Lady Musgrave

[Mr__Bean]

Hmmmmm,

Weather looks good for early next week.

Hook up boat and head off Friday night or early Saturday morning, get into Agnes and provision before getting onto the water about lunchtime.

Stay out three days.

Back home Tuesday.

Thinking, thinking, thinking.......

- Darren

http://www.seabreeze.com.au/graphs/qld3.asp

[gofishin]

Ahhh yes, that would be nice Darren, but some of us need to work those days you lucky bugger. Good luck if you go, catch one more than you need and I'll take that one...;D been a while since I've tasted a nice red. Counting the days till Oct trip.
cheers
Brendon

[Apollo]

Have a safe one Darren. Look forward to the report next week. Bit of blue light action on the highway up at the moment so wear light shoes.

Steve

[Mr__Bean]

Weather still looks good so plan is to leave early in the morning.

Anyone else likely to be around that area?

- Darren

[Lucky_Phill]

Unfortunately Darren, my work commitments have exceeded my capabilities atm.

Neck deep in it, but again, it is the end of financial year.

Looks like I can't hit 1770 until after July.

Report from out there is close to and east of Stuart Shoal has been producing numbers but not size. Try an area 7.8 k's at 18 degrees from Stuart Shoal. I believe some deep water suspicious characters are lurking. ;) 8-)

Good luck.


Phill
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[Mr__Bean]

Turns ouit that we couldn't wait.

Currently laying back in a room in Sandcastle Resort at Agnes.

Just walked down to the beach under bright moonlight to find no wind at all, hope it stays that way.

Looking to head out as soon as we provision in the morning.

Will advise how we go, thanks Phil will give that area a try.

- Darren.

[DALEPRICE]

onya darren, allan make the trip ? school holls isnt it.
hope you smack em
dale

[wags on the water]

Darren, hopefully the good weather will stick around for a while. I'm hoping(fingers crossed) for a fish toward the end of July.

Good luck in the next few days.
Cheers,
Wags

[murf]

so?

:)

[Mr__Bean]

Sorry Murf, been too busy washing a very smelly boat and all the gear and trying to catch up on lost sleep, here you go........

Friday night we ended up packed and ready to go earlier than expected so bugger it, off we head early. We booked a room in at Sandcastles and the plan was to get up Saturday morning fresh rather having just done a 5 1/2 hour drive. Sandcastles is a nice place but jeeez is it noisy! Both of us ended up tossing and turning as we had a group of pommy girls partying on one side and a house right behind us have what sounded like a magnificent party, both went to around 3.30am. We ended up sleeping in but certainly felt much better than if we had just driven up.

Saturday morning we did our food shopping then went out to Agnes Bait and Tackle for bait (1 pilly block, 2 boxes of squid and a 10kg box of mullet, 3 x 20 kg bags and 2 blocks of ice and some 100 pound leader, back into town for fuel and a Big Breakfast at the servo and down to the ramp we head. Finally dropped in about 1pm and head straight out to Musgrave. Enjoyed a pretty good run out but were a bit disappointed to see 3 large trawlers anchored adjacent to Musgrave.We drove into Musgrave to verify safe GPS tracks and set the boat right for a long night of fishing. We took 3 rods each, 2 each set up for reds with single dropper paternoster rigs with an 8O main hook and a 7O bait keeper, and a single smaller rod each for hussar and other bait fish sessions.

With eskies set with drinks and food well iced and the main fish bin set with ice and bait we head out of the lagoon and over the Stuart Shoals to look for the hussar at about 3pm. We pulled up right in the middle of Stuart and chucked the Para Anchor over to see which way we would drift, I grabbed a small rod and Alan grabbed a red rod, squid went on and we were again into it, felt good after a long break from fishing. Weather was good and we knew we were in for a full moon from shortly after dusk. Fish were straight on from as soon as you bait got down but you had to be quick to raise it or loose the lot to the reefy shoals. Mainly hussar but I also got onto a couple of nice Red Throat Emperor, Alan was busy cursing the reef and he continued to make offerings of lead and carbon steel.

When we had the drift sorted we decided to set drifts that would have us starting in about 45 to 50 metres depth, drift us over the edge of the shoals and have us back in 45 to 50 metre depth at end of drift. This had worked for us on previous visits and was successful for reds at last year's meet and greet. Whilst activity was red hot we weren't putting a lot of good keepers in the esky, Small fish were quick to hammer the bait and the reef was still keeping Alan busy with his knot practice. The sun had gone down and the full moon was rising, sea was OK but we were glad we had both taken seasick pills as the drift had us side on to the waves and we were rocking quite a bit, but nothing was going to stop us enjoying this session after a long break. We continued into the night with numerous drift patterns but with similar results, we tried the nearby marks provided by Phill but found them to be barren on this occasion. A couple more drifts and we were both buggered. We hade been on the rods for about 7 hours and felt it time to get back into Musgrave and anchor up for the night. Pulled in about 11pm and motored over to a safe spot, disappointing to see so many boats at anchor with no lights on at all, cleaned ourselves up a bit, cooked up some sausages in bread, and bed ourselves down for the night.

