marvin
08-02-2012, 03:32 PM
767827678176780Hi all, After posting the vacancy for one crewy on Ausfish, with no takers, I managed to find a bloke who had never caught a Red Emperor before and when I asked him if he wanted to catch one in the morning, he said is a fishes but water tight.... so off we went. Departed Bundy at 0700hrs, heading out past the Round Hill headland at 0900hrs after bacon and egg burgers from the servo for breakfast.
We set the GPS for a little patch that a trawler mate gave me for a carton of Millers Chill, he said the mark was worth a carton, so I paid up with the beer in advance....:-?
A good hour run out at 25 knots in a beautifully calm sea had us excited like little kids in a candy shop. We decided on a drift first up to see what mother nature would provide for us, and a nice steady straight drift line to the southeast was began. This way we could cover the surrounding area with a bait on the bottom rather than sounding around for an hour. The bait jigs went over and all we could catch were 35cm hussar, mmmmm have to slab them I guess as a livie over a foot long mite be a bit too big for a Red thing....:P
We were using 50lb main line, a number 10 ball sinker above a swivel on a 45cm 100lb trace to two 7/0 snell rigged Dynatec chemically sharped hooks.
One crewy out of the 4 of us was using a double dropper paternoster style rig, as he likes eating parrot fish, so that was his job was to catch some mixed reef fish for his lovely wife that has a sweet tooth for the venus fishies.
On the first drift we got 4 hussar, 3 parrot, 3 grinners and a 7kg Red Emperor on a butterflied Hussar. :D;D
That worked well we thought, so back a mile we went and moved over about 50 feet to restart another drift. So this we did for the next couple of hours marking good shows and big bites on the GPS as we covered the new ground. We found that the patch was about 60 meters wide and very patchy, with a sandy bottom in between outcrops of 1-2 meter high bottom growth with the fish only right ontop of the growth patches. We tried to anchor but they were that small that being 5 meter off the mark would get us grinners and nothing else.
Forth drift over the now marked track with a better choice of baits, half a grinner head end, with the knife ran up to the gills making for a lovely butterflied grinner about 7 inches in size and the tail ends were slabbed and used for the parrot fisher....;)
The rod buckled over and Peter the first timer, was grunting some sort of noise that should probably only be found in a toilet cubicle, he nearly slipped over trying to keep it up, pump and wind steadily mate, the sharks won't worry you....::)
I got the video cam out to film what ever this stressing thing was, as it came into few, I called it for a "Red Thing",,,, as it came up in the clear deep blue water, Pete could not believe his eyes, into the net slipped a Red Emperor just under 12kgs.:o
Happy days and high fives all around. Over the next couple hours we only got one more red there and a few more parrot and half a dozen hussar for baits later on.
We then headed to the Stuart Shoals area east of Musgrave to the spot where a mate caught a pair of 15kg reds a few weeks back, they were his fish, and no others lived in that area, after 4 drift passes not a show.:'(
We anchored up on a ledge just on sunset to have a beer and cook some fish and chips watching the sun set past the island on a glassy calm afternoon is truely a special thing to enjoy with a few mates.
After a quick fish and chip fold over, ( grilled parrot fish in butter, with thinly sliced potatoes lightly fried put down one side of a piece of fresh bread with the vacant side of the bread folded over to make the top of the sandwich, thus the "fish n chip fold overs"...lol.
The Red Throat Emperors began to take a liking to some whole small cuttelfish and we put on half a dozen in a short while just before the run stopped. We had a couple more shifts in this area and another drift, but to no avail.
We decided to head back to the first spot, as we were confident that the Red Things should be there buy the shows we found that morning.
We drifted agin along the same lines and managed to tally up 7 legal reds in the next 2 hours. By midnight the fish gods turned off the switch, we did another 5 drifts in and around the area with nothing interested in taking a bait, not even a hussar...
The guys took this chance to catch some zzzzzz's while one kept fishing and on look out as a trawler was working in the distance. As the sun came up, we tried the Mussy ledges for a trout but had no luck on the orange things either, we headed south to the Red Fern area for a cople more parrot and 2 grass sweetlip in the next 2 hours. It was decided at 0800hrs we were tickled pink with our catch, so the outside bar mark was entered and a trip home at 30 knots in a glassy calm sea topped off the two days on the water for us.
What I learnt from this trip, looking for new ground is a must ever time I go out, grinners are great Red Thing biats when the head end is butterflied and jiggled in the right areas that a Red should be, (near hussars and Trigger Fish)...;) And that the fish will often bite for only few hours a day, so if you can work out when this is, be on the best spot for this time, inbetween is when you should be sounding around or having a beverage and a nap, because when the Red Things are hungry, you will want to be ready for that couple hours of great memory making fishing. :):)
We set the GPS for a little patch that a trawler mate gave me for a carton of Millers Chill, he said the mark was worth a carton, so I paid up with the beer in advance....:-?
A good hour run out at 25 knots in a beautifully calm sea had us excