Cost effectiveness

[4liters]

Knowing that the overwhelming majority of fish won’t need more than 7-8kg fully locked there is very little need to be fishing with anything better than a saragosa etc for longevity reasons.

When I worked in customer service for a tackle company most people were under the impression you needed a drag setting equal to the weight of the fish you were trying to catch.

Of course every bastard wants to catch a 10kg snapper so they all wanted to know if the reels had at least 10kg of drag.

[Bugatti]

My motto is pretty much this

If it’s sitting in a rod holder 99% of the time I’m using it. Buy cheap. If I’m holding it all day. Buy nice. And if I’m out spending money chasing trophy fish etc buy them best you can.

Very well put ducky

Cheers, Bug

[4liters]

Actually on the subject of cost effectiveness, kayaks should probably get a mention.

For $3k you can get something that'll take you places you wouldn't go in a tinny and catch big fish if you're good enough (I'm not). My yak cost $2.4k and I've hooked a couple of barrels from it (there's a report somewhere of how that turned out lol), plus kings.

For $6k you can get something like an AI and guys with those are doing the sort of trips most boaties wouldn't consider anything less than a fairly big boat for.

I don't recommend it but you can get some horrid little ebay special for a few hundred and drift around the moorings or whatever without needing to buy a boat. Like, it's super unsafe in those little cheap yaks but if cost effectiveness is your focus rather than safety then you can't go wrong.

[Sebb]

Actually on the subject of cost effectiveness, kayaks should probably get a mention.

For $3k you can get something that'll take you places you wouldn't go in a tinny and catch big fish if you're good enough (I'm not). My yak cost $2.4k and I've hooked a couple of barrels from it (there's a report somewhere of how that turned out lol), plus kings.

For $6k you can get something like an AI and guys with those are doing the sort of trips most boaties wouldn't consider anything less than a fairly big boat for.

I don't recommend it but you can get some horrid little ebay special for a few hundred and drift around the moorings or whatever without needing to buy a boat. Like, it's super unsafe in those little cheap yaks but if cost effectiveness is your focus rather than safety then you can't go wrong.

This is true. Agree.
Kayak has less on going cost than a boat too. Ofc there's pros and cons of each, but kayak boosts fishing a lot to landbased fishing.

[Aimless]

Actually on the subject of cost effectiveness, kayaks should probably get a mention.

For $3k you can get something that'll take you places you wouldn't go in a tinny and catch big fish if you're good enough (I'm not). My yak cost $2.4k and I've hooked a couple of barrels from it (there's a report somewhere of how that turned out lol), plus kings.

For $6k you can get something like an AI and guys with those are doing the sort of trips most boaties wouldn't consider anything less than a fairly big boat for.

I don't recommend it but you can get some horrid little ebay special for a few hundred and drift around the moorings or whatever without needing to buy a boat. Like, it's super unsafe in those little cheap yaks but if cost effectiveness is your focus rather than safety then you can't go wrong.

What's the consensus on best kayaks these days? Hobies?

[Sebb]

What's the consensus on best kayaks these days? Hobies?

Hard to say as kayak in general.
Nowadays there's diff types of kayaks, each for diff use and condition.
Hobbie seems to be popular in Vic if not Aus.

[DougieK]

Actually on the subject of cost effectiveness, kayaks should probably get a mention.

For $3k you can get something that'll take you places you wouldn't go in a tinny and catch big fish if you're good enough (I'm not). My yak cost $2.4k and I've hooked a couple of barrels from it (there's a report somewhere of how that turned out lol), plus kings.

For $6k you can get something like an AI and guys with those are doing the sort of trips most boaties wouldn't consider anything less than a fairly big boat for.

I don't recommend it but you can get some horrid little ebay special for a few hundred and drift around the moorings or whatever without needing to buy a boat. Like, it's super unsafe in those little cheap yaks but if cost effectiveness is your focus rather than safety then you can't go wrong.

What's the consensus on best kayaks these days? Hobies?

You should link that report again just for anyone who happens to have missed it.

[4liters]

What's the consensus on best kayaks these days? Hobies?

There's a lot of Hobies out there so if by consensus you mean the ability to drown out any discussion about the best kayak then Hobies are Number 1.

Personally I don't like the feel of the mirage drive and wouldn't swap my Slayer for a Hobie if you paid me to.

[hanboy]

Yeah I only run 30lb braid on my 14' LB rods for that reason. Theoretically I could safely run 5kg of drag with that line but even that is impossible to manage with a long rod.

Line volume and the ability to wear the fish down is more important I think in that situation.

I tied some pulleys up and strung my line through them, managed to apply 10.5kg of drag on the saltist with one of my lethals.

These reels talking about 30kg of drag are 'sometimes' accurate, but realistically you're never going to use more than 15, even in the most extreme conditions. 15kg on a 9 foot rod, with a grip 2 feet up it, is (15 x 4.5) 72.5kg of pressure on the arm holding the rod. I don't know too many people doing single arm seated rows that heavy, and certainly not at any kind of rep range. Also my maths is bad and probably wrong.

The max drag pressure quoted on the reel specs are usually measured at empty spool conditions, and as the less line you have on a reel the higher drag pressure gets due to less line being pulled off on a full spool rotation, should be accurate (i hope), but exponentially less when you have a full spool of line on.

Having said that you again are right, nobody could physically fish “full drag” conditions as stated on the box. Makes me laugh when people post reports saying they had a fully locked drag so they were fishing 20 plus kgs of drag for days on end on a trip.

[ducky]

There was a couple of years where I was float tubing for 50+ cm bass at a location 10 mins from home thats now a bloody housing estate. Was an old quarry that had filled with water. Chasing bass above fully grown/drowned pine trees. After getting dusted a few times I ended up fishing 25lb leaders and a scaled 3.5kg of drag. Was bloody hectic to hook one up. And they still pulled drag. Awesome stuff.