Flex
04-06-2009, 10:22 AM
Hi all,
Just got back from the worlds greatest Fishing Trip!.
Spent 10 days fishing around Ninian bay area and surrounding reefs offshore.
We drove in via the coastal road. It was slow going towing 4.5m boats in and not many people had been that way since the wet. But we had no major drama's and got in safely.
Days 1-2. Was windy as hell like most days up the cape.So we had to stay in close. But we managed a nice catch of finger mark,sweetlip, mackerel, queenies and GT's. we fished along a rocky headland only in 2m of water. fishing with un weighted baits was the secret and we were kept busy for hours on end of one after the other fish.
5mins fishing into the trip, second hookup was my first Unstoppable! one of hundreds more to come..lol
Days 3-7.
I doubt I will ever see weather like it again, we scored 5 days in a row of 5knot winds. Usually up the cape it blows 25knots all day/night.
Up at 5am each day, we headed the 40kms out to fish the reefs.
Found some reef in 18m of water,anchored up and dropped the baits.
For the next 4 hours we caught red throat, Coral trout,red emporer,cod, Floated baits saw Cobia and Spanish by the dozen.
Lunch time when the reef fish go off the chew, we pulled up on a sandy coral Island and threw poppers,plastics around and Had fun on the huge GT's and trout that haunt the drop offs.
Afternoons saw us back to the reefs for more back breaking action.
One particular afternoon we headed back in earlier at around 2pm. One of the rocky headlands had a nice distint current line flowing past with murcky water one side,clear the other.Bait fish everywhere. So out came the poppers into the waiting mouths of some of the biggest Queenfish I have ever seen.!
What followed was one of the greatest fishing sessions I have ever had.
Every cast had a follow by multiple queenfish, massive splashes,huge hookups and long fights with lots of aerial displays and 4 way hookups. 4 of us fishing we each landed over half a dozen of these monsters. I dont think one of them was under 35lb.(all released btw)
Amongt them were GT's and heaps of smaller spanish.
I decided to throw a few plastics around closer into shore, I landed over 8 fingermark. winding one in saw 2-3 others following it to the boat!. at one stage I caught 6 fingermark in 6 casts:) all on 7inch berkley gulp.
The last afternoon fishing offshore we had a nice feed of reefies, we happened to come across a massive school of Golden Trevally in about 20m of water.
I have always thought Goldens were a softmans GT. But Boy was I wrong!..lol
Golden Trevally in deepwater are the in my top 3 hardest fighting fish of all time.They are not super fast, but they never,ever,ever give up!.They shite all over the Cobia and spanish we caught.
Every drop of the line saw a hookup on these monster Goldens, once hooked-up, You'd strap yourself in for some pain;D. every golden was 15-20kg using 65lb braid on an upgraded spheros I had to use tow hands to hold onto the rod at times..lol. These goldens are real bastards and go straight for reef if you dont apply the hurt, then once off the bottom they just simply dont give up!. we caught dozens of these things over a 2 hour period, amongst the occasional trout,cobia and red-throat. Any chiropractor's wanna come next year? I'll pay all your expenses:)
But the greatest experience for me was the amount of bust-ups we all had.
This year I went up with bigger,better,stronger gear. But more often than not, the fish just laughed at me whilst dragging my 40kg outfit straight into a reef for spectacular bust-offs!! no matter what we tried about 30% of the fish hooked just blew us to bits. it was un-believable.
Days 8and 9 the wind came up, water temp had dropped 3 deg in 3 days and fish went off the chew, so after the previous 5 days of awesomeness we came home early.
These days we dont fish the creeks that often, so only a few barra were caught. I'd rather go offshore and punish myself with the big stuff.
Gear used was 65lb braid on upgraded spheros,24kg T-curve.
50lb on a Tekota 700 on 24kg Live fiber
80lb on Tyrnos 30 on a 24-37kg Custom rod
Next year Im simply taking 16mm anchor rope to fish with instead..lol
Heres a couple of pics.
