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View Full Version : My first trip over the wide bay bar October 2011



marvin
31-10-2011, 10:50 PM
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“Get Reel”

The October 2011 coral reef fin fish closure was slotted into start on my first of 3 rostered days off, so the need for a fish over tookthe need to work extra shifts on my days off. A mate who has recently imported a 26 foot Boston Whaler that is poweredby twin 225hp Mercury Optimax outboards rang and offered me a trip fishingoutside the wide bay bar off shore from Double Island Point. The boat holds 720litres of fuel, and has two10 litre oil injection bottles. Thereare four batteries, an electric anchor winch, and a HDS10 sounder plotter combothat filled up the dash board along with the cd player, VHF radio and a spareGPS just in case.

The boat has a 3meter beam and with 4 people on board wenever touched one another’s personal space and had to almost make a phone callto talk to the guys on the other side of the boat. In the cabin was a microwave, fridge, sink,full sized toilet, two king single bunks and a ¾ double bed under the helmarea. This boat is truly a seriousoffshore fishing weapon that ate up the ocean swells and the slop and chop withease.

The day started at 0130hrs when the alarm went off and by0200hrs myself and Kev Hughes were on our way down the Bruce highway to HerveyBay where we loaded our gear into the boat and teamed up with Rony Hunt and hismate Kent Walker who is the owner of the boat we were going out on. The boat’s name is “GET REEL”. Into the Nissan patrol and south we headedthrough Maryborough and down to Rainbow beach to launch from Carol Point rampon the 7am high tide. The coffee shopand bakery just prior to launching was a welcomed pit stop as we prepared foran adventure into the unknown.

This was the first time any of us had fished outside thewide bay bar so some pre trip research was needed to ensure we had some localknowledge on the bar conditions and the VMR contact details and VHF channelsfor the safety side of things. The guyson Ausfish helped me out with some GPS marks for a range of areas and distancesoff shore from 3 mile bait grounds out to 35 mile big red marks. The excitement was electrifying as we clearedthe bar in open water, that’s not living Barry this is Living!

First stop was a wreck for some livies, so the bait jigswent over and all we could catch were 2kg trevally, not a whip tail, yakka or slimeyto be found. We had cuttlefish heads, 6inch fresh squid, and frozen yellow tail in the esky so we headed out about 8miles from the bar to the first GPS spot. A good show came up on the 10” screen of the Lowrance and after 3 driftswe had 3 small snapper on board and an undersized pearl perch that wentstraight back to his home. The sea wasabout 1.2mts with no chop just a swell coming from the east north east. Directly into this swell was the path of thechosen marks out towards the shelf.

We tried 3 marks on the way out for about an hour and a halfeach having a look around and marking a few nice shows with 2 meter bottom risescovered in arches. A couple of mossesperch were found and a pearl perch around 45cm but no big fish could be tempted. We continued heading further from the bar insearch of some big fish or a few more snapper and pearl perch would havesufficed. We ended up about 33 miles outand by mid to late afternoon the northerly wind had started to pick up around15kts producing some scattered white caps and this made the drift speedimpossible to keep our baits on the bottom. The ocean current was ragging and after an hour of trying 3 x 10 ouncesinkers on 50 lb braid still unable to reach the 60 meter bottom we elected tocall it off out wide and head back in towards the 45 meter areas that producedthe few snapper and a couple of small pearlies.

By night fall the wind and seas had reached a good 20 knotsand 1.8meter troughs with white horses on top. This continued through until 2am, making anchoring on the isolated fishshows quite a challenge and catching a cat nap for the older guys onboard a bituncomfortable. That was until theirheads hit the nice soft pillow and the full sized beds eased away their wearyfeelings of fatigue.

We had at least one person awake all the time, keeping aneye out for container ships and other boats, we had a trawler come within 100meters of us at 130am before he turned and trawled back away from usagain. We had the anchor on its way upand ended up moving a couple of miles away from him to prevent any chance of amishap.

