Red Bull
21-01-2009, 12:24 PM
Hi Ausfishers,
Some of my family and few mates headed up to the Whitsunday area in November last year. The photos have only just come through in the last day or 2 from the clowns who possessed the cameras, so thought I'd put together a quick report for you.
The area we fished is about 18nm off the coast, NE of Seaforth. Smith islands area, for those interested.
We figured we would time this trip to the full moon, seeing as previous trips on bigger tides have produced some good pelagic activity. My theory was, 'no run, no fun', but interestingly, the most activity probably occurred about 4 or 5 days prior to the full moon. So as usual, we are none-the-wiser about what is the best time to fish up around there. :-/
I should mention that my number 1 mission on this trip was to test some lures I have been making (see 'home made lure' thread in Tackle section), and just as importantly, to nail a 15kg + GT on a home-made popper or stickbait. ::)
This assignment took up a large part of the 8 day trip for me, very much to the detriment of my personal all-round capture tally, but it was a very valuable learning experience for me, as I can tell that there are some beastly GT's around this part of the world, though sadly I couldn't land any of the ones I hooked, all of which appeared to be easily over 20kgs.
In the process, 3 of my better lures are now MIA. This was despite fishing 50lbs braid on a Daiwa monster mesh popping rod and Shimano Spheros 14000 reel. The drag I was running on this outfit was around the maximum available from this reel (approx 11kg) and still the GTs would rip line off in powerful knee-trembling bursts that enabled crashing dives into the coral bommies that were scattered around the rocky platforms we were fishing off. Unbelievably exciting yet very demoralizing, is how I would explain it.:o
However, fishing hard with surface lures for this period of time meant that I did inadvertently catch the lions share of coral trout throughout the trip, which in turn put some quality tucker on our plates. Coral trout are quite fond of surface presentations, particularly large blooping lures, and I have now decided that this is an excellent way of prospecting for the legal-size trout in shallow water. Because they have to come off the bottom to grab the lures, it gives you a better chance to drag the fish away from structure as well. It was a real buzz seeing a dark smudge materialize under the lure, inhale it in a blur of foam and teeth, then power off straight down in a bid to reach the coral below. My 80 lb twisted leaders saved me from certain disaster on numerous occasions, as I could feel the grating through the line as the trout got their heads under some nasty coral bommie. Significant damage to the leaders proved this.
My brother Ric become something of a mackerel specialist, nailing a 129cm spaniard on day 1, and a 135cm fish on day 5. We also caught numerous smaller macks, but I won't bore you with those. Most fish were taken on trolled Halco laser pro's, however the humble floating pilchard also claimed several victims.
There were northern bluefin and mack tuna consistently working around the area for most of the 8 days, and the boys had plenty of good fun catching these fish on light tackle with slugs and small trolled minnows. Other captures included small queenies, jacks and baby GT's around the mangroves and rocky points, and the odd northern calamari around the little beaches and rubbly patches.
All in all a great trip, and I hope we can get back up there sometime in '09.
Cheers
Red Bull
PS. A few more pics to follow
Some of my family and few mates headed up to the Whitsunday area in November last year. The photos have only just come through in the last day or 2 from the clowns who possessed the cameras, so thought I'd put together a quick report for you.
The area we fished is about 18nm off the coast, NE of Seaforth. Smith islands area, for those interested.
We figured we would time this trip to the full moon, seeing as previous trips on bigger tides have produced some good pelagic activity. My theory was, 'no run, no fun', but interestingly, the most activity probably occurred about 4 or 5 days prior to the full moon. So as usual, we are none-the-wiser about what is the best time to fish up around there. :-/
I should mention that my number 1 mission on this trip was to test some lures I have been making (see 'home made lure' thread in Tackle section), and just as importantly, to nail a 15kg + GT on a home-made popper or stickbait. ::)
This assignment took up a large part of the 8 day trip for me, very much to the detriment of my personal all-round capture tally, but it was a very valuable learning experience for me, as I can tell that there are some beastly GT's around this part of the world, though sadly I couldn't land any of the ones I hooked, all of which appeared to be easily over 20kgs.
In the process, 3 of my better lures are now MIA. This was despite fishing 50lbs braid on a Daiwa monster mesh popping rod and Shimano Spheros 14000 reel. The drag I was running on this outfit was around the maximum available from this reel (approx 11kg) and still the GTs would rip line off in powerful knee-trembling bursts that enabled crashing dives into the coral bommies that were scattered around the rocky platforms we were fishing off. Unbelievably exciting yet very demoralizing, is how I would explain it.:o
However, fishing hard with surface lures for this period of time meant that I did inadvertently catch the lions share of coral trout throughout the trip, which in turn put some quality tucker on our plates. Coral trout are quite fond of surface presentations, particularly large blooping lures, and I have now decided that this is an excellent way of prospecting for the legal-size trout in shallow water. Because they have to come off the bottom to grab the lures, it gives you a better chance to drag the fish away from structure as well. It was a real buzz seeing a dark smudge materialize under the lure, inhale it in a blur of foam and teeth, then power off straight down in a bid to reach the coral below. My 80 lb twisted leaders saved me from certain disaster on numerous occasions, as I could feel the grating through the line as the trout got their heads under some nasty coral bommie. Significant damage to the leaders proved this.
My brother Ric become something of a mackerel specialist, nailing a 129cm spaniard on day 1, and a 135cm fish on day 5. We also caught numerous smaller macks, but I won't bore you with those. Most fish were taken on trolled Halco laser pro's, however the humble floating pilchard also claimed several victims.
There were northern bluefin and mack tuna consistently working around the area for most of the 8 days, and the boys had plenty of good fun catching these fish on light tackle with slugs and small trolled minnows. Other captures included small queenies, jacks and baby GT's around the mangroves and rocky points, and the odd northern calamari around the little beaches and rubbly patches.
All in all a great trip, and I hope we can get back up there sometime in '09.
Cheers
Red Bull
PS. A few more pics to follow