Oztent Rv vs Blackwolf Turbo review revisited

Ok, so after spending a month last year in a Blackwolf Turbo tent whilst Arthur slept next door in an Oztent RV4 I had to say both tents were excellent, and I could not pick a winner.

After another year of usage, and with the brother in law picking up an Oztent RV5 I have to revisit this subject.

Both tents have fantastic durability. We had a lot of rain for 3 days in Arthur’s RV4. A few patches of heavy rain and some constant drizzle, not to mention crazy 30-40+ knot winds and the interior stayed dry! Not a drop, and not once did we feel the tent was even close to its limits in the wind. I set my Blackwolf turbo up in the rain, with the only water getting in thorough the sky vents which I had forgotten to close last time, my fault not the tents! So in terms of getting then job done, both tents are fantastic, with a slight edge to the Blackwolf, with the included fly covering the windows, you can even have the windows open in the rain if you so want!

I have to say though after now having camped with or in both for a few trips now, if I had my time again I would almost definitely purchase the Oztent for two main reasons. The awning is significantly better. It has more poles, and it has much more useable space as consequence and the big one is that it goes all the way to the floor, with skirts to stop anything getting in whereas the blackwolf awning has a good few inches gap between the floor and the start of the awning material. The 2^nd and perhaps the bigger reason is packing it away. Set up time for both, when throwing in all the bells and whistles is very very similar, but the Oztent goes away so much easier and faster. It is easy to get into the bag, and can be put away by a single person. I find the blackwolf on the other hand much harder to put away, and I definitely need help doing it. It might just be because I have the *plus* version, but it is just significantly harder to pack up and put into the bag.

My biggest concern when initially comparing last year was the space inside the tents, however Ashley’s RV5 is 20cm wider and 20cm longer than the RV4. It doesn’t sound like much but it seems like a huge difference once inside it and I think this is the model I would go for if I had the choice over again.

Again, I am not saying the Blackwolf is a bad tent, in fact it is an excellent tent. I would not criticise anyone for purchasing one. I just think the Oztent design is better in two aspects, the awning and ease of packing up. It is a close run race, but I think the Oztent just gets over the line for me personally.

Broken Ratchet (Fin Nor OFC 30H) and how to fix it

As keen readers may remember, whilst excitedly preparing to cast my sinker out under Richards’s watchful gaze I forgot to turn off the ratchet on my Fin Nor OFC30H… As you can imagine I had quite the “what the” reaction for the first second of the cast followed immediately by a sheepish look as I realised what I had done. If forgetting to turn off the ratchet on itself isn’t embarrassing enough I managed to pop out the clicker out of the retainer, resulting in no more ratchet!

Disaster, some might say! Devastation murmured by others. Possibly even “oh no that is going to cost me money to get fixed at the local tackle shop.” But never fear my fellow forgetful fisherman it really is a super easy fix as I will show you below. It shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes (from start to finish) and that is being generous.

Start by unscrewing the left side cover (the side that doesn’t have the handle and drag attached in case you don’t know which way you are looking at the reel). It should be 3 screws easily undone and then just pull the cover off. Set down the rest of the reel and now we just look at the cover. As you can see from my picture, the “spool click pawl” or shiny metal thing with an arrow on it has popped out of the “spool click spring” or circular brass looking thing. You should see the break in the spring where the clicker lives.

It really is as easy ensuring the spool click spring is firmly held in place by the screw at the base, moving the clicker back to roughly where it should be, and gently spreading the opening of the click spring whilst gently pressing down on the clicker until it pops back into place. Make sure the spool click spring is properly in place, test the ratchet a couple of times to ensure it is in the right place by clicking it on and off from the outside of the cover (the same as you would if you were turning the ratchet on and off when fishing) and Bob is your Uncle. It really is that easy!

So next time you get excited and forget to check whether the ratchet is off before casting, don’t despair, have a laugh with your friends, and then take 5 minutes (or less) to fix the problem.

GoPro Customer Service

Just wanted to let everyone know that after breaking the latch on my GoPro with a few days to go I emailed GoPro customer service. They were amazing! Really fast reply, super friendly, no arguments or blaming and within a few days I had my replacement latch. Top shelf stuff!

Day 10 and 11. Mad tailor fishing and 2wd on the way home!

We said farewell to Nick this morning, with the tides getting later it wasn’t quite as early as saying goodbye to Arthur but still Nick didn’t hang around for a fish. The tent was packed up quickly and then Nick was off on the journey home, I don’t think he was super disappointed as he was very excited to be able to give his 2month old car a big wash!

