Alchemy
04-01-2009, 10:28 PM
Nic and I ventured up to Kurrimine on Friday to fish with Foxy and his dad Milton. We arrived late, at 5pm, but Foxy quickly arranged a tractor to launch Alchemy and we were on the water heading out to the reef.
We cruised out in perfect conditions to try a couple of spots. The first produced a few small mouth nannygai but not much else, so we pushed a little wider.
At the wider spot Foxy found a few good shows of fish and the lines went over. Here we caught more nannygai, red throat and a few reds (we had read that reds didn't occur in this area, but Foxy helped us dispel that urban myth ;) ). We fished with a mixture of whole pillies, mullet and squid, and found that the flesh baits caught the most fish.
Things slowed up as the night wore on, so we pulled the pick to search for more fish. First Nic and then Milton crashed, so at 1am Foxy and I had the deck to ourselves. Another good show of fish were found and out went the pick.
We soon got into some red bass at this spot. Even though they are 'no take', I was stoked to have scored another new species. Foxy seemed to be dropping into a school of bigger versions as he was bricked by 3 in a row on his 80lb tackle. It was one of those rare times when I was happy to be hooking into smaller fish! After the red bass we got 6 nice reef jacks.
Overall though, the fish were tentative. A few times I pulled the hooks from fish twice before they came back for another go. This is where the mullet flesh was good as it was tough enough to take a few hits without coming off the hook.
It remained calm and muggy all night, with distant lightening flashing all around us. Eventually we were treated to a beautiful tropical sunrise,and the fish finally started to bite better. Foxy had warned us that things were likely to be slow at this time of year on the reef, but had arranged to borrow a big esky in case we got onto a good patch of fish. I'm glad he did, as by 6am the big esky was full and we started to release prime fish. If this was indeed the 'slow' time of year, I can't wait to return when things are firing!
We left our wide spot so I could chuck a few poppers around and so Foxy could hunt up a cray for dinner. I drew a blank with the popper, but Foxy managed a couple of mac tuna before spearing a stunning Chinese footballer trout and a crayfish.
Here are a few pics.
Regards,
Dave.
We cruised out in perfect conditions to try a couple of spots. The first produced a few small mouth nannygai but not much else, so we pushed a little wider.
At the wider spot Foxy found a few good shows of fish and the lines went over. Here we caught more nannygai, red throat and a few reds (we had read that reds didn't occur in this area, but Foxy helped us dispel that urban myth ;) ). We fished with a mixture of whole pillies, mullet and squid, and found that the flesh baits caught the most fish.
Things slowed up as the night wore on, so we pulled the pick to search for more fish. First Nic and then Milton crashed, so at 1am Foxy and I had the deck to ourselves. Another good show of fish were found and out went the pick.
We soon got into some red bass at this spot. Even though they are 'no take', I was stoked to have scored another new species. Foxy seemed to be dropping into a school of bigger versions as he was bricked by 3 in a row on his 80lb tackle. It was one of those rare times when I was happy to be hooking into smaller fish! After the red bass we got 6 nice reef jacks.
Overall though, the fish were tentative. A few times I pulled the hooks from fish twice before they came back for another go. This is where the mullet flesh was good as it was tough enough to take a few hits without coming off the hook.
It remained calm and muggy all night, with distant lightening flashing all around us. Eventually we were treated to a beautiful tropical sunrise,and the fish finally started to bite better. Foxy had warned us that things were likely to be slow at this time of year on the reef, but had arranged to borrow a big esky in case we got onto a good patch of fish. I'm glad he did, as by 6am the big esky was full and we started to release prime fish. If this was indeed the 'slow' time of year, I can't wait to return when things are firing!
We left our wide spot so I could chuck a few poppers around and so Foxy could hunt up a cray for dinner. I drew a blank with the popper, but Foxy managed a couple of mac tuna before spearing a stunning Chinese footballer trout and a crayfish.
Here are a few pics.
Regards,
Dave.