shark bay in april

hey fellas

goin up to shark bay in april with the rents and were staying at a rental home in denham for 2 weeks (anyone else goin up this time?)

keen to get into some BIG mackies, which is probably gonna mean taking the boat (preferred than off rocks) to steep point. (are sails common at the point or are they hard to entice? it'd be a good exp to get one)

trouble is weve got a trailcraft freestyle 485 with a 120 litre tank and a merc 75hp 2 stroke with an ss prop (if that makes a difference) which dad reckons will do 1 litre per km and its a 100km round trip (not including trolling). wanted to know if we'd make it there and back with some trolling in between (will use livies if we have to)

has anyone had any experience with that are up there as i have a lot more to ask (eg do you go close to the cliffs or is it too dangerous/busy with rock fisherman?)

if this is too far are there any spots in denham or mia (we will def be going there on the bad days) that are better or just as good as the point

p.s. ive chucked in some pics to make it worth the read, from 09

also i hope i havent missed anything as this is the second time ive wrote this as it didnt post before!

pps or is it pss? met up with a guy named JOHN 2 years ago (about april) and keen to see him again as he said he was an annual up there! anyone know john?

thanks rob

 

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scottnofish's picture

Posts: 1621

Date Joined: 28/08/07

pushing it with 120l

Fri, 2011-01-07 05:43

to go to steep point , its 55 ks from denham and takes about 1 1/2 hours if its flat can take 4 hours if windy , only really trolled the west side of DHI for makies and most of them came from about 15 ks up the west side ,

if your planning that trip i would double the amount of fuel your taking just in case, its not the sort of place you want to run out of juice

spanishmackeral's picture

Posts: 940

Date Joined: 05/01/11

yeh thats what ive been

Fri, 2011-01-07 10:51

yeh thats what ive been thinking, would it be very exy to put another tank in or replace the original one?

Posts: 26

Date Joined: 17/07/09

weight and balance

Fri, 2011-01-07 15:27

 Weight and balance are the worry if you put in a larger tank then you are stuck with it where it is while you can shift the rest of the weight in the boat around you are talking about doubling up the load in one spot. With extra portable tanks you can move then around take them out when not needed and work out the best balance weight ratio before hand be very careful of over loading which then changes the handling characteristics of the boat. With the extra tanks to start with you can play around a bit with it on some test runs work it out and then if you want the larger tank go for it then. Been to Shark Bay a couple of times and had the issue's on one trip when the weather turned very nasty on us, we had one of those rides where you pray that you were somewhere else, surfing down waves burying the nose into the waves in front, all born from being overloaded and in the wrong place at the wrong time.

spanishmackeral's picture

Posts: 940

Date Joined: 05/01/11

thanks for that may try some

Fri, 2011-01-07 15:43

thanks for that may try some porta tanks or just troll just off denham, (anyone tried this). we will most likely spend most of our time in mia. and olny get out of denham on the good days and stay home when its really rough.

Faulkner Family's picture

Posts: 18035

Date Joined: 11/03/08

 i have heard of mackies

Sat, 2011-01-08 17:01

 i have heard of mackies being taken from the entrance . i certainly wouldnt be going out to steep with only 120ltrs of fuel. i have done a trip out from there that was 1 hour one way then the return was nearly 4. gets real bad real quick and extra time on the water means lots more fuel used. if you have to , carry jerry cans so you can place them around the boat and i would suggest carrying 5 full ones. better to have too much fuel than not enough

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