As our crew had diminished significantly we weren’t in any great big rush to get to the beach. We got down to the beach eager to attempt one last at getting another shark to the beach. Unfortunately as had been the case for most of the trip the weed was a massive problem. Anything even remotely resembling deeper water had a tonne of weed in it. We decided it wasn’t meant to be and busted out the tailor rods instead.

We didn’t have to travel far, in fact we only walked up the beach about 50m before bumping into an insane patch of tailor. They weren’t balled up but damn they were thick! No word of a lie we threw lures for 2 hours and no matter which lure I tried, I don’t think I missed a hit on any cast for the whole 2 hours before we called it a day. Throw the lure, count to 5 and most times we were on! It was amazing, exactly like the legendary tailor fishing sessions of the past. I tried a few different lures that I hadn’t gotten around to and they all had serious success. I’ll do an in depth review later but over the 2 hours I used a gillies pilchard, duel agadio, yo-zuri sashimi slider, busted fishing 80g in mackerel and a busted fishing 45g in chrome. ALL of them caught fish… every single cast! Honestly, I can’t tell you how much fun it was. And doing it to when there was no pressure to keep anything for bait or dinner, all catch and release, was so incredibly relaxing. For most of the trip the tailor were available, if a little difficult to catch in huge numbers so it looks like maybe they have finally showed up in plague proportions. Hopefully it stays that way! The beach also looks like the gutters might be breaking up a little which will only make it easier to find those big concentrated patches of fish.

We spent a chilled afternoon relaxing at Eli creek before beginning to pack for the trip home. We got up nice and early, knowing everything takes longer to pack when you have a toddler in tow. Sasha kept Nathan entertained for most of the morning whilst Ash and I did the bulk of the packing and without rushing anything we were on the road around 0930. The beach has deteriorated a considerably since we arrived and whilst it is still nice and wide, there are plenty of corrugations and drop offs so the going is a bit slower. We stopped at the Eurong bakery for breakfast and since it has bitumen I decided to pop the Nav into 2wd. Silly me forgot to take it out of 2wd and ran into a bit of trouble right at the bottom of hook point where it got a little soft. I had completely forgotten I was in 2wd and then suddenly was losing huge amounts of momentum and digging in down near the surf. I tried flicking it into 4wd hi as I was only doing about 30km/hr by that stage but it was too late and I had come to stand still. I jumped out and cleared the sand from around the tyres and then was easily able to drive out in 4wd once again. No harm came of it, but it was a rookie error and pretty embarrassing! Just a reminder that you always have to be paying attention to what you are doing on the beach or things can go wrong quickly!

Low tide was around 0830 and I think we rounded Hook point around 1130, with probably at least 30mins to another hour still before the tide really would have become a problem so if anyone is heading to Fraser soon, unless you are traveling right at high tide you shouldn’t have to take the inland track. Eli creek looked like it was starting to from a nice big drop off around the high tide marks so might not be passable at high tide, but when we left the island you could definitely pass it at half tide and anything lower.

As I get motivation and time over the next couple of weeks I’ll probably write up a few reviews on the gear we have been using as well as some of the lessons we have learned so until next time, tight lines and good luck!

 

Day 9, Tailor, tailor, tailor and weed. No sharks :(

With the tides getting later in the day there was no big rush to get out fishing this morning and we didn’t hit the beach until 9 or so. We found it tough going for the first few gutters until Ashley dropped his lure on a horse’s head and reeled that sucker in. We moved in on Ashley’s casting space when chaos broke out. A big black shadow moved into our gutter and it was on for young (Nick) and old (Ashley). We sight casted the school for a good 45mins, going 1 cast for 1 fish almost the whole time, it was awesome! You could see the school, cast behind them and count to 5 as you wound in; often not making it past 3! We had 3 way hook ups going on left right and centre and it wasn’t long until we had a good bit of bait for the afternoon. As we had been having a bit of trouble getting tailor in the afternoon around our hot sliding spot and it didn’t seem to matter that we had been using mostly dead baits so the call was made just to keep 10 deadies for the afternoon. The only annoying part was the school we had bumped into had a fair few undersized ones that we had to throw back, but still we had a feed for lunch, bait for the afternoon and we had a whole lot of fun.

It was getting close to lunch time so we decided to call it a morning and started heading up the beach only to see another dark shadow in the water and boys being boys we jumped out and had a few quick casts. We nailed some absolute stonkers, but didn’t need to keep them as we had enough for our needs and so we gave them away to a young family fishing next to us who didn’t seem to be having much luck. They went off the boil a bit and so we jumped back in the car, and headed back for fresh tailor for lunch.

