WE’VE seen some seriously impressive Fishing Weapons over the years, but Tasmanian Johnny Austin’s insane install could take the cake! We recently caught up with Johnny to check out his fully-loaded Bar Crusher 780XT…
Johnny’s goal was to make his boat the most tech’ed up Bar Crusher 780XT in the country! With a massive 24-inch Garmin GPS Map display on the console, a FLIR M232 night vision camera on the T-top and a Garmin Force Kraken trolling motor up front, it’s hard not to appreciate the technology onboard this boat.
“As you can see it’s fairly well fitted out; we’ve got the twin Yamaha 200s, Helm Master EX and a fair bit of Garmin gear throughout the boat… It’s a good thing,” he said.
This isn’t Johnny’s first Bar Crusher, either. After previously owning a Bar Crusher 730 hardtop, Johnny was sold on the performance and fishability of Bar Crusher’s hardtop centre console (XT) series.
“In 2020 I purchased a new 730 hardtop and I put 880 hours on it in a couple of years and thought: ‘Right, it’s time to upgrade!’
I can just pop out the front [of Burnie] and use the casting deck and flick stickbaits at them all day long and have a great time!
“I’m a centre console fan, so thought I’m going to do it: I’m going to get one and I’m going to go the whole hog and this is what I’ve done”, Johnny said.
Even though some might question the practicality of a centre console boat in Tasmania, Johnny had his reasons…
“I live in Tasmania, which everyone thinks I’m a bit crazy for buying a centre console, but I do a lot of fishing down the West Coast; a lot of crays, so we do a lot of ring trapping, diving and now that we’ve got a lot of tuna around Tasmania that are also popping up across the Bass Strait, I can just pop out the front [of Burnie] and use the casting deck and flick stickbaits at them all day long and have a great time!
“I think the fact that we can fish every part of the XT is the drawcard. It’s just set up perfect [for fishing]… get up the front and do a bit of fishing, if I want to get down the back I can – l’ve got plenty of room.
“l’ve got so much storage up the front… Underneath [the casting deck] is a permanently mounted dive compressor and hookah line, I’ve got a fridge. It’s just got everything I need”, Johnny said.
With a custom pearl white wrap and twin pearl white Yamaha F200 outboards, Johnny’s Bar Crusher is equally impressive-looking on the outside, too.
“We went with the twin white Yamaha 200s. I knew I wanted a white boat so thought, well, perfect combination! It looked good and then we got the boat wrapped in the same pearl to match the engines and absolutely love it!”
With 400 horsepower and Bar Crusher’s smooth Waveslicer deep-V hull design, Johnny reckons his 780XT performs as good as it looks!
“Performance-wise, it’s phenomenal. We’re getting about 1.4 kilometres a litre at about 60 kilometres an hour… Really happy with the fuel consumption, it is ridiculous”, he said.
“It’s so much fun, it’s brilliant!”
For more on Bar Crusher boats, visit: www.barcrusher.com.au
