I haven’t been fishing in years, probably close to 8 years. I lost interest about 2 years after my friends considered me cursed and stopped inviting me fishing. I am not a superstitious person by any means but after fishing both on and offshore for a period of 3 years without catching any keepers I lost interest and was happy to see my friends go fishing without me.
I got invited to go deep sea fishing a couple of weeks ago by a few friends. 3 days on a boat 100km offshore sounded like a great time to start my fishing career again. I paid my $900 to the charter operator and then realised the next morning I didn’t have any fishing tackle – I had given all my fishing gear to my friends a long time ago so I didn’t have anything. I had to buy a rod and reel and to be honest I was a little bummed about spending a heap of money on gear that I might only use once.
I was told that a TLD25 or similar would be acceptable for our trip since 3 of my mates have used them on this charter before and love them. I started looking for my new deep sea combo by checking out BCF (bcf.com.au) and immediately regretting paying the $900 without thinking. I was looking down the barrel of a $700 spend to get a setup similar to my mates.
- TLD25 – $215
- 25kg rod – $299
- 600yrds of 50lb braid – $67.19 x 2 Total $648.38
I was not going to pay this much but there is always the fallback – second hand. Ebay and Gumtree were my next point of call but there were not many blue water options available that were both second hand and in my area.
I texted a mate who wasn’t going on the trip but was close to having an addiction to fishing. In hindsight I should have contacted him first because all he texted back was dinga.com.au, options Penn 40LD or Tyrnos 30. I went to dinga.com.au expecting to see the same high prices but I was wrong.
I could get:
The Penn 40LD with 25KG rod, 300yd of Rovex 30lb braid and 500yd of Shimano Power Pro 50lb braid $208.30 The Shimano Tyrnos 30 with 25Kg rod and 500yd or Shimano Power Pro 50lb braid $309.00 Both prices included delivery to my door in 5-7 business days if I signed up for an account.
I chose the Penn only because the Tyrnos is 1KG and the Penn 40LD is only 600 grams. There was also the $100 saving. I figured if I got hooked on fishing again, the prices were so good at dinga.com.au that I would just buy a second setup.
Usually when things are cheap on the net, the service isn’t that good. I don’t mind most of the time but I didn’t have the luxury of time. It was Monday and I was leaving on the boat on Thursday morning. I called Dinga and told them my predicament and the guys at Dinga helped me out by getting my order ready within 2 hours so TNT overnight could pick it up. At 9am on Tuesday I had the combo in my hands, spooling it up with my Power Pro braid. 24 hours between order and delivery, great service all round.
A big thanks goes out to the guys and girls at TNT for getting my combo to me safe, sound and quickly.
SIDE NOTE: I am not in any way associated with dinga.com.au or TNT.
Happy fishing.