We headed out again around 3pm for some intended sliding and shark fishing but the weed was just too thick. The line would be in the water for no more than 5 minutes, and it would be covered in weed which made it impossible to slide or hold the bottom. We moved around a tried a few different locations but the story was all the same, weed, weed and more weed. Very annoying. This year the weed has been terrible! Lots of it, and all over the place. Last year we only bumped into a couple of patches of weed on one or two days but this year it has been a constant annoyance!

Nick is home tomorrow and so it is up to Ash and I to have one last crack and getting a 2^nd and maybe a 3^rd shark onto the beach!

Day 8 Just a spot of sightseeing

So as promised we went to the lakes yesterday so I won’t bore everyone too much. Nick enjoyed the bumpy tracks, doing his best to get sideways whenever the soft sand would allow him. We visited Lake Mackenzie, Central station and Lake Wabby. I personally love the cool shade and perfectly crystal clear creek at Central Station and if it wasn’t so far from the fishing action I could happily camp there. The boys definitely agree with me and I think Nick was getting a bit of fishing withdrawal.

The action was all happening in the afternoon when the boys decided to give their cars a bit of a test. We took Ash to the water hole from the other day and he had a bit of a splash, and then we tried a bit of drop out climbing. Ash tried one nice steep drop a couple of times with no luck before giving up and allowing Nick in the D22 to show the expensive Ranger how it was done first time.

We tried a few more creek drop outs and Nick hit one when he was absolutely flying! It was funny as hell because nothing was broken and then we retired back to camp for an early one before a big day fishing this morning.

Day 7,Sliding on fire, losing fish and learning lessons

So we left off yesterday with the plan to have an afternoon fish and then a night fish and to see what happens. We found a little opening in the gutters just north of Dundaburra and since we hadn’t been seeing any openings we decided to throw our baits straight into the middle. WOW, what a spot! I had that fishy feeling again and after putting the baits out we barely had time to walk back to the car before the first rod went down. “Not long now” I said to young Nicholas and sure enough bang went a shark. The fight was on and it was taking reasonable drag. I won’t bore you with the details but we fought him for a while and then got rubbed off on the sandbank! That’s the biggest problem with these narrow, shallow gutters (well that and not having much help to find the fish)

This place was on fire as we had 3 dead baits and 1 live tailor all in the same spot, all with the same end result. This all took place within about an hour before we decided to hit the same spot at night, throwing slabs to see what happened. None of us have ever fished for Jew fish but we were willing to give it a go. As you may well have guessed we didn’t have too much luck. Arthur caught a little flathead but nothing bigger, that’s definitely the thing about fishing – you can know how to find one type of fish but that doesn’t mean you can find them all! Each species has its nuances and it takes a long time to learn them all!

We headed out the after a bit of a sleep-in only to find the conditions had taken a turn for the worse, bigger swell, wind, weed and lots of current. We gave it a crack for about 30mins for no luck and decided to head over to Waddy to try and get out of the wind and to show first timer Nick a bit more of the Island. We got over to waddy and whilst the swell was down a lot the wind was just as annoying and the weed was even worse. We gave it a good crack… for about 20mins before just relaxing on the beach. It just wasn’t worth it. We called it quits and headed back east, eager to give it one last crack for Arthur’s last day.

The tide wasn’t the best for getting tailor but we had two deadies to slide out, using a new technique just learnt from the South African boys, cutting off the fins and the tail to make the fish more aerodynamic and slide out much easier. Arthur had all but given up after a nice big birds nest but I knew our hot spot wasn’t going to let us down. Once again we didn’t have to wait long before getting our first strike. We weren’t too far from the rod and we are getting more used to it so we didn’t panic to start with and just casually made our way to start the fight. This thing wasn’t as big as some of the others but he still had some good weight to him, we tightened up the drag and Artie put some good pressure on him and it wasn’t too long before he was well under control. With a big rod on the beach and a nice bend to be seen we started to gather up a fairly big following.

We could see the shark coming in closer and we got ready to leader the grey suit. Fins in the water and hand on the leader devastation struck! We must have caught him on a bad angle and the leader busted off with the shark only metres away. If I had of had the gaff in my hand I would have given it a crack but unfortunately Nick was just too far away. We got a fantastic picture that really catches the emotional pain of again being so close and yet just missing out again.

