Long Weekend at 1770.

[JustOneMore]

Couple of months ago we started planning our first trip to 1770. With the predicted weather window we left early friday morning to launch by 12pm and out to fitzroy for a fish before dark. Got out to the reef, sussed out the entrance to fitzroy and managed a quick fish landing the first trout and red-throat before dark.

Spent the night at fitzroy getting up before dawn to for an early fish. Experienced a little deferred success not adding a single fish to the esky. Clints boat managed a couple of nice spanish, and we headed out deep. Landed an undersized red then heading back in closer. Managed two red-throat before heading into fitroy for lunch and a snorkel swimming with a black tip reef shark cruising the coral cay.

With ice running low we heading back to land stopping at marks and exploring new ground. Hit some structure with good sounder shows and first drop jarrod hooks into a good fish. 5 mins of back and forth and a cobe hits the deck. Next drift he hooks up again with another cobe. Next drift and we have a double hook-up. Last drift for todd and we get the fifth and one for everyone.8-)

With a shower, feed, and a good nights sleep we get on the water late. Clint heads out to fitzroy for a second night and we search some new ground. This time landing more trev's than i can remember hook the biggest AJ i've ever seen, more cobes, a kingie and multiple bust-off's every drift.

We had a game plan for the final morning and stuck to the plan. Once again hit up new ground and it paid off. This time we anchored on a great show, first drop and we are into sweetlip and small reds. Soon i'm into a good fish, and with a little pump and wind my second ever trout hits surface measuring 74cm. Then the floaters start going off, and with a good first run i know we have our first spanish. Ended the session with 3 spanish, 2 trout, 3 sweetlip, 1 cod, and 1 moses to finish an action packed fishing session.

Home late last night wishing i had a day off to recover from a full throttle weekend!!!:D Didn't get our red, but we're saving that for next trip. hahaha.

A few thanks:
The team
Agnes Jack? What a legend!!
Black-rat

[JustOneMore]

remaining photo's

[3rd degree]

Cracker catch, and looks like some great weather too!

Cheers

Jim

[not_drowning_wavin]

Well done boys.........looks like I missed out BIG TIME!
I'm a definite starter for the next trip ;o)
Oh, the new clears look good too.

Cheers
Cam

[Black_Rat]

Well done a real nice mixed bag there. Shame about the Reds but theres always next time, and it's honourable you've left them for me to catch in October ;D

Those Cobes and Spainsh would have produced quite a few feeds. Looked like you had some awsome weather as well.

[Silent]

Truly you guys were so lucky with perfect weather fishing every day is everybody's dream......you had it!
Lovely reef mixes especially trout, now you understand why I gave them top fish table...;)
Let me know when's next so I can score some brownie points ;D

[Clint06]

What an awesome trip! Thanks Damian for asking us along.
A wrap up of the trip for our boat –
Got a few littlies the first afternoon in close to Fitzroy. Had a quick look out deeper looking for reds but didn’t come across any shows. Hooked a few monsters in the lagoon that night but couldn’t stop them with 80lb jigging gear or the 24kg marlin gear.
Next morning got a couple of good spanish on floaters but did poorly on the bottom bashers. Also had a few bite offs and brickings. Hooked a green jobfish on the troll just outside the entrance to Fitzroy lagoon. Went for a snorkel and spear for the afternoon around the reef edges. Saw a few reef sharks up to 8ft or so, a big maori wrasse, a few small mackerel and speared about 8 coral trout. Back into 1770 for the night.
Next morning loaded up on livies. Sent a couple back down and instantly hooked up on a decent sized shark that saw the rod being passed round the boat for the next 40min till we could get the thing boatside. Then decided to head out to where Damian’s boat got the cobes the day before. Managed 1 cobe, 1 kingy and a good maori cod but was the sea was sloppy and we wanted to get back out to the reef. Had a quick spear again and managed 1 trout and a cod, saw a few barramundi cod that were very inquisitive and a lot of sharks. I think this put the boys off a bit so we anchored up and settled in for the night. Caught a couple of good spangled emperor on lightly weighted baits before bed.
Next morning found a nice drop off, 15m down to 30m, not far from the reef. Anchored up and fished floaters just like we would for snapper down here using 10kg outfits. For the next two or 3 hours the fish went off. Ended up with 5 red emperor and a few good sweetlip. We would of missed another 10 or so reds that we just couldn’t stop with the gear we were using, a few bite offs from mackerel, boated 1 massive shark mackerel that was sent back. Back into 1770 by lunch time to clean the fish and on the road back to Brisbane by 3pm.
Few lessons from the trip- bottom basher rigs caught hardly any fish unless there was a livie on one of the hooks. Floaters on 10kg outfits worked really well in 20-30m off the reef edges for big sweetlip – almost every cast resulted in a fish, bite off, or getting bricked in the reef. Need a minimum of 40lb to stop the bigger fish.

[Silent]

Awesome footage and gotta love Todd's shirt;D ;D ;D

[JustOneMore]

Thanks Chong. From the lack of response we thought we may have scared people off with our okka attitudes! Funny when you think the video is only a 6min snap-shot of an action packed trip. Awesome place, can't wait to get back up there!!!

[Dantren]

Hi JustOne More,

Congrats on a great trip.

I'm going up in August, & still haven't decided on accomadation.
I'm looking at houses for around $700/week.

Can you recommend a place which is boat friendly?

Thanks,

Dan.

[JustOneMore]

Dantren,

We stayed in one of the cabins at the Captain Cook Holiday Park. Very nice for the time we stayed with good boat access and parking.

We are currently looking at houses for our next stay later in the year. If any Ausfishers can recommend good houses at 1770 or Agnes Waters i would appreciate it too!!!

Damo.

[cjockey]

hey damo,
saw you boys up there at the ramp on the monday morning.
was in the yellow c/c. we headed over to LMI for the week.
awsome weather.
cheers
al