Fishing NQ at it's best!!

[Fisher4life]

With an ideal weather forecast predicted for wednesday, thursday, Graham (thump-a) and I made the call to head wide off townsville for a few days, planning to arrive back early friday monring.

Wednesday morning Graham, Bob and I headed out, there was still a slight chop on the water as the winds were slowly receding. The further out we got, the better the conditions were.

Hit the shallows first looking for some trout, and caught red throat, red throat and more bloody red throat. Moved around a fair bit and managed to find a few trout amongst plague proportions of red throat.

Late afternoon we headed out to red country and starting drifting baits over a likely looking area without much success until dusk approached. By now the conditions had totally glassed out, and the reds come alive. Yet again we got our bag limit on reds in no time, quality was down a compared to the last couple trips with the biggest nudging a little over 9kg and most the fish being 6-7kg, in amongst the reds were orange cod, spangles, large mouth,purple cod, rosy job fish and of course sharks. True to form we also had to release a 6kg red as we tried different baits to entice more species other then reds to the surface.

As we set ourselves in for the night we heard noises very close and could faintly see what appeared to be whales around the boat. As sunrise approached we woke up to see that we still had a pod of dwarf minke whales around the boat and total glassed out conditions.

We headed in to the shallower waters of the reef to look for a few more trout and come across more red thoat. By 10am we had reached our bag limit on red throat (no suprise) and our over all bag limit of reef species, so we headed home early, in total glass out conditions.

Thanks for the awesome trip Graham.

Enjoy the pics.

[eugah]

Well done guys, how far out did you go. How did yous go last weekend, We were the ones at Maggie shoals.

Adrian

[Apollo]

Well done. Learning species a bit still. Can you tell me what species are the fella in red is holding with the lipgrips and the fella in black holding with lipgrips. Thanks

[-spiro-]

That sounds like a awesome trip and good photo's to back it up.

[Alchemy]

Hi Josh,

That is a great session. You and Graham certainly have the local reds worked out. Thanks for the report.

Regards,
Dave.

[Fisher4life]

Well done guys, how far out did you go. How did yous go last weekend, We were the ones at Maggie shoals.

Adrian

Hi Adrian, we were out near the shelf. Last weekend we managed a couple of nannies, then turned and headed home early, did you end up getting any fish on that spot?


Well done. Learning species a bit still. Can you tell me what species are the fella in red is holding with the lipgrips and the fella in black holding with lipgrips. Thanks

My guess you are referring to the black and white fish, and it's a purple cod, and the second fish i'm pretty sure your referring to is the mouri wrasse, it's a protected species.


Hi Josh,

That is a great session. You and Graham certainly have the local reds worked out. Thanks for the report.

Regards,
Dave.

Thanks Dave, yeah we have had a few sucessfull trips lately, it's good to finally bring home some good fish

Cheers
Josh

[jarhead]

Top fish and conditions by the looks, would have been very enjoyable.

Cheers Wal

[thump-a]

Hey Josh

Come on ; show a picture of the total catch !!!!
Now that will impress

Thanks Graham

[Benno1]

healthy esky boys!!!...arent those purplecod beautiful up close!!!...good weather...good fishing...great company...sounds like the perfect trip to me :D...cheers for piccies and post.

Mrs Benno1
Sunny

[whatscracken]

Doesn't get much better than that mate, great trip

[Fisher4life]

Hey Josh

Come on ; show a picture of the total catch !!!!
Now that will impress

Thanks Graham


The lawn of death (lots of work)

[block]

What A Trip!!! Well Done.
How Good Is The Water In That Pic, Got 2 Love That.

[eugah]

Josh we only managed small stuff on that spot & decided to head to the cape just on dark, however i found that No2 battery had died so headed for home.

Adrian

[Fisher4life]

Josh we only managed small stuff on that spot & decided to head to the cape just on dark, however i found that No2 battery had died so headed for home.

Adrian

Yeah it's not a bad spot when the macks around are around, other then that, it's a good spot to get some livies

[Nanny King NQ]

Sounds like a good trip wish I was there

[nickstock]

Unreal report mate!

Good to see the Saragosa getting a work out.

Did you end up buying a heavier rod?

Nick

[Fisher4life]

Unreal report mate!

Good to see the Saragosa getting a work out.

Did you end up buying a heavier rod?

Nick


thanks nick,

took the berkley dropshot back and exchanged it for a 37kg ugly stick jig rod. Very happy with the overall set up for the deep water now, it has some very serious stopping power and is easier on the arms after a session like we had.

Cheers
Josh

[nickstock]

Sounds like a winner mate.

What leader are you running? I was landing about 1 fish out of every 4 hooked on Sunday? I was using 80 pound Black Magic with no luck?

Nick

[Fisher4life]

Sounds like a winner mate.

What leader are you running? I was landing about 1 fish out of every 4 hooked on Sunday? I was using 80 pound Black Magic with no luck?

Nick

Why were you loosing so many fish, tackle failure or knots slipping??

We use 100lb mono leader. The shoals where we get the reds is fairly open ground. By having the extra strength with the leader, we are able to tighten up the drags and try to get the fish up before the sharkies get to them.

[nickstock]

Why were you loosing so many fish, tackle failure or knots slipping??

We use 100lb mono leader. The shoals where we get the reds is fairly open ground. By having the extra strength with the leader, we are able to tighten up the drags and try to get the fish up before the sharkies get to them.

I am unsure why,
I am not happy with the leader though as it is very soft. I am thinking that the eye of the hook may have been rubbing through on a few and on a couple of occasions the leader looked as though it had just rubbed through.

I bought some Penn 10X 150lb today. The country we were fishing has coral pinnacles rising about 2 meters off the bottom. I was thinking that a few of the fish may have rubbed thye leader through on their gill plates????

The reason I say this is because we got a Jack about 4.5-5 kilo and it snapped a ganged 8/0 true turn in its gill plate. On landing the fish, two of the three hooks were still in the Jacks mouth. My logic was that if it could snap a hook then they could rub through a very soft leader??

What do you think Josh?

Nick

[Fisher4life]

I am unsure why,
I am not happy with the leader though as it is very soft. I am thinking that the eye of the hook may have been rubbing through on a few and on a couple of occasions the leader looked as though it had just rubbed through.

I bought some Penn 10X 150lb today. The country we were fishing has coral pinnacles rising about 2 meters off the bottom. I was thinking that a few of the fish may have rubbed thye leader through on their gill plates????

The reason I say this is because we got a Jack about 4.5-5 kilo and it snapped a ganged 8/0 true turn in its gill plate. On landing the fish, two of the three hooks were still in the Jacks mouth. My logic was that if it could snap a hook then they could rub through a very soft leader??

What do you think Josh?

Nick

I have experienced problems of the leader line snapping on the loop where i connect my hook some months ago, and i put it down to the way i was attaching the hook onto the loop of the paternoster rig. Instead of going directly through the loop once and pulling tight, i'd go through the loop, give the hook a twist so the line would kind of double up around the hook once you pull tight.. I stopped trying to be fancy, and i didn't break any more off at the hook.

Those true turn hooks, although they are a great hook and they gang up easy, we have straightened them on reds before. Also, because they do gang up so easy, therefore they also un-gang just as easy if you get any slack in the line during the fight.

I'd highly doubt that the gill rakes would have been rubbing through on the 80lb leader the way these fish fight (definatley nothing like barra).

Was the hook actually snapped in half?? If so it might just be a bad one, it does happen.

I have come across a bad batch of hooks also recently, not the true turns, but the gamaksu octopus circles, and have snapped numerous hooks. I have about 10 from the last trip in the top of my tackle box ready to give to the gamaksu rep (they wanted to take them back to the factory for a closer inspection.)

Just check that the 150lb will still fit through the eye of the hooks you fish with. The 100lb is the biggest diameter we can fit through the gamaksu hooks on a paternoster rig.

Cheers
Josh

[nickstock]

Thanks Josh,

I was talking to a local bloke that catches his fair share of Reds out of Cooktown. He uses 150 pound mono and just crimps it rather than tying. It may be a bit over kill but he prefers to use the one rig for everything from Reds, Nannies to Jobbies ect.

He also said that the hook was probably just a dud. The hook actually snapped in half and was still lodged in the Jacks gill plate??

When I am talking about the 'gill plates' I mean the outside of the gill. (I may be using the wrong term?)

I just tried and the 150 lb and it fits through the 10/0 Gamakatsu's that I use.