As the morning wore on, we made our way down towards the wolfrock area in front of Rainbow beach sand cliffs and fished some marks that Igot from Smithy, but again to no avail, the wind was dropping out and by 430amwith the break of dawn the fish were still not playing the game that we werethere to play. Another 3 moves and allwe could manage were two more undersized pearl perch and a couple of smalljewies.

It had been a long night and with a total tally of 14 small fishon the ice, we had travelled over 120 miles in total trying a variety of marksthat had good shows on them, but the fish just would not bite. By 7am it was decided to head for home, whilethe bar was flat and the creek was full of water again near the top of thetide.

We did the ground hog day thing back at the bakery forcoffee and bacon and egg burgers before the 2 hr drive back to Hervey Bay andthen after the wash up another hour and a half back to Bundy.

We were just 10kms out of Rainbow when on the top of a crestwe blew a tyre on the boat trailer, and Kent had forgotten to put in the spare,so at 8am me and Hughsey were drinking cold beer and watching buses full ofbackpackers heading towards the barge at Inskip point all while we were in theback of a 26 foot boat sitting on a trailer in the middle of no where. We cleaned the fish for a grand total of 5kgof fillets then had another beer, tidied up our belongings, had another beerand then snuck in a half hour kip without the rock n rolling that we had duringthe night while waiting for the other two guys to come back from the tyrerepair shop.

We pulled up at the Caltex servo at Nikkenbar and put in 555litres of unIeaded fuel back into the boat at a cost of $810, the opitmax oil,bait, ice and vehicle fuel put the cost of the trip at $1100, that was notincluding the replacement tyre, or the $300 bait board station that was not fittedon correctly and was lost over board during one of the many moves somewhere outnear the 30 mile marks. So at around$1500 for the trip, the 5kg of fish turned out to be worth $300 a kg. But they sure did taste nice.

We arrived back in Bundy around 2pm and had another beer whilstdigesting the adventure we had just been part of. I had the choice to work an overtime shiftearning $600 but instead I chose to go fishing costing us $400 each, but hey, Iwould do it again tomorrow, as they say sometimes it is good to just “Get Reel”.

In the end after a challenging trip like this one is all doneand dusted - just remember “Your worst day fishing is still much better thanyour best day at work” and it doesn’t matter all that much that we did not fillthe eskies, but we were just thank full for the opportunity to explore a newarea to us, and fish with a few mates when we had the chance to have a shortbreak from our often busy and hectic working lives. Wonder what we will do in November when thenext reef closures are on if it involves a boat called Get Reel and a few goodmates, then our choices are endless.....

marvin
31-10-2011, 10:54 PM
I appologise for the joined words, when I copied it from Word processor, it links up words that are separated in the original file, anyway, you will hopefully be able to decifer it with a few beverages on board. Sorry it was so long, not really a report more of a novel, sorry guys, anyway some one might enjoy the read while the wind is blowing...., cheers kev.

TREVELLY
01-11-2011, 05:30 AM
A good read Marvin - you did it tough and still came out smiling and wanting more - great stuff.

Yep $300 a kilo - we've all done that and more.

Didn't see any surface fish in your travels?

Wonder where the macks are.

Apollo
01-11-2011, 06:12 AM
Good report Kev and just part of life's wonderful adventure. WB Bar is a long bugger hey!

Steve

Bull
01-11-2011, 06:42 AM
Thanks for the report Kev.
It sounds like you had a pretty good time out fishing on an awesome boat with some good mates.

Let me know when your thinking of going again and I might be able to tow my rig up and come out as well.

Cheers Bull

murf
01-11-2011, 09:36 AM
always good to be on the water enjoying life, you do a lot of learning when the fish won't play

top stuff Kev and good luck next time :)

cheers Murf

outwide1
01-11-2011, 10:12 AM
Good report mate,always a good read especially when it involves DI.
Some would have you beleive its easy fishing up there(or down there for you guys)
Goosd trip by the sounds of it.
Mick

fishfeeder
01-11-2011, 10:24 AM
Don't worry about the length of the report as it was well put together and a great read. That boat looks like a fishing weapon but not to sure I would like the fuel bill though.