Arthur was devastated, sure it was just not meant to be his trip but I knew our special spot had at least one more battle in it for Arthur to fight. I reset my line and threw out another sinker whilst Arthur prepared the last bait for the day. Feeling bad for him I volunteered to get the bait into the water, I got an absolutely cracking throw off, before getting absolutely smashed by a nice big wave. Totally worth it though as the bait was well on its way to the perfect spot. How do I know it was the perfect spot? Well I think the wait was no more than 10 minutes before something had a good go at the bait. The rod dipped for a good few seconds before coming back around. We knew what that meant so we tightened the gimbal belts, got out the cameras and got ready for battle stations.

Sure enough, after about a minute our old friend came back around for seconds and this time he really took off. This one as definitely bigger than the first. Probably not the biggest of the trip, but big enough to start seeing a bit of green line under the first 300m of yellow braid. Artie was struggling a bit with this one, not only had he just pulled a shark all the way to the shore but this one was giving him a bit more stick. It didn’t matter though, Artie loves his fishing and he’s a pretty fit young fellow and so he stuck it out, slowly gaining line until finally getting mono line back onto the reel, we knew he was getting pretty close to bringing him back over the sandbank and Nick designated spotter. We thought this one was a bit bigger and Nick soon confirmed our thoughts, estimating a big shadow coming through the shallow water at somewhere around the 2m mark. Everybody was getting pretty excited when that familiar thing happened, the line snapped and devastation sank in. This time it was the 40 pound mono that gave up. We think it must have rubbed a bit on the way out, and a bit on the way back in before finally deciding to pack it in under the strain.

Whilst we were pretty disappointed by the whole situation and Arthur was absolutely gutted we are at least learning. Next time we will put less pressure on the leader and take our time getting the Shark to shore. We think next time we get the shark under control, after putting some hard drag on him to tire it out we might back the drag off a little bit just to lessen the strain the line is under, the last thing I might do is go up from 40lb to 50lb mono. It seems at the moment the mono is doing the majority of the work for us, stretching with the shark’s power and rubbing on the sand banks so having just that little bit more abrasion resistance might do the trick. Arthur is heading home tomorrow and we are going to spend a day sightseeing around the southern lakes before getting back into the fishing on Monday hopefully!

Nicko’s Shark

We ran into Matt and Mark from the beach the other day and they gave us a couple of photos of Nick’s Shark

Day 6. 400m line taken in 1 go!

So with tears in Nick’s eyes we farewelled the South African crew just before 7am this morning. Then quick as a flash it was off to Indian head. We pulled up, set up the live bait pool and had 2 nice tailor in there pretty quickly. Things were business as usual when all of a sudden we saw tailor busting up all over the surface just to our right. We ran over, rods on the shoulder and threw our slugs straight into the mess. 3 lures, 3 fish and we were all hooked up at once! Good size too and we all of a sudden we had 5 livies in the pool. Nick stayed on the ball and picked up another couple of good sized tailor before we decided to call it quits and get stuck into the sliding. The fish may have also disappeared but hey, why let the truth ruin a good story.

We got the baits in the water pretty quickly and the brissie boys who landed the shark in front of the back packers turned up to help keep us company whilst we waited. It wasn’t quite as quick as yesterday but within about half an hour Artie got picked up, and the promptly cut off, mostly likely as the shark whipped his tail into the leader and rubbed it through. We were pretty devastated but also hopeful that my rod would go off pretty soon. Sure enough it wasn’t long and my rod had bent over double.

I turned on the video, picked up the rod and waited for the beast to stop taking line so I could get stuck into him. I waited and waited, turned up the drag and waited some more. More drag and more waiting and pretty soon I had 400 odd metres of line heading straight out to sea. More drag was applied but there wasn’t much stopping this powerful creature. Unfortunately the nature of fishing from the beach means that sometimes your line, especially when there is so much of it heading out to sea rubs on the sandbank and snaps. This was the case today but we were all still in awe of the power the creature had displayed. We couldn’t pull the drag out of the reel ourselves but the beast had taken 400m in no time at all! Would have been some awesome photos if we landed him but that is fishing!

We put out a couple of dead baits next and after a couple of hours further of no action we decided to call it quits. We pulled in Arthur’s line and then mine, only to find that something had had a go at my dead tailor. I don’t know how whatever it was missed the hooks as the half of the fish that was missing had a big hook through it! But nevertheless it was still a good morning.

The plan is to have a bit of an evening/night fish tonight after my Sister and Brother in law turn up with my nephew. He’s 1.5 and I think we have a budding fisherman on our hands as apparently he has been in the car all morning shouting “Camping, Shay, Big fish, Shay”

Stay tuned and keep your fingers crossed for good news next update!

