Yahooo, Watch this space - 1st trip for Flamin Riptide since 18/12/2007!!!

[revs57]

Wooohoooo, we're on! thought I'd reserve this space for a report - finally!!!!

The Fraser crew from 2007 is getting together for an onslaught!!! Yep, Foxy, Birdy, Swano and another mate Brad from the Norval trip with me, we're heading to M'bah shortly to head probably to the Cal wide area - we'll see what the swell is like out past Pt Cartwright and make the call then.

Excited???? Yew Bet! Just hope to boat hasn't forgotten how to find and catch fish!!!! Man it seems so long - poor thing - I'm sure it was starting to think nobody loved it - longest time out of the water since Dave built it!

I spent yesterday tidying a few things up with bit of trailer maintenence - repaired a couple of flat tyres - can you believe it? Don't things go off when they aren't being used...lubed up the shackle bolt. I had drained the fuel tank a few weeks ago and cleaned it out cause she'd been sitting so long so I went and fueled up with a tank of fresh fuel - 240 litres later - I'm glad we got in before the price hike...primed the motor, kicked it in the guts, fired up no problems - ahhh jon Eadie's service a few weeks back has her in fine knick! What? no tell tale - its been that long out of the water a critter had made it's home in the tell-tale pipe! Cleared the pipe. I even vaccumed it out!!! Cleaned and polished the clears and screens. Lovingly repacked all the things on board, life Jackets, safety gear, maintenece box and tools, set up the rods, got them - I remember I've forgotten the landing net - I'll take care of that in a moment. sEt up the GPS, had to wait a good 5 minutes for it to locate the satalites, they have moved so far since the last time it was fired up, got the sounder in - can't wait to see the structre and show on it. Any fIsh that wanders under the beam is in T-R-O-U-B-L-E!!!!!!

Woo-hooo, hopefully we'll have something to write about tonight!

Picking the crew up @ 3.00am from Caboolture

Dont't forget the landing net!!!

Cheers

Rhys

[reel scream]

Yeah thanks for that Rhys- i'm sitting here at work!!! You must be chaffing at the bit to get on the water. Hope you have a bloody good trip.

Cheers Scott

[revs57]

Got the landing net and the water - and more importantly communion!!! hmmm i wonder what time we will be celebrating our first fish????

[reel scream]

4.55am- 5.2kg snap

[backlash08]

have a good one Rhys - looking forward to the report - cheers Craig

[Frank OO]

Hi Rhys,

It can't be as exciting as my inshore competition this weekend fishing for whiting, Bream and Flathead.

I can't wait.
I was considering an overnighter at the banks but I wasn't sure about the swell.


Have a great time.

Frank OO

[wags on the water]

Gday Rhys,
It's good to see the vacuum cleaner used properly....

Best of luck,

Wags

[Fixation]

Hey Rhy's,

Will be waiting for the report with baited breath mate. Hope you get into some bucket mouths.

Talk soon.
Craig.

[JB]

Dont worry Rhys u havent missed much mate, last 3 months have to be the worst on record. Lets hope mother nature puts on a chilly winter full of knobby snapper and flat days.

Jas

p.s. thats after a few reds at the fraser comp :)

[SunnyCoastMark]

Rhys,
Great to see guys getting excited about fishing trips. Just goes to show - you are never to old - to get excited. - The enjoyment never wears off!;D

Have a great trip.

Mark

[Reefmaster]

There should be a ban on mid week fishos>:( ;D


You ruined my Wed morning straight after reading this but I soon didn't feel so bad when I looked at the weather.:-* ;D Looks a little rough lads. That's what you get for bragging Rhys and upsetting all of us sitting at work.;D

I expect plenty of fish to be caught like the previous weeks;)

Cheers Greg

[seapup]

Plenty of swell out there Rhys and the southerlies up to at least 20+ knots! I surfd at 6am this morning and the Noosa points are firing. Anyway good luck out there and look forward to the report!
Cheers,
Benny.

[Greg P]

It looks like Rhys hasnt left yet ------ 18/12/2008 !!! ;D;D;D;D;D

[Reefmaster]

It looks like Rhys hasnt left yet ------ 18/12/2008 !!! ;D;D;D;D;D

;D ;D saw that after I posted and thought I better go easy on him but I'm glad someone else picked it up.;D ;D 8-) 8-)

[Fixation]

I'll cut him some slack Greg. Looks like he posted it at about 1am this morning. He might have been half asleep.:P

I guess the ride out would have woken you up though Rhys?:o

[revs57]

::) ;) Trust you two Greg's to pick up the date gaff!!!

Well, when we got to the ramp it was a little puffy, but not too bad, so we decided to head out to Cal wide as planned, the rationale was, yep the swell is up, but the last seabreeze forcast i checked at 1am indicated the wind was going to drop off most of the day - man didn't they get that wrong!

We rounded Pt Cartwright and punched the marks into the gps...hmmm a bit rolly, but man it was good to be on the water again. We made steady progress, some of the swells had hollow backs and it was hard to see so steady as she goes. A little after 5.00am we're at our mark and the breeze had stiffened considerably. We saw a large squall a few ks to the west and associated the breeze to that and thought it would pass, but it wasn't long before the wind had picked up to a strong 20kts

So out with the 'chute to slow the drift down and Swano and Birdy attacked their task with plastics, but it was the smellypoofterbaitfisho Foxmiester that boated the first snapper thing - a fish to a couple of kilo's.

Well didn't that give him something to crow about! Talk about give it to them, foxy was off to a flyer.

the lads worked their plastics hard to no avail, and foxy backs up wiht a second squapper.