Just got back from the worlds greatest Fishing Trip!.
Spent 10 days fishing around Ninian bay area and surrounding reefs offshore.
We drove in via the coastal road. It was slow going towing 4.5m boats in and not many people had been that way since the wet. But we had no major drama's and got in safely.
Days 1-2. Was windy as hell like most days up the cape.So we had to stay in close. But we managed a nice catch of finger mark,sweetlip, mackerel, queenies and GT's. we fished along a rocky headland only in 2m of water. fishing with un weighted baits was the secret and we were kept busy for hours on end of one after the other fish.
5mins fishing into the trip, second hookup was my first Unstoppable! one of hundreds more to come..lol
Days 3-7.
I doubt I will ever see weather like it again, we scored 5 days in a row of 5knot winds. Usually up the cape it blows 25knots all day/night.
Up at 5am each day, we headed the 40kms out to fish the reefs.
Found some reef in 18m of water,anchored up and dropped the baits.
For the next 4 hours we caught red throat, Coral trout,red emporer,cod, Floated baits saw Cobia and Spanish by the dozen.
Lunch time when the reef fish go off the chew, we pulled up on a sandy coral Island and threw poppers,plastics around and Had fun on the huge GT's and trout that haunt the drop offs.
Afternoons saw us back to the reefs for more back breaking action.
One particular afternoon we headed back in earlier at around 2pm. One of the rocky headlands had a nice distint current line flowing past with murcky water one side,clear the other.Bait fish everywhere. So out came the poppers into the waiting mouths of some of the biggest Queenfish I have ever seen.!
What followed was one of the greatest fishing sessions I have ever had.
Every cast had a follow by multiple queenfish, massive splashes,huge hookups and long fights with lots of aerial displays and 4 way hookups. 4 of us fishing we each landed over half a dozen of these monsters. I dont think one of them was under 35lb.(all released btw)
Amongt them were GT's and heaps of smaller spanish.
I decided to throw a few plastics around closer into shore, I landed over 8 fingermark. winding one in saw 2-3 others following it to the boat!. at one stage I caught 6 fingermark in 6 casts:) all on 7inch berkley gulp.
The last afternoon fishing offshore we had a nice feed of reefies, we happened to come across a massive school of Golden Trevally in about 20m of water.
I have always thought Goldens were a softmans GT. But Boy was I wrong!..lol
Golden Trevally in deepwater are the in my top 3 hardest fighting fish of all time.They are not super fast, but they never,ever,ever give up!.They shite all over the Cobia and spanish we caught.
Every drop of the line saw a hookup on these monster Goldens, once hooked-up, You'd strap yourself in for some pain;D. every golden was 15-20kg using 65lb braid on an upgraded spheros I had to use tow hands to hold onto the rod at times..lol. These goldens are real bastards and go straight for reef if you dont apply the hurt, then once off the bottom they just simply dont give up!. we caught dozens of these things over a 2 hour period, amongst the occasional trout,cobia and red-throat. Any chiropractor's wanna come next year? I'll pay all your expenses:)
But the greatest experience for me was the amount of bust-ups we all had.
This year I went up with bigger,better,stronger gear. But more often than not, the fish just laughed at me whilst dragging my 40kg outfit straight into a reef for spectacular bust-offs!! no matter what we tried about 30% of the fish hooked just blew us to bits. it was un-believable.
Days 8and 9 the wind came up, water temp had dropped 3 deg in 3 days and fish went off the chew, so after the previous 5 days of awesomeness we came home early.
These days we dont fish the creeks that often, so only a few barra were caught. I'd rather go offshore and punish myself with the big stuff.
Gear used was 65lb braid on upgraded spheros,24kg T-curve.
50lb on a Tekota 700 on 24kg Live fiber
80lb on Tyrnos 30 on a 24-37kg Custom rod
Next year Im simply taking 16mm anchor rope to fish with instead..lol
Heres a couple of pics.