Reefmaster
09-09-2011, 07:28 PM
Hi all,
We recently got back from an outstanding 2 week fishing trip up North Queensland at Kurrimine Beach. Kurrimine is located north of Mission beach/Dunk island and about an hour or so south of Cairns. Foxy bought a block of land up there a few years back and since then decked out a good sized shed and turned it into a comfortable fishing pad. We had been planning on this trip for some time and organised 10 blokes and 2 boats to head north from Brisbane ready for a serious fishing assault. I towed my big Riptide platey up and Reg recently had new Vindicator built so it would join us as well. After 23 hours of towing we reached Kurrimine Beach hassle free and set up ourselves ready for a great fishing holiday.
The weather had been blowing 30knots for 3 weeks straight but luck would have it the next two weeks would produce winds mostly around 10-15knots with the occasional lighter and windier days. We managed to hit the water 9 out of a possible 11 days. 2 of those days were spent on the reefs spearing fish, crays, snorkelling and throwing lures/poppers at GT’s etc. The reef systems are massive up there but also close to the main land so distances we travelled varied from a small 27km to 130km out depending on weather conditions and what area we wanted to fish. The fishing was very slow majority of time but we still experienced some great fishing and awesome experiences. The array of species caught was mind blowing and even the Spanish Macks were being caught on the bottom bashers in 60mtrs of water. Trout were thick on most areas we found along with plenty of reds up to 10kg but they didn’t come easy. We worked hard for our red fish but catching red throat, gold band jobbies, jacks, scarlets, longnose, spangleds, cod and a solid flow of vermin such as trevally, red bass and chinaman kept us very entertained.
I caught and released an estimated 40kg GT while chasing reds in 60mtrs and man this fish gave me plenty of stick on 80lb gear. I was using for the first time a Wilson live fibre sport fishing series “venom” rod which is part of their jigging series so I was able to give this fish a lot of hurt and pull it reasonably quick. I loved this rod so much I didn’t use any other of my overhead rods the whole trip and I highly recommend it. It was such a versatile rod and although it’s designed for jigging I used it for bottom bashing the entire trip.
So many fishing stories came from this trip along with great experiences of snorkelling and catching massive painted cray’s around the bombies which everyone enjoyed. Some other highlights were throwing poppers at a school of fusilers and getting smashed by GTs. Very visual fishing and enjoyable to experience even when you get blown away.
Even launching/retrieving the boats at Kurrimine beach is an experience and although it has a boat ramp it can only be used at a reasonably high tide with your vehicle. To get around this just about every resident has a tractor to launch with and allows you to drive out on the beach into water deep enough to launch in.
Catagory 5 cyclone Yasi swept through this area at the beginning of the year and the damage of this is still evident with damaged houses and bare looking trees everywhere you look. How wide spread the damage is blows my mind and shows just how big this cyclone was.
Like last year I had some trophies made for some friendly fun. One was “best fish Kurrimine 2011” and the other was “best vermin Kurrimine 2011”. Funny enough I managed to take out both my own trophies with the best red just over 10kg and my monster GT taking the vermin.
We used just over 1300ltrs of fuel in my boat alone and did pretty much the same amount of kilometres on the water. Sure does sound like a lot but was well worth it and look forward to heading back up again soon. Sensational trip and a big thanks to the great bunch of blokes we shared this trip with and to foxy for supplying a great pad to make it all possible. For all the good pics and a detailed report read the next couple issues of BushnBeach magazine.
As you will see in a lot of the pics we are wearing “Wickedfishing” shirts/hats and this is something I have just started up. I have recently purchased the latest camera and editing equipment to make DVD’s and this trip was a good trial to test the equipment out and get some great footage. Hopefully if all goes to plan I will have one or more DVD’s available mid next year covering several different areas and topics. The www.wickedfishing.com.au (wlmailhtml:{6569FA0E-B97E-46E7-BBBF-0D9EA325C454}mid://00000002/!x-usc:http://www.wickedfishing.com.au/) website will be up and running in a couple weeks and will host loads of pics, vids, articles, tips and much more.
