North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

Great report. A few stats like fuel used would be interesting.

Great story dannett and some amazing fishing as well by the sound of it, good pics.

Pity about missing the tide but I bet u found a few spots to try next time.

Yeah that trip back to buff ck from Gunn point can be sloppy sometimes

Well done mate.

Great read and great adventure!

Cheers guys.

shamozzle wrote:What a trip and what a write up! Is the botel just a run off thing or is there year round?

The Botel is there each year for the run off until April. Give Luke a call, 0411 013 101 I think they have a few vacancies. Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Barra-Botel-1906238512848406/

mickkk wrote:Great looking trip. Love the adventure of driving around.
How much fuel did you take? And what size is your boat?

I have 110 liters under the floor and I took 13 jerry cans for about 260 liter total. I have a 5.2m plate boat with a 100hp.

nomad wrote:good read. im always suss about overloading my boat because it can get very nasty if you find yourself floating in the water.
How much fuel did you use please
Can you make prior arrangements for botel to have fuel?

By far that's the heaviest I have loaded the boat and I think that was pushing the limit. I think your right and I would not go that heavy again.
I plotted a course of about 135km from Buff creek and burned about 70 liters getting there which was bang on my estimate. In planning I estimated I would need about 105 liters the first day, 65 liters each day and 80 liters to get home. That would allow me enough fuel to do basically what I set out in the write up each day. In doing so I rounded up all the travel distances for each leg of each day and added a few hours of trolling time to each day and then rounded up to the nearest 5 for good measure.
My plan was keep four jerry cans to add to whatever was left in the tank for the return run. I ended up with 2½ cans left over and the tank probably has about 40 liters in it still. So probably burned about 280 liters in total.
It would be worth checking with Luke if you can make prior arrangements, I know that they do regular supply runs so it might be an option.

ozdodge wrote:That's epic mate, well done!
Sounds like a good spread of action across the trip,
Thanks for posting

Ozdodge it was and we managed to find regular action at most places.

jeffish wrote:Outstanding report and trip mate , Very well planned and just tooooo much fun as a reward .
Great stuff , bet your planning the next trip already

I checked the weather three times a day for about 2 weeks leading into this trip. I rewired the bilge, installed a second auto bilge and replaced the second battery. Found the earth wire from the outboard had some corrosion and chopped all that out too. The planning of distances and fuel was a big one and in the end I thought it was too lean and re-addressed it. I booked in with the Buff creek compound early too. I also put two tie down point in the floor of the boat for all the jerry cans so they didn't move around. There was heaps of planning on this one.
I have been thinking about going to Hotham for a while and I reckon I might have to plan a couple of days there now for when the rain settles.

jersy wrote:great report mate. Sounds like a bl..dy ripper trip

One of the best i have had.

Marro wrote:Great report. A few stats like fuel used would be interesting.

Hi Marro, posted up a few numbers in the previous reply. In my boat I get about 2.3 km/l at about 5000 rpm so I worked on 2 km/l to be sure. For the early morning run I kept the revs down to 4500 rpm. Then once the weight was off I kept the revs to 4800 rpm.

Agent86 wrote:Great story dannett and some amazing fishing as well by the sound of it, good pics.
Pity about missing the tide but I bet u found a few spots to try next time.
Yeah that trip back to buff ck from Gunn point can be sloppy sometimes

Yeah I do, Hotham is definitely on the cards now as the logistics are figured out. And I did find an interesting looking one.
I have been in the chop and slop from Gunn Point before but that was the biggest one I have had out there by a mile. Charles point has given me a couple of big serves too which gave me the confidence to just plow into it. Glad I opted not to go through the inner hole as I thought the waves could be really smashing over the reef at the other side.

Yea that's a great run around from Buff, good work and cheers for the write up mate.

Wow. Totally sick adventure. Thanks for sharing.

Good on you Dan, what a ripper report!

Great write up and info. Cheers!

Excelent report and top advice with the 2nd auto bilge not a good spot for a swim out there.

dannett wrote:

mickkk wrote:Great looking trip. Love the adventure of driving around.
How much fuel did you take? And what size is your boat?

I have 110 liters under the floor and I took 13 jerry cans for about 260 liter total.

Mickkk meant to say 260l extra fuel, all up I took about 370l in total.

goldfish wrote:Excelent report and top advice with the 2nd auto bilge not a good spot for a swim out there.

It came on from the trip from March and I suspect it did on the way back from Gunn Point as I had water around my ankles a few times. That was part of the reason for adding it. The other was leaving the boat in the water at night. I figured if it rained the auto-bilge would come on. It still pays to get up and check on the boat but it is a help.
Dan

great report mate, Im heading to Shady for 3 days myself next week and this has just got me pumped!

dannett wrote:

dannett wrote:

mickkk wrote:Great looking trip. Love the adventure of driving around.
How much fuel did you take? And what size is your boat?

I have 110 liters under the floor and I took 13 jerry cans for about 260 liter total.

Mickkk meant to say 260l extra fuel, all up I took about 370l in total.

Wow, good to see ya boat could take that much weight.
Next question, did you find most weight at the back, mid of front of the boat?
I know that it would be some what spread through out the boat, just trying to work out where you loaded the heaviest items of the boat.
I would love to do these type of long trips, with a goal of doing a few weeks up around the vertical water falls, in the Kimberley.
So far my longest trip is a few days at the top of the tiwis (where I didn't take enough fuel)