The lads kept at their craft and Swano boats the best fish of the day - a snap to around 5+kg on a chartruese and black 5" jerk shad - a new colour in the berkeley line up.

Birdy chimes in with a couple of fish. Brad boats a squire, we see a few tuskies come aboard, foxy contributed some boat tax - a nice large mouth nannygai and we have the makings of a reasonable box of fish. Everything then just shut down shortly after 7.00am. In hindsight we should have called it then, but as it had been so long since we'd been out we perservered and steamed further south east to some more marks. The condtions had deteriorated, the white water began to appear, but the Riptide just ate the conditions up.

We tried a number of rocks, moved back in to Currimundi Wdie and the southern ledge of Murphy's, but despite our best efforts we failed to boat another fish.

Final tally, 10 or a dozen nice squapper/snapper, 3 tuskies, one large mouth nanny and five very satisfied fisho's.

Even though it wasn't the best day on the water, we all were glad to be out. The Riptide shone again, 1.4klm/litre in some very marginal stuff - the f200 was excellent and the boat was a solid and safe platfrom handling the conditions with much aplomb.

Swano has some photo's he will post up later.

G'day Scott, your prediction was close! didn't mean to stuff ya day!

Yeah Craig (Clee) we had a ripper - greast to be out doing what we love doing with some great mates

Yeah Benny, If we'd have know it was gonna turn out like that we probably wouldn't have gone and that would've meant we really would've dipped out. Glad you got some waves. I think now La Ninja has kicked in we just gonna have to harden up! I aint gonna wait another 4 months for another trip

Thanks Wags - if you were any kind of mate, you'd have come and vacummed it for me!!!!!

Yeah Craig (Fixation), Swano will put up the pics when he gets a moment, I didn't do a lot of fishing myself, thought I'd take it easy and let the four crew get into it - turned out to be a smart strategy in the end

You're right Jas, It has been a lousy 3 mths, lets hope the weather patterns begin to settle as winter approaches. All the best for Fraser this year mate.

and thanks for your consideration Craig,

cheers

Rhys

Yeah Greg, I have been watching seabreeze very closely leading up to today and they missed it real bad - oh well, we still got out, caught a few fish and had a great time...sucks to have to work mid week, hardly saw another boat all day!!! We still got a few keepers for a feed so that was good

hey SCM - who you callin' OLD::) ;) man it had been so long, all the Swains trip did was make the itch worse - today was totally excellent, even though a bit windy

[indy]

Good on you rhys we are heading out tomorrow after work hopefully the weather will settle a little before then, doing an overnighter post a report friday arvo.

cheers pete...

Ps will see you up at the fraser comp, first year for me looking forward to it.

[revs57]

Good on ya Pete, hope the weather settles for you - not doing Fraser this year - but go for it, you'll have a ball

Cheers

Rhys

[dfox]

Thanks for a great day out Rhys, its good to see the boat still floats and catches fish. I recon we can call the contest between bait and plastic pretty well even although i gave the boys a good fright all the same. Next time i'll show no mercy, thanks again ...foxy

[Birdy]

Rhys,

Mate it was great to back on the big girl again !,good day out i thought even if Swano and I had to go slow early so the baito's didn't lose interest.

We did get Foxy to use some placcies there at one stage......we may be able to save him from the dark side yet!.

Thanks again mate...it had been too long.

Birdy

[skipalong]

sounds exciting

[SunnyCoastMark]

Rhys,
Good to see you got some fish for your trouble. Will be out there everyday over the long weekend.

Still hard to pick the conditions though, but I'm thinking afternoon glass off most days. Which is good - I hate gettin up early and still hving to fight for space at the ramp.:)

Mark

[backlash08]

Thanks for the report Rhys - good to see a few chewing - the time of the year is getting about right now for some action. always great to get out on the water, i hear what you're saying, being between boat at the moment I havnt been out for a while. Off to the swains in a few weeks though and the new fisher arrives in Augast so I plan to make up for it! Hope the weather get better for all
cheers - Craig

[Fixation]

Hey Rhys,

I checked cape moreton wind at about 9am yesterday and thought awwe thats a stiff breeze! Sounds like the riptide ate it up.

Good you got onto some fish well done mate.:thumbup: Looking forward to the pics.

Regards,
Craig

[kingtin]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaw Rhys...............you poor bugger! ::) ;) 3 months since you've been offshore.................9 months here mate ::) :'(

Meant to give you a ring as the deckie's been off sick and it's the first time I could've ducked out of the school runs.

New rig should be here soon, so here's hoping the weather suits.

Nice to see you back reporting..............an excellent one as usual.

kev

[swano]

was great to be out there with you and the boys again rhys for another top trip , man that boat handles the conditions on its ear . and was good to get some fresh snapper into the family again they all went for seconds.
cheers swano.
ps next week looks good fellas;D ;D

[Wayne_Red]

Swano
How do you find the JW big boss reel for plastic fishing? I was thinking of getting a 5500. Is that a drop shot rod? I had a diawa tierra 4000 till I lost it and the rod over the side in a trail of bubbles a couple of weeks ago, bye bye $400, now I have to replace it. Nice lot of fish there fellas.
Regards Wayne

[swano]

wayne
the 5500 is ok for medium work 30-55meters in the deeper stuff i would look at a penn slammer in the 460 with better drag capacities and a deeper spool for more line .
cheers swano

[polky]

Well done fellas, some nice fish in that lot. Polky.

[Matt]

It makes them all the more worthwhile when you work for them! :-)

I'm surprised you could even bring yourself to fish locally here after that Swains trip Rhys. ;-P

Matt.