Sunday we got up a bit late (both stuffed) got breaky and usuals out of the way, and decided to do the run south to the Wargi marks. We had done well there previously and noted the area was heavily populated with commercial trailer boats last visit. We picked up a couple of good cod previously there and thought we would see how we go again. On arrival there were 2 other boats there plus a commercial. Once again we set a number of drifts with the shute out and we covered a lot of area over a few hours but we pulled up nothing of value, Alan pulled another good chinaman but that was the highlight. We tried all varieties of bait including butter flied hussar and large slabs of mullet but to no avail.

Back to Musgrave for a cook up and to prepare for the night fish.

We head back out East from Musgrave again Sunday night into glassed out conditions, baits went down but it was really quite. A couple of big immediate bust offs and the usual small stuff stripping baits and keeping us busy. Red Throat and Fingermark were going into the bin but no signs of any reds. The bite shut down as the very bright moon came overhead and shone down through the dead flat sea. We decided to head back to Musgrave to anchor and then get up early in the morning and head north to the back of Boult.

Well that was the plan, we were woken at about 2am with heavy rain and wind now blowing its arse off, Musgrave lagoon had whitecaps and it was hard to stand and piss. Ah well back to bed. Still blowing a very good 20 to 25 knots or so when we got up and more cruisers and yachts were coming in for safe water. We watched a commercial guy in about a 32 foot big diesel cat go out and wow was he being thrown around by the heavy sea as he went around the south side of the lagoon, wind was blowing hard south westerly and the sea looked very confused with large chop hitting against incoming swell.

We sat it out until lunch then decided to put our nose out for a look, now just happy if we could get back to 1770. It looked rough so on went the inflatable life vest yokes (no I am not a hero), set the boat for rough running and out we head. We didn't get too far past the island when the big waves started to really knock us around so we decided to turn back to the protection of the lagoon. Dropped anchor again and started to stare at each other again. The commercial guy was now back in the lagoon too and one of the trawlers had now come back and anchored on the lee side of the island.

We sat it out until about 4pm, shit what a long day, the wind felt like it had dropped a bit but Alan disagreed and felt it was the same. We decided to have another look so out we head, this time the wind had swung a bit and we were able to run between the main waves, along the peaks and along the troughs. There was a bit of rough to it but it was OK. It was actually much safer with good speed as the waves had less time to roll us around and influence our direction. We had already set all our weight down the back of the boat and ensured we had the lowest centre of gravity point knowing it would be rough and it was paying off, I said to Alan I am going open her up and we ended up travelling much better at a much higher speed. We were still going across the swell and only had the chop to contend with so at 5300rpm were were flying home at 27 - 28 knots. Safely over the bar and back into 1770 at 5.15 pm just as the sun went down, our quickest trip back yet.

Boat onto trailer, covers and things on and down to the caravan park we went to buy a shower, after 3 days in the boat we enjoyed the clean up. Drained the water from the eskies, fish were on good ice and home we head arriving back into Brisbane about 12.45am Tuesday.

On reflection, it wasn't all that good fish wise, we brought home 7 very good Red Throat Emperor, 4 very good Fingermark and half a dozen or so good size hussar. But that wasn't what this trip was about, we hadn't been out for a while and Alan was really starting to feel the pressure of night after night homework and exams. It was time to take a break and we did. All up we both enjoyed it very much with plenty of father and son conversation and fishing rivalry.

Home safe and now wondering when we will get back.

Also wondering if the trawlers left us all much?

- Darren

[GBC]

You need some lessons in trawling Bean.

They will be working the 110 fathom ground along the shelf for red spot kings, or the sand inside for scallops.

Any rubble or reef you are fishing will be marked in red on a trawler's plotter - they are about as interested in catching reds as you are in line fishing for a prawn in 700 ft of water.;)

Good to see you got a few days in.

[murf]

top read Darren :) are you going to get it published in hard back form :P

great little adventure with ya young fella

cheers Murf

[Mr__Bean]

Its funny how dad only mentions how I was donating lead and rigs to the reef but little did he mention that a lot of the loss of rigs to the reef and a lot of my knot practise was tying his rigs after he had been snagged::) , so he didnt have to look down and risk getting seasick.

Alan

[murf]

Its funny how dad only mentions how I was donating lead and rigs to the reef but little did he mention that a lot of the loss of rigs to the reef and a lot of my knot practise was tying his rigs after he had been snagged::) , so he didnt have to look down and risk getting seasick.

Alan

Bahahahahaha ;D

I am hearing you loud and clear Alan :)

cheers Murf

[Lucky_Phill]

Hope ya went well with exams etc Alan.

I think you'll do better on the fish in September.

tell ya dad to tie his own rigs..... or pre-tie them. :)


Cheers Phill

[Cheech]

You should reproduce this in the Reports section. Very good read.

[NEWBY]

Bean Ya sook...Making the boy tie your knots???
Bloody hell mate, you'll be on the coloured homo water with Phil this year at this rate mate.
The Reds have been very very quiet for a while up this way.
There were very limited numbers pulled up at the hookup...

[CT]

How big is your boat mate?

Cheers
Craig

[Mr__Bean]

Boat is an 8 metre plate ally hardtop.

A big, heavy, boat to tow.

A small, light, boat when it is out in very rough seas.

But it does shed water very well.

- Darren