revs57
06-04-2008, 03:22 PM
I was privileged to be invited by and old friend to join their party for a trip to the Swains on the good ship Norval, owned and skippered by Scotty Wilson (and his bride Soozie) with his deckie Marty. With the weather being so crapola since before Christmas I was really ready for some serious fishing and as the date approached, regular visits to seabreeze confirmed we would have good weather – finally!!!
As it turned out, there had been a couple of blokes pull out at the last moment (boy, didn’t they miss out!) which meant my eldest, Luke, was able to come too so that was a real bonus.
So the crew for the trip - my old mon ami’s Chambo, Brad and Schultzy and Nick with his boy Joey, my young fella Luke and I.
As we pulled out of Gladstone harbour we were greeted with a small swell and gentle breeze. It looked like a great night for a 12 hr cruise @ 9knts. So after setting up our gear ready for an early drop in 70 mts we all hit the sack. The Capricorn channel can be a real nasty piece of work but that night it set about a gentle rock that lulled us all into slumber land.
We awoke to a lovely cooked breakfast that set the tone for the tucker for the rest of the week. Now Scotty may be butt ugly, but the boy can cook! So now with the interior satisfied, we hope the fish would be on the chew.
First drop and young Joey is into his first fish, lands his first ever legal red! Now that’s a pretty tall benchmark for the rest of us to follow. Luke nearly got his first legal Red landing a fish that was 1cm under – bummer- back she goes, and we’re off to a flyer. That first frenzied session saw a few more quality fish boated in no time then they shut down.
We moved on into 40 mts and out came the nuclear chicken – well, we slaughtered the rest, boating more fish with the chooks than the rest of the smellypoofterbaitfisho’s put together…and quality fish too, good trout, solid lipper even got the skipper in. Scotty had seen the SP’s before but never had anyone do any good. He couldn’t believe the success I was having (mind you I was pretty impressed too). I saw 6 packs of chooks disappear in no time – fortunately I had plenty, but decided to change colours and use the remaining baits in other colour packs that I had not finished. It didn’t seem to bother the fish at all with good specimines of lipper and trouties coming in off Chartreuse neon pepper, blue neon pepper and pearl white.
We ended up with more fish in one session than Brad had seen in a whole recent trip with more anglers out of another charter on a different boat operating from Gladstone.
By the end of play the 150 lt esky was brimming up nearly full.
What really impressed me was that every fish was brain spiked, bled out and slurried within moments of being caught. Watching Marty fillet those fish was like watching poetry in motion, 3 swipes of the blade, the fillet was off the fish, ribcage already boned out, in the bin for washing and packing. He’d obviously done it a couple of times before. I reckon he’d have had 6 fish done in the time it would take me to do one side with less wastage too! Beautiful to watch.
Again, this set the tone for the fishing throughout the week. We filled the box every day with excellent quality and good quantity of Coral Trout, Red Throat Emperor, Red Emperor, Spangled Emperor, Spanish, Gold Band Jobbies, Scarlets, Shark mackerel, rainbow runner and assorted Tuskies, hussar, a few trevs.
We fished the shallows from the Dory’s and this presented another challenge and introduced me to a whole new skill set to learn in fishing. Pulling tough Trouties and cranky lipper out of coral hidey-hole was an immense challenge and man didn’t we lose some gear in the pursuit of learning
Some highlights included:
• Joeys first fish and first fish for boat for the trip a legal Red.
• Nick caught some very nice Red emperor and trouties between bouts of motion sickness.
• Brad nailed his first legal Red, backed up with a second and caught some lovely Scarleys, Gold band Jobbies, trout and lipper.
• Schultzy nailed a 15.2kg Red and a couple of snodged trouties from the boat.
• Luke nailed his first Spanish 17.2kg – best fish for the trip and a stonker – the look on his face said it all! Proud – yew bet!!!
• Chambo and I had a brilliant day in the dory one morning, chambo boating trout after trout and me laughing so hard I couldn’t fish so just acted as deckie, dehooking fish, spiking, bleeding and so on – at one point he had a rod in each hand but he’ll have to tell that story – I’m roflmao just remembering the scene!!!! We found a patch of lipper in the shallows to around 3kg that I monstered with the new braid buster mounted with a torque300 – what a rush.
• Scotties cooking ☺
Some lessons.
• I’m very happy with my rod and reel selection. I took the Braid buster 15-24kg/penn 300 torque loaded with 24kg suffix matrix pro jig braid. This turned out to be an amazingly versatile outfit as I was able to troll with it, bottom bounce with it and use it in the shallows casting a 2ball and bait up to 40mts to structure. The braid gave little stretch and with the 6:1 retrieve and 15kg of drag, with the balls of the rod, when I got a strike it was only a matter of lifting the rod and one crank to get the fish 1.2 metres away from its crag before it knew it was hooked. I don’t remember losing a fish on that outfit – although I probably did.
