Mercury Verados pass the Exmouth test

Passionate anglers go where the fish are. For most that means moving the boat – for Josh Bruynzeel it meant moving his life.

"While I’ve fished since I was five I used to live down south in Mandurah (WA), but six years ago I moved up here to Exmouth because these waters have the best fishing that I know of," Josh said.

That’s quite a statement seeing Josh has travelled across the globe chasing his dream fish, casting a line in places including Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba, Hawaii, Chile, Malaysia, Thailand, Mexico, the U.S., and the San Juan Islands.

"It’s the diversity here that’s unbeatable," Josh said, talking the huge range of game and sports fish which cruise the coast including marlin, sailfish and tuna.

Josh and his wife Jae own and operate On Strike Charters, a business which has them on the water about 300 days a year.

"Business is good - too good actually," Josh smiled. "A few days off this month would be nice."

A lot of work time is spent aboard the On Strike, a custom built Fury 282CC with the latest in fish-finding and navigation equipment. At 8.58 metres long and 2.7 metre wide, she’s apparently the biggest sportfishing boat on the Exmouth coast.

Described by Josh as "30 foot of fishing weaponry," On Strike is powered by a pair of Mercury 200hp Verados which deliver a top speed of 45 knots (83 km/h).

"They are good, strong motors. Fully-loaded the boat weighs five-and-a-half tonnes and I’m getting good mileage," Josh, a Mercury ambassador, said.

"Whether we’re game fishing or sportsfishing, there’s a lot of high speed work and the Verados have great acceleration," he adds.

"This is actually my second set. The new engines have only done about 200 hours, but my previous Verados [he says the first set were purchased without subsidy from Mercury] ran up 7500 hours over three and a half year and performed really well all that time. They’re reliable, quiet, smooth and they’ve never not started.

"These new ones are going really well too but I think they can go even better. I’ve been looking at changing the prop to a 17 pitch, three-blade Mercury Inertia to get the engines revving a bit higher."

On Strike’s Verados have been fitted with Mercury’s DTS (Digital Throttle and Shift) technology, which suits Josh down to the ground or actually 'up in the air'.

"We often go upstairs and drive the boat from the roof top tuna tower so we’ve got two sets of throttles and the digital system gives us very smooth control."

However, running a successful business hasn’t blunted Josh’s love of chasing the big fish.

In April next year, he and four teammates are off to compete in the Offshore Fishing World Championship in Costa Rica.

"We’ve been so busy here that I haven’t done any travelling for a few years so I’m really looking forward to going to Costa Rica as one of two Australian teams," he said. More at http://www.onstrike.com.au.