PRACTICAL BOAT FISHING
When setting up any fishing boat, new or old, paying attention to both the big and small details makes a huge difference to the end result. DAVID GREEN reports.
BOATS are the fisherman’s most important tool. The marketing of boats often relies on looks, visual appeal, flash paint jobs and designs filled with curves and glam. When I first get into a boat I immediately look for a protected space in which to put my keys, mobile phone, wallet and other sundries I need to keep dry. A lot of the time there’s no obvious spot to put this kind of stuff, and I reckon that is a problem. The first thing you need in a boat is a small area of safe dry storage.
The next important point is how the hull uses the available space. Be it a small tinny or a game boat, fishermen need space in which to work, and in general it needs to be open and uncluttered. In a small boat a side console can take up a lot of room and can greatly impede your access around the boat. Tiller steers are often a much more practical option and leave you much more space, but even in small boats it seems a lot of people are keen to have a steering wheel.
Getting it right
Over the last few months I’ve been working with Quintrex to fit out a 440 Hornet to make it as practical and fishermen-friendly as possible. This will be the subject of a future article in Boat Fishing, but I have learnt a lot along the way. Most of what we have done is quite simple: customising mouldings so they take tackle boxes, standard eskies and developing some practical rod storage, as well as having sections of removable storage bins so the boat can be optioned in different ways. It has been fun to do and while the finished project is still a few weeks away, incorporating a few practical ideas into the boat has worked pretty well.
In bigger boats, rod storage and trolling rod holders are often poorly placed and poorly angled. If you offshore troll, you generally run a spread of four or five lines. To do this effectively you need the rods at different heights and angles so the lines don’t tangle, especially if you aren’t using outriggers. I’ve used metal pipe inserts for about twenty years now to partly solve this problem and they make a tremendous difference to your fishing. They are simple, easy to store and work well. They allow you to vary the angle of the rod, and when trolling let the short lures run just wide of the prop wash in cleaner water. When bait fishing, live baiting or trolling, the rod can be angled so it is about 30 to 45 degrees to the water, which is the best position for the rod to be in when a fish strikes.
Little things make a difference
Rods and reels cost a fortune and it’s important to use lanyards to keep them safe. Lanyards need attachment points and when I had my third Sportfish built (now totally revamped – see p.76) I had small welded sections in place to attach the lanyards to. Little things like this make a big difference in the long-term safety of your gear. Similarly, gaff storage is also very important. Gaffs are potentially dangerous and need to be easily accessible, but out of the way. A few clips fitted under the gunwales hold gaffs in sight but keep the points safe.
Centre cabin designs can offer the best of both worlds when it comes to fishing, but you need to have a practical cabin space, while at the same time having easy access all around the boat. Some centre cabins are quite impractical to walk around and often have no grab rails, which makes it pretty easy to fall over. If you have to fight a fish around the boat or go forward to sort out anchors you need sufficient space to make the access quick, simple and safe. If it seems a bit cramped or unsafe in the estuary it will be ten times worse out at sea.
Fish storage is also very important. An underfloor kill tank is very practical when you need somewhere to put a mackerel or crazy dolphin fish, but it needs to be longer than the fish you are catching and it needs to drain through a transom mounted pipe so you can get the blood out without dirtying the rest of the floor. After the fish has spent time in the kill tank it needs to be cleaned and iced and this means you need an insulated box or a space for your ice box as well. In smaller boats, long, thin ice boxes are often more practical for fish storage than traditional styles, and are also less intrusive.
Cleaning your boat should be simple, but a lot of the fishing, crabbing and prawning we do creates a lot of mess. In the Quintrex project I borrowed an idea from my mate Brad Job, and we recessed a small section near the rear bulkhead and ran a draining pipe out the back of the transom. By lifting out a small section of floor, all the dirt and smelly stuff can be hosed out through the “pooh shute” without having to force it all into a corner and manually pick it out. These kind of practical ideas make boating much easier and let you reduce your cleaning time.
It pays to plan ahead
Anchor storage is also something you need to carefully consider. If you fish offshore you need space for a hundred metres of rope and you will need to carry a range of anchors from reef picks to sand picks, depending on the type of bottom you fish on. Dinky little boxes that wouldn’t hold a small sand pick will be a constant source
of frustration for the entire period you own the boat. Anchor wells also need to be drained, so it is important to check these things before you purchase your dream boat. It is all very well to have a glamour hull, but if it doesn’t hold all the bits you need it will be a constant source of annoyance. Spare anchors are easily fitted in rail-mounted pipes adjacent to your anchor well and this makes for easy changeover.
In estuary boats using electric motors you need to carefully plan your battery storage. If you run a 24-volt system you will need to carry three batteries, which
is a fair amount of weight in a small boat. The hull needs to be designed so the electric batteries fit centrally, ideally around amidships, so the hull will sit evenly in the water rather than nose down. This means the manufacturer has to have a good understanding of what the craft will be used for, as it’s often difficult to retrofit extra batteries into the design if it wasn’t considered by the manufacturer. If you’re in the market for such a boat, check this carefully and beware of boat salesmen who tell you what you want to hear, but have no real understanding of the intricacies of what a modern fishing boat should be.
The above is a bit of a guide to some of the more practical aspects of what you need to look for when you are in the market for a fishing boat. Beware of all the hype and marketing. If people don’t fish, they generally don’t understand any of the above points. Over the next few issues of Boat Fishing I will go through some of the things we tried in fitting out my new tinny, which has been an exciting project. I’ve also learnt a lot about practical boating from electronics to trailers.