Day 5, Just call me whatever is Spanish for Shay

Just a quick word of warning, there was plenty of action today so grab a good drink and settle in. If you only have a short time here is the TLDR version. Beautiful stunning, amazing day. Indian Head, three way Spanish hook up – Pete lost his. Late lunch up on Indian head, whales, turtles, rays, sharks, Spanish, GT’s and balled up tailor. Pretty good day right? And then two more sharks off the beach and backpackers galore!

We didn’t have much luck yesterday afternoon, we headed back to the same spot we landed the shark and threw hundreds of times for no tailor. It was devastating! No matter what we did, where we threw or what lures went out we just could not get a bite! We left on dusk, disappointed but still very happy with our first landed shark on Fraser Island.

A night spent chatting with the South African boys and we organised to meet up in the morning for their last day of fishing as they are leaving on Friday for the long journey back to Mackay. A nice relaxing morning but we were still up towards Indian head by around 8am for the last bit of the run in tide. After being promised big stonking tailor by Richard we were a little disappointed to run into a patch of small tailor. There were a few around but a lot were undersized. Luckily we still managed to get 3 legal tailor in the pool and the other boys managed somewhere in the vicinity of 10 livies. We spotted a few dark shadows in the water and with 7 rods in the water it was only a matter of time before something happened.

As usual something always happens when you are distracted and it was as I was getting a bottle of water for Kev. Walking up the beach all of a sudden there was shouting everywhere, I started racing towards the rod but luckily Richard was closer and managed to grab my rod one handed until I could get there. Straight away we could tell he wasn’t huge as whilst he was still pulling a bit of line, it wasn’t very fast and only a small amount at a time. It wasn’t long to one of the other boys saw a school of Spanish in the water and the excitement level increased significantly. The fight was going well and the fish was coming in nice and easily when all of a sudden Pete came flying past me at a great rate of knots as his rod also bent over on the double! Unfortunately for Pete his line was crossed with his nearest neighbour and the fight was over all too quickly. To say he was annoyed is probably an understatement!

Justin the pro gaff man was quickly into the water and it wasn’t long until we had a nice looking Spanish Mackerel on the beach. Smiles and high fives all around but we didn’t have long to bask in the glory as Richard’s rod was the next to bend over! 3 hits all in about 10mins and it was game on. Richard didn’t mess about and it was only a matter of a few short minutes before Justin had another nice Spanish gaffed and onto the beach. Richards going 1.46m and mine a tiddly 1.31m. Still everyone was pretty happy about the morning session… except for Pete!

By then it was 11 or so and things started to get pretty quiet, not that anyone was worried it was such a glorious day. Everyone was nice and relaxed and just living the dream. We gave it another couple of hours with not much happening and it was decided to call it a session. The South African boys headed back to Dundaburra to start packing up for the early morning today. We fulfilled our promise to Nick and took him back up to Indian head for a late afternoon lunch and tell you what it was amazing! We got up there and we could immediately see sharks, Spanish and GT’s balling up a big school of tailor around the rocks and busting through. It was amazing. Nick let us off the hook for not letting him take photos the other day and we just sat up the top for a good 2 hours in total awe.

Finally we had to make our way back south and get some ice for Cathedrals for Nick’s esky. It really is very convenient having the shop there and it means even if you forget something it isn’t a huge problem. On our way back we ran into a couple of boys we had seen a few times on the beach and they had a nice shark hooked up. They were using a short stroker and had swum the bait out because their inflatable boat had broken and they had no other choices! A good fight and it wasn’t too long before they had a nice bronzy on the beach. I think he was somewhere between 1.6 and 1.8m to the notch and was nice and fat. Conveniently 6 troopies full of backpackers turned up right near the end of the fight and all got in on the action. To say they were excited would be like saying Nick enjoys a nice quiet fish every now and then. It really doesn’t come close! Nick ever the good bro looking after the boys waited until we had a couple of good photos and then asked if any girls wanted to get into a photo. I think I counted 10 take him up on his offer.

After a few more minutes it was time to head back to camp, via the boys fishing with tailor heads right in front of Dundaburra. We arrived at the perfect time with Justin having just landed a nice small shark. A couple of photos later, a good release and it was time to settle down at camp for the day.

The plan was then made, in front of the boys leaving the next morning of course, to head back to Indian head early in the morning, see what is around and then maybe dangle some flesh baits to try for a Jew. Fingers crossed!