Regards,
Greg Lamprecht
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/A1.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011055.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011078.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011068.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011061.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011108.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011171.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/IMG_0165.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011047copy.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011110.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011172.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011132.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011160.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011116.jpg
We recently got back from an outstanding 2 week fishing trip up North Queensland at Kurrimine Beach. Kurrimine is located north of Mission beach/Dunk island and about an hour or so south of Cairns. Foxy bought a block of land up there a few years back and since then decked out a good sized shed and turned it into a comfortable fishing pad. We had been planning on this trip for some time and organised 10 blokes and 2 boats to head north from Brisbane ready for a serious fishing assault. I towed my big Riptide platey up and Reg recently had new Vindicator built so it would join us as well. After 23 hours of towing we reached Kurrimine Beach hassle free and set up ourselves ready for a great fishing holiday.
The weather had been blowing 30knots for 3 weeks straight but luck would have it the next two weeks would produce winds mostly around 10-15knots with the occasional lighter and windier days. We managed to hit the water 9 out of a possible 11 days. 2 of those days were spent on the reefs spearing fish, crays, snorkelling and throwing lures/poppers at GT’s etc. The reef systems are massive up there but also close to the main land so distances we travelled varied from a small 27km to 130km out depending on weather conditions and what area we wanted to fish. The fishing was very slow majority of time but we still experienced some great fishing and awesome experiences. The array of species caught was mind blowing and even the Spanish Macks were being caught on the bottom bashers in 60mtrs of water. Trout were thick on most areas we found along with plenty of reds up to 10kg but they didn’t come easy. We worked hard for our red fish but catching red throat, gold band jobbies, jacks, scarlets, longnose, spangleds, cod and a solid flow of vermin such as trevally, red bass and chinaman kept us very entertained.
I caught and released an estimated 40kg GT while chasing reds in 60mtrs and man this fish gave me plenty of stick on 80lb gear. I was using for the first time a Wilson live fibre sport fishing series “venom” rod which is part of their jigging series so I was able to give this fish a lot of hurt and pull it reasonably quick. I loved this rod so much I didn’t use any other of my overhead rods the whole trip and I highly recommend it. It was such a versatile rod and although it’s designed for jigging I used it for bottom bashing the entire trip.
So many fishing stories came from this trip along with great experiences of snorkelling and catching massive painted cray’s around the bombies which everyone enjoyed. Some other highlights were throwing poppers at a school of fusilers and getting smashed by GTs. Very visual fishing and enjoyable to experience even when you get blown away.
Even launching/retrieving the boats at Kurrimine beach is an experience and although it has a boat ramp it can only be used at a reasonably high tide with your vehicle. To get around this just about every resident has a tractor to launch with and allows you to drive out on the beach into water deep enough to launch in.
Catagory 5 cyclone Yasi swept through this area at the beginning of the year and the damage of this is still evident with damaged houses and bare looking trees everywhere you look. How wide spread the damage is blows my mind and shows just how big this cyclone was.
Like last year I had some trophies made for some friendly fun. One was “best fish Kurrimine 2011” and the other was “best vermin Kurrimine 2011”. Funny enough I managed to take out both my own trophies with the best red just over 10kg and my monster GT taking the vermin.
We used just over 1300ltrs of fuel in my boat alone and did pretty much the same amount of kilometres on the water. Sure does sound like a lot but was well worth it and look forward to heading back up again soon. Sensational trip and a big thanks to the great bunch of blokes we shared this trip with and to foxy for supplying a great pad to make it all possible. For all the good pics and a detailed report read the next couple issues of BushnBeach magazine.
As you will see in a lot of the pics we are wearing “Wickedfishing” shirts/hats and this is something I have just started up. I have recently purchased the latest camera and editing equipment to make DVD’s and this trip was a good trial to test the equipment out and get some great footage. Hopefully if all goes to plan I will have one or more DVD’s available mid next year covering several different areas and topics. The www.wickedfishing.com.au (wlmailhtml:{6569FA0E-B97E-46E7-BBBF-0D9EA325C454}mid://00000002/!x-usc:http://www.wickedfishing.com.au/) website will be up and running in a couple weeks and will host loads of pics, vids, articles, tips and much more.
Regards,
Greg Lamprecht
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/A1.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011055.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011078.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011068.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011061.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011108.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011171.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/IMG_0165.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011047copy.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011110.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011172.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011132.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011160.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg161/Greg_L/Kurrimine%202011/Kurrimine2011116.jpg