• I took a new 760 penn slammer loaded with 24 kg sufix performance and mounted it on a 10-15kg fibre force – after monstering a couple of good trout, I was hit and bricked by a stonker in the one action, I tried to lift the fish out of the coral, it moved but then in the next run the rod went off like a 243 crack!!! I came home with just the butt
• Another very versatile outfit was a 9500 Rovex big boss loaded with 37kg Sufix Herculean jigging bbraid on a 6’6” big boss heavy jig stick. This worked exceptionally well from both the mother boat for bottom bouncing and from the dory and I remember thinking if anyone was looking for a price ranged outfit for their occasional foray. With a five year replacement warranty backing the product this would be an outfit very much worth considering.
• Luke was using an 850 Penn spinfisher loaded with 24kg sufix matrix pro jig braid. He found it very easy to use and versatile for use on the mother ship, with plastics, bottom bouncing and casting and floating baits from the dory.
• Hodgie loaned me a new SV30 Penn International 2 speed overhead loaded with 37kg suffix performance braid and topped with 80 mts of 100lb Sufix superior leader. We hooked a Halco Giant trembler bonito pattern to this outfit. The only Spanish mackerel for the trip were taken on this outfit although I did have a black magic feather skirt snipped
• I need to do some more thinking about an appropriate plastics outfit suitable to cast light jig heads with heavy leader to monster the thugs out of the bricks – maybe an s10 Egrell (if I can every afford it) matched to a 560 Penn slammer or something similar
• I took 3 packs of 6677d mustads and 3 packets of mustad big guns and used the lot! Mind you I was using a 2 gang hook rig most of the time except in the deeper stuff where I floated a pillie under a 10 ball on a gang of 3. I would probably take only 7766’s next time but maybe 8 packs of 25 in 8/0.
• I took with me 4x100mt spools of 40-60-80-100lb penn 10x leader. I used all the 60lb and all the 80lb, not a lot of the 40lb and none of the 100lb. I will probably take 2 spools of 60lb and 1 of 80lb next time.
Finally I want to give credit where it is due. Congratulations to Scotty and Soozie, you run a professional charter. Evertything was done to the highest level of professionalism and customer service. Scotty worked hard to keep us on fish all week, both Scotty and Marty were so generous with their knowledge – they both got alongside the least experienced of us to make sure we all were getting fish. Marty came out most days in the dory’s and helped us get a handle on it – thanks mate
There was nothing too hard for either guys, even after Luke barfed all over the skip on the way home, Scotty could still laugh over it!
Each of us came away with a full esky of quality fillet, very satisfied and looking forward to the next time we can join Scotty and Marty on the Norval.
By the way, did I mention the food was great?
I'm working on the photo's - we took so many but I'll put a few up just to whet ya appetite as soon as I work it out
Cheers
Rhys
As it turned out, there had been a couple of blokes pull out at the last moment (boy, didn’t they miss out!) which meant my eldest, Luke, was able to come too so that was a real bonus.
So the crew for the trip - my old mon ami’s Chambo, Brad and Schultzy and Nick with his boy Joey, my young fella Luke and I.
As we pulled out of Gladstone harbour we were greeted with a small swell and gentle breeze. It looked like a great night for a 12 hr cruise @ 9knts. So after setting up our gear ready for an early drop in 70 mts we all hit the sack. The Capricorn channel can be a real nasty piece of work but that night it set about a gentle rock that lulled us all into slumber land.
We awoke to a lovely cooked breakfast that set the tone for the tucker for the rest of the week. Now Scotty may be butt ugly, but the boy can cook! So now with the interior satisfied, we hope the fish would be on the chew.
First drop and young Joey is into his first fish, lands his first ever legal red! Now that’s a pretty tall benchmark for the rest of us to follow. Luke nearly got his first legal Red landing a fish that was 1cm under – bummer- back she goes, and we’re off to a flyer. That first frenzied session saw a few more quality fish boated in no time then they shut down.
We moved on into 40 mts and out came the nuclear chicken – well, we slaughtered the rest, boating more fish with the chooks than the rest of the smellypoofterbaitfisho’s put together…and quality fish too, good trout, solid lipper even got the skipper in. Scotty had seen the SP’s before but never had anyone do any good. He couldn’t believe the success I was having (mind you I was pretty impressed too). I saw 6 packs of chooks disappear in no time – fortunately I had plenty, but decided to change colours and use the remaining baits in other colour packs that I had not finished. It didn’t seem to bother the fish at all with good specimines of lipper and trouties coming in off Chartreuse neon pepper, blue neon pepper and pearl white.
We ended up with more fish in one session than Brad had seen in a whole recent trip with more anglers out of another charter on a different boat operating from Gladstone.
By the end of play the 150 lt esky was brimming up nearly full.
What really impressed me was that every fish was brain spiked, bled out and slurried within moments of being caught. Watching Marty fillet those fish was like watching poetry in motion, 3 swipes of the blade, the fillet was off the fish, ribcage already boned out, in the bin for washing and packing. He’d obviously done it a couple of times before. I reckon he’d have had 6 fish done in the time it would take me to do one side with less wastage too! Beautiful to watch.
Again, this set the tone for the fishing throughout the week. We filled the box every day with excellent quality and good quantity of Coral Trout, Red Throat Emperor, Red Emperor, Spangled Emperor, Spanish, Gold Band Jobbies, Scarlets, Shark mackerel, rainbow runner and assorted Tuskies, hussar, a few trevs.
We fished the shallows from the Dory’s and this presented another challenge and introduced me to a whole new skill set to learn in fishing. Pulling tough Trouties and cranky lipper out of coral hidey-hole was an immense challenge and man didn’t we lose some gear in the pursuit of learning
Some highlights included:
• Joeys first fish and first fish for boat for the trip a legal Red.
• Nick caught some very nice Red emperor and trouties between bouts of motion sickness.
• Brad nailed his first legal Red, backed up with a second and caught some lovely Scarleys, Gold band Jobbies, trout and lipper.
• Schultzy nailed a 15.2kg Red and a couple of snodged trouties from the boat.
• Luke nailed his first Spanish 17.2kg – best fish for the trip and a stonker – the look on his face said it all! Proud – yew bet!!!
• Chambo and I had a brilliant day in the dory one morning, chambo boating trout after trout and me laughing so hard I couldn’t fish so just acted as deckie, dehooking fish, spiking, bleeding and so on – at one point he had a rod in each hand but he’ll have to tell that story – I’m roflmao just remembering the scene!!!! We found a patch of lipper in the shallows to around 3kg that I monstered with the new braid buster mounted with a torque300 – what a rush.
• Scotties cooking ☺
Some lessons.
• I’m very happy with my rod and reel selection. I took the Braid buster 15-24kg/penn 300 torque loaded with 24kg suffix matrix pro jig braid. This turned out to be an amazingly versatile outfit as I was able to troll with it, bottom bounce with it and use it in the shallows casting a 2ball and bait up to 40mts to structure. The braid gave little stretch and with the 6:1 retrieve and 15kg of drag, with the balls of the rod, when I got a strike it was only a matter of lifting the rod and one crank to get the fish 1.2 metres away from its crag before it knew it was hooked. I don’t remember losing a fish on that outfit – although I probably did.
• I took a new 760 penn slammer loaded with 24 kg sufix performance and mounted it on a 10-15kg fibre force – after monstering a couple of good trout, I was hit and bricked by a stonker in the one action, I tried to lift the fish out of the coral, it moved but then in the next run the rod went off like a 243 crack!!! I came home with just the butt
• Another very versatile outfit was a 9500 Rovex big boss loaded with 37kg Sufix Herculean jigging bbraid on a 6’6” big boss heavy jig stick. This worked exceptionally well from both the mother boat for bottom bouncing and from the dory and I remember thinking if anyone was looking for a price ranged outfit for their occasional foray. With a five year replacement warranty backing the product this would be an outfit very much worth considering.
• Luke was using an 850 Penn spinfisher loaded with 24kg sufix matrix pro jig braid. He found it very easy to use and versatile for use on the mother ship, with plastics, bottom bouncing and casting and floating baits from the dory.
• Hodgie loaned me a new SV30 Penn International 2 speed overhead loaded with 37kg suffix performance braid and topped with 80 mts of 100lb Sufix superior leader. We hooked a Halco Giant trembler bonito pattern to this outfit. The only Spanish mackerel for the trip were taken on this outfit although I did have a black magic feather skirt snipped
• I need to do some more thinking about an appropriate plastics outfit suitable to cast light jig heads with heavy leader to monster the thugs out of the bricks – maybe an s10 Egrell (if I can every afford it) matched to a 560 Penn slammer or something similar
• I took 3 packs of 6677d mustads and 3 packets of mustad big guns and used the lot! Mind you I was using a 2 gang hook rig most of the time except in the deeper stuff where I floated a pillie under a 10 ball on a gang of 3. I would probably take only 7766’s next time but maybe 8 packs of 25 in 8/0.
• I took with me 4x100mt spools of 40-60-80-100lb penn 10x leader. I used all the 60lb and all the 80lb, not a lot of the 40lb and none of the 100lb. I will probably take 2 spools of 60lb and 1 of 80lb next time.
Finally I want to give credit where it is due. Congratulations to Scotty and Soozie, you run a professional charter. Evertything was done to the highest level of professionalism and customer service. Scotty worked hard to keep us on fish all week, both Scotty and Marty were so generous with their knowledge – they both got alongside the least experienced of us to make sure we all were getting fish. Marty came out most days in the dory’s and helped us get a handle on it – thanks mate
There was nothing too hard for either guys, even after Luke barfed all over the skip on the way home, Scotty could still laugh over it!
Each of us came away with a full esky of quality fillet, very satisfied and looking forward to the next time we can join Scotty and Marty on the Norval.
By the way, did I mention the food was great?
I'm working on the photo's - we took so many but I'll put a few up just to whet ya appetite as soon as I work it out
Cheers
Rhys