Simon, Nathan, Travis,
Sorry for the late reply guys,
I have had computer trouble. Our rough costs are about $2250 per day per boat (bloody diesel at $1.90/l). We would supply food, ice, bait(not poppers!), soft drinks, linen..etc. Crew is skipper and deckie, I might try and come as Deckie so you can show me how its done. Bring your fishing gear and beer. They are 11m Voyager powercats travelling at 16-18knts. Accom is set up more for family bareboating, so we have 4 doubles basically, but there's plenty of room for a few swags. If you are bringing your own boats we could look after 8 guests per boat ok. It gets pretty crowded fishing more than 6. But we could do a combo of some in tinnies and some from the boat (or all from tinnies). We only have a small tender with a 4hp motor. I have been towed backwards in this by a small trout!, so won't bring it. There's a guy on the Coast with a Haines 680 in survey that we will be doing some work with, so that could be another option if necessary. I think he's about $800 per day and would fish 4 OK.
The boats are brand new and have plenty of water, refrig, etc and could easily carry spare fuel for the tinnies.Theres plenty of photos of the boats on the Keppelbayescapes website.
We are still weather dependent, unlike the Nomad guys, we would probably pull the pin at over 15knts. My suggestion would be to target the best weather of the Year, which I reckon is early/mid September. We already have 2 trips booked in for late August and early Sept,up to Island Head and Townsend Island, though neither are GT popping freaks (except me).
The Singapore exercise normally starts late October so mid-late Sept is OK. Fishing is normally a bit slower this time of Year, but slow in Shoalwater Bay is still basically red hot anywhere else.
What we have been doing successfully is collecting likley starters for trips and then picking the perfecr weather 2 or 3 days prior and doing a ring around to see if we can get staters. Works OK if you're locals.
Hope this helps,
cheers,
graham