Keep the reports coming

Cheers
Brett

marvin
01-11-2011, 01:31 PM
Thanks Guys, Not a single surface fish or bird seen anywhere Trevally, I did not put out any skirts or surface baits though, was hoping for some red things.... Appollo the bar was pretty flat for us heading back in, and going out the skipper went left of the line, and we had to hurdle a few, like about 35 waves before we were well clear, I did say that trawler over there is coming in, do you think we should be over to the right more, he was following another trailer boat, that looked like it knew where he had to go, wasn't a problem with the top of the tide and light winds in the morning, but would not like to be off the track when it was standing up or breaking on the tops... Fishfeeder, great boat to fish out of but wished it was someone elses credit card we were swipping at the servo... Averaged 4.5 litres per mile on our rough calculations from the trip, either way, $816 just for unleaded hurts, especially when we were only 33 miles out at the furtherest mark and did not do any trolling and limited sounding, but it is a lot of weight in the hull the outboards are pushing too... Big boats big fuel bills.... Anyway, if we caught a heap of fish it would have been classed as a great therapy trip, without the fish it was still classed as a good therapy trip. Thanks for your kind words of encouragement, We are planning the next trip with this boat to Musgrave area if the weather is good and the Coral Reef fin fish closures are not on when we get time off together in November. I have got the Hervey Bay Game Fishing Tournament next weekend Thursday - Sunday, so that is my next trip in Whitehorse 2, so Myself and my same crew from past 2 years will return to hopefully defend our 4 yr winning streak... I'll report on that trip when we get back to Bundy, Hopefully with some pictures and tag reports of spanish, dolphin fish, tuna, cobia, black marlin and sailfish, .... Cheers Kev.

Sheik
01-11-2011, 11:47 PM
Yeah don't worry about the length of the report Kev, really good read. Love fishing over the bar and have done it a fwe times in little tinnies but it's just great to be out there. Not sure I'd know what to do in a 25 footer though. Keep working those spots, they'll turn up sooner or later.
regards jim

jelifish
03-11-2011, 05:02 PM
Love your report Marvin. We did 150km off Wide Bay Bar last Saturday for one keeper but as you said "i'd do it again"

trymyluck
03-11-2011, 06:55 PM
Great report, pity the fish didn't play the game. Was there a reason for launching at Carlo?, Tin Can Bay ramp is much closer but would not be much further from the bar. Wide bay bar can be a bitch and given what you crossed in you wouldn't have too many drama's but even the pro's give it a lot of respect.

I would have been happy to help relay the conversation..............

Mark

PinHead
03-11-2011, 07:12 PM
Great report..have been fishing out there a few times on charters..always get a good feed..but as Mark said..that bar can be a bitch..had one bad trip over it..don't want one like that again.greenies over the top of a 32' boat.

Basstones
04-11-2011, 09:11 AM
Great write up, thanks for taking the time :)

marvin
04-11-2011, 01:00 PM
Great report, pity the fish didn't play the game. Was there a reason for launching at Carlo?, Tin Can Bay ramp is much closer but would not be much further from the bar. Wide bay bar can be a bitch and given what you crossed in you wouldn't have too many drama's but even the pro's give it a lot of respect.

I would have been happy to help relay the conversation..............

Mark
Mark, Because I had not been there before I was relying on the skippers intel, obviously it was a bit o fthe blind leading the blind with regards to the launching area, Smithy made the same comment, will be onto it for next time though. Cheers Kev.

hungry6
04-11-2011, 05:26 PM
That was a very good write up. Sometime, fishing isnt about filling the esky, but it helps.
Atleast you had a good time, that is the main thing. thanks for the read.

Silent
04-11-2011, 06:24 PM
Fishing is priceless...;)

honda900
06-11-2011, 08:26 AM
It was a good read, as you say in the end, your lucky to get the opportunity to do it.

Regards
Honda.