How To Buy The Right Boat

Guy has a question after last week’s report:

Good question! Going to explain the planning behind the boat we bought for Cooktown – which is delivering fantastic results:

So this time last year I got together with three mates at a restaurant. All of us have owned, or currently own, a fishing boat. But we weren’t getting the adventure we enjoyed thirty years ago. Scott – a natural leader – wanted to make the magic happen again:

His first question – ‘If you could fish for anything, WHAT fish would you go after?’ That was an easy one all four of us agreed on – Giant Trevally.

Question number two – ‘WHERE is the best place to fish for them?’ The answer was North Queensland. In the old days we used to tow or freight my boat to Cairns. Here’s the old girl being delivered to NQX at Newcastle. From there it would be forked onto a truck load of steel sheets and taken to their yard in South Cairns

Load up with five guys, and head north for a week

So we knew WHAT and WHERE. Next was, HOW. Meaning, what kind of boat do we buy to match the fish and our area of operations. We settled on the following check list:

Aluminium, not fibreglass – because we often dragged it up on the beach when camping overnight on islands

Deep V and flared bow – because of the relentless south easterly chop in FNQ

New trailer and new outboard if possible – because we’d be operating in remote areas

Bow casting area

Scotty found the boat – a 7 metre custom plate alloy in survey used by a pro fisherman at Forster

But there was one last issue to consider – maybe the most important of them all. WHEN

For those who don’t know, the Queensland tropics have strong trade winds through autumn, winter, and spring – just when us southerners want to head north. Check the weather history for Cooktown above

January to March average wind speed: 12 km/hour
April to October average wind speed: 17.2 km/hour

That’s why we’re only fishing through summer. And it’s working for us:

Maybe it might work for you too? WHAT – WHERE – HOW – WHEN Could be for trout, marlin, bass, barramundi, whatever. But it all starts with the fish. Just an idea and thanks for reading
Andrew Hestelow

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