Hook, Line & Sinker

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BOAT

It doesn’t get much better than shackling a new boat to your D-MAX. Fisher king Andrew Hart wets his vessel.

Words: Andrew Hart

It’s the best line in Jaws. Having just laid eyes on Spielberg’s 25-foot great white for the first time, an awestruck Roy Scheider staggers backwards into the wheelhouse of Quint’s fishing vessel and tells the captain: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

The film’s representation of killer sharks might have been unrealistic, but it got one thing right: there’s just something compelling about bigger boats.

Not only has Hook, Line and Sinker been driving Isuzus for over a decade, the show has partnered with Bar Crusher for the same time—and we’ve pretty much had every boat they make. These Aussie-built boats come in several sizes and models, and all offer the same characteristics and features that put them among the best trailer boats on the market.

This time around we decided to go big! In fact, the biggest in the range: a 780 Hard Top with all the features and even a flushing toilet in the bow! This is a serious offshore fishing boat, but also a great family cruiser. Offshore fishing is exactly what I have planned for her this summer in the waters off eastern Tasmania.

Before getting the boat back to my home state, however, it behoved us not only to christen it, but film a bunch of episodes of the show using it. The only problem: we collected the big girl in July from the factory on the outskirts of Melbourne. Heading to Tasmania to do the honours in the depths of winter held little appeal, so we hitched up the mighty red D-MAX and headed north: destination, well, anywhere a bit warmer.

Rumours soon landed of yellowfin tuna happening off the coast of Batemans Bay in southern NSW. I liked that forecast and the BOM agreed—and the great thing about having a trailer boat is that you can literally take it to where the fish are.

On the road the 780HT is a big haul. The boat weighs around three tonnes— easy meat for the D-MAX—but because it’s so large there’s also a lot of windage. The D-MAX’s power, plus features such as Trailer Sway Control, meant each kilometre felt supremely solid and safe. Head down, we arrived at Batemans Bay in the early evening.

Next morning, we met Gavin McCallum from McCallum’s Sports and headed to sea.

This Bar Crusher has all the good stuff: twin Yamaha F150 four-strokes complete with very smart fly-by-wire digital steering and joystick control. It has a top speed of over 40 knots (75 km/h), but it’s more than just fast. At lower speeds, the torque from its twin engines means it planes, soothing us through the rough stuff no problem at all.

The plan to find the yellowfin was to head wide of the continental shelf and watch for birds and splashes. We also used sea surface temperature charts to try and find what’s called a temperature break. Eventually, after a morning of seeing nothing, we came across a large school of leaping yellowfin tuna. And they were big fish!

We zoomed over and Gav cast a large lure called a stick bait right into the area where the tuna had been jumping. After a couple of winds on the reel a huge yellowfin ate the lure right near the boat.

It was the start of some of the most insane surface fishing I’ve had the pleasure to experience.

Gav’s 60kg yellowfin was the very first fish to come over the side of the new Bar Crusher. Half an hour later it was my turn to hook up, and after a long and painful fight I too had landed a big tuna.

It was the best way possible to christen the Bar Crusher and should make for a very memorable episode of Hook, Line and Sinker

One thing’s for certain: we sure weren’t in need of a bigger boat!

The new season of Hook, Line and Sinker airs this summer on 7mate or can be streamed on the 7plus app. Make sure you tune in to check out all the fun we had getting to know the 780 Hard Top.