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Corner Shotting

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 7:40 am
by deepblack
Hi All,
I’m going to try and describe something I discovered recently that has helped me enormously in shallow water especially when getting off the flats in a hurry is high on the agenda. Bear with me on this….

So…. If you fish shallow flats like I do you invariably at one time or another find yourself in the situation that you have enough water for the leg to sit in and idle along but every time you go to get up on the plane the motor bogs in to the bottom. Worse still, you have about 500m metres of flats to traverse and the tide is running out and you just know you will probably have to get out and push or worse. :banghead: If only there was some way to get up on the plane and get the hell out of Dodge!

A few months back my mate Loch and I were shooting the poop about flats fishing and skinny water boats when he made mention of something he had seen where by hard cornering during the holeshot it was possible to get on the plane in water shallower than otherwise possible. We kept talking and I promptly forgot about the conversation.

Fast forward to last week and my rediscovered passion for Flathead in ultra-skinny water. Sure enough, after screaming in on the plane to fish a couple of shallow gutters and nailing a couple of fish I went to leave and discovered I couldn’t get up on the plane and would have to traverse a couple of hundred metres of flats too shallow to use the motor at idle speeds.
At this point the light bulb went on :idea: and I remembered the previous conversation and first go I got up on the plane and out of there! 8)

There are a few key points to this technique which for lack of a better term I will call “Corner shotting”
• If carrying passengers make sure the boat is either balanced or leaning to the port side.
• Make sure you have enough room to perform the manoeuvre
• The manoeuvre will take approximately ¾ to 1 complete turn, so plan your starting point and orientation accordingly.
• The manoeuvre is much more efficient when performed on a left hand turn. I’m assuming this has something to do with prop rotation.

The Corner Shot works by doing three things that I can see:
• Changing the planing surface of the hull to a flat bottom thus increasing lift.
• Changing the angle of the outboard to get cleaner water.
• Providing temporary depth and lift for a short period of time when the wake is crossed over.

Anyway, hope this helps someone out there. It’s been a very useful tool for me in the short time I have used it.
Cheers, :cheers:
John.

Re: Corner Shotting

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 10:17 am
by nomad
Sounds good.
How about a vid? :D

Re: Corner Shotting

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 11:05 am
by fishfanatic
Isn't that what your mate was trying to show you when he ejected you out of the boat?? :lol: :lol: :lol:
nomad wrote:Sounds good.
How about a vid? :D

Re: Corner Shotting

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 11:23 am
by deepblack
nomad wrote:Sounds good.
How about a vid? :D
Planning on it next time I'm out.

Re: Corner Shotting

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 2:04 pm
by nomad
fishfanatic wrote:Isn't that what your mate was trying to show you when he ejected you out of the boat?? :lol: :lol: :lol:
nomad wrote:Sounds good.
How about a vid? :D
:moon:

Re: Corner Shotting

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 2:25 pm
by Dick
Works as well for getting an overloaded boat up on the plane, least it does with my dinghy.

Re: Corner Shotting

Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 9:25 am
by Matt Flynn
Great advice, might help the hungover Shoal Bay crews who get out of bed an hour too late :lol:

Re: Corner Shotting

Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 12:39 pm
by cuddlescooper
Dick wrote:Works as well for getting an overloaded boat up on the plane, least it does with my dinghy.
just be careful not to overload to much and swamp the stern quarter during the turn.l

Re: Corner Shotting

Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 7:05 pm
by DOUG
Yeah only works if you have enough power to launch the boat I have found!! A under powered boat will still bury the Skeg!! Another thing to do is make a few big wake waves behind your boat buy planting the throttle till it hits mud back off and then let te wave lift the arse of the boat and gun it again not ally works first or second wave !

Re: Corner Shotting

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 3:56 pm
by MOUSE
def giving this a go next time i'm in my usual place, stuck on the Hinchy mud flats :rofl: :drinking8:

Re: Corner Shotting

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 6:09 pm
by jeffish
good move,,mate showed it to me last year after I called hm a dumb arse for getting us stuck,,,just pulled my cap down and shut up,while he yells at my who,s a dumb arse. :bow:

Re: Corner Shotting

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 10:22 pm
by deepblack
MOUSE wrote:def giving this a go next time i'm in my usual place, stuck on the Hinchy mud flats :rofl: :drinking8:
Thats exactly where I was when I first tried it Mouse. On the flats west of Dungeness Ramp.

Re: Corner Shotting

Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 7:24 am
by UncleD
Getting weight slightly forward while turning will also help flatten out the planing profile and lift the skew clear of the mud (that is, diagonally opposite the stern corner you are trying to lift).

Really need to have everything just right for it to work on a 5.5m Trailcraft with a 90h.p.

Re: Corner Shotting

Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2016 9:30 pm
by goldfish
Top tip will give it a go

Re: Corner Shotting

Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2016 9:31 pm
by goldfish
Top tip will give it a go