeling them in, was nice to see I must admit.

I get it’s something you can share with your kids….which was one of the reasons for us getting a boat in the first place, although not so much for the fishing, but more for the exploring side.

Keep at it, and hopefully you will pick something up yet to keep the kids interest if nothing else.

But meantime enjoy the quality time you have together…..they will be grown up and living their own busy lives far too soon

[Pikey Dave]

Originally Posted by Brinormeg

Just seeing my son catch so much, and the look of surprise/terror on his face when reeling them in, was nice to see I must admit.

I get it’s something you can share with your kids….which was one of the reasons for us getting a boat in the first place, although not so much for the fishing, but more for the exploring side.

Keep at it, and hopefully you will pick something up yet to keep the kids interest if nothing else.

But meantime enjoy the quality time you have together…..they will be grown up and living their own busy lives far too soon

And there you have it, in a nutshell

[Croolis]

I CAUGHT A FISH.

A couple actually (get me) . Went to Pwhelli on Sunday. It was a bit too choppy to comfortably go down to St Tudwals, we would have had to crawl because we kept on having water over the bow soaking us and we got cold quite quick (new note - unless blazing sunshine and flat sea, take waterproofs), even when we just pootled. Would have taken more time than we had so decided to hang about in the places where we had caught no fish before (oh noes).

The difference was, this was getting towards dusk a few hours into rising tide. We caught nothing again for most of it, and I was getting pretty stroppy lol because we were just making the same mistake. But then as a last thing we had a drift very close along the outside of the outer harbour, which is like a spit of land, all rocky, the tide carrying us along on it. And bam, got an average size mackerel straight away, just one on a string of feathers.

Because we were all ginger about handling the thing and didn't know what to do with it, and then I had to get away from the rocks, we didn't get a line back in the water to try and get his mates (because of the drift we were well off the actual spot anyway when I hooked him). But we motored around for another drift and my mate got an unremarkable gurnard, then I got a smallish garfish (freaky looking thing).

So 3 different things in 15 mins. After that we had to go in because my mate, who'd been sat in the bow on the floor getting soaked and who has bad knees, wanted to call it a day.

But there's some more lessons learned. And I took it home and cooked it. The lesson learned there was "don't be too lazy to go and get your sharp filleting knife out the car when you fillet a fish" . I actually forgot to take a photo when it was still in one piece.

[Brinormeg]

Well done….glad you finally caught and are starting to enjoy it more, regardless of the conditions.
I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but it seems to have been a particularly bad year for higher winds and poor sib conditions this year.

[Croolis]

Thank you. I've been good for conditions this year. Been out umm, 8 times, 3 river, 5 coastal, and it's only this last one which has been a bit more uppity than I expected. All the others have been red hot and calm, save a bit of chop on the return leg of one. Been good. Maybe I've been blessed.

The struggle part as well comes from not having an adequate setup (safety aside) for anything other than nice conditions. Had I a bow canopy and if we were simply wearing wets (and both of us very experienced bikers ), we would have maybe endured the legs down to St Tudwals. I didn't have the forward seat installed either and for my m8 with his knees, it might have helped.

The fish finder sort of helped . As we got closer to those rocks we kept getting hits with it so it encouraged us. I have it set so that it displays the little fish icons, but I should be learning how to use it better and do my own analysis. It was very noisy on the display, both surface and bottom very jagged, I guess because of the chop. I still have the transducer mounted by strapping it to the back of a tube, and I think sticking it on the transom will help.

[Steve509926]

Congratulations Croolis, at least you have caught something that is of an edible size! much more than I seem to achieve.

[User name]

Great to hear you finally caught something. That could have been the end of the hobby if you'd gone home demoralised once again. lol