My name’s Brett, or Bretto to my mates, and Coastal Chaos to anyone who follows our adventures online. I grew up in Hervey Bay on the Fraser Coast and travelled around Queensland for work but eventually found my way back here and set up a home base with my family. Fishing-wise, you’ll often find me researching and trying anything and everything new. I’ve always had the drive to catch the biggest fish, no matter the species, and as the sport evolves, I find myself trying all types of fishing methods for as many species as I can get a bait or lure in front of.

The attraction to the deep-water fishery is the unknown. You can never be certain about what you’ll catch or its size! There are some super cool and extremely large critters down there. Much remains to be discovered about the fishery, and this uncertainty motivates me to expand my understanding of various species and techniques.

The Fathom Electric has been a real game changer when it comes to the ability to use an electric reel for multiple purposes. I’ve used it for everything from deep dropping to surface teasers while game fishing, and even dredges. The ability to have a versatile setup that you can stow out of the way without unplugging anything or modifying your boat to suit a battery and connection is perfect, especially for smaller vessels like mine. It also gives me the ability to throw the setup in any boat I may go out on, regardless of whether they are set up to accommodate electric reels or not. The Hooker motor system attached to this reel proves to be a strong and capable unit that ensures you have the power to pull up those beasts from the deep without any stress. The size and capability of the battery are surprising given its size. You can enjoy hours of deep dropping and even days of using it as a teaser reel while trolling before a swap out is needed.

The oversize line guide is a great addition to the reel. Regardless of the reel size it has the capability for you to run heavy mono for teaser setups and not have to risk any damage to the line feeding system should your connection be too large or cumbersome for the transition to the reel. The ability to change the screen contrasting colour arrangement is also really good as you can run a dark background in the full sun of the day to easily read the screen or alternatively a light background in low light.

Being that I love to target the biggest fish, I personally chose the 80 size to ensure I had the capacity and pulling power to tangle with these deep-water critters, as well as to run this unit as a teaser setup for our summertime pelagic season. I have a bit of a reputation for pushing gear to the limit and, often, finding its breaking point. However, I can say this reel has not even looked like packing it in on any of our missions! It has done it all, from dropping in more than 350 meters of water to dragging in heavy tackle dredges with a 400 lb mono top shot spooled on. All this while enduring the salty spray from a big day out on the water in a small open boat. The deep dropping capability allows you to explore depths of up to 400 meters with a spool of 80 lb braid, and to date, we have been averaging 3-4 hours of battery life in these depths. As for running this setup as a teaser reel, I have currently completed two back-to-back full-day trips and have yet to charge the battery! The built-in option to put the reel into hibernate mode ensures you’re not draining the battery when the reel’s not in use, allowing you to run this reel for days on end as a teaser setup before you need a re-charge.

Prior to me getting an electric reel I always thought of it as kind of cheating in a way. Taking the sport out of fishing. But since I have crossed over to this style of reel, I have found they are very useful for more than one application! You can do the standard deep drop fishing but if you’re into your deep jigging, using the electric is a great way to do a test drop to see the species and if they are biting before to drop a massive jig all the way down to the depths only to find out they aren’t a desirable species or not feeding. Prospect your areas with the electric setup and then capitalize on your time and energy with your conventional fishing methods.

The teaser reel component is just a game changer especially to newcomers to the game fishing scene. Whether it’s light or heavy tackle, having the ability to turn a dial and have the spread clear itself give you more time to focus on what is going on among the chaos and excitement and avoid losing that fish of a lifetime!

The advantage over other setups being fully wireless and a sealed unit means you can throw this setup up out of the way or swap between boats, give it a wash when you get home and it’s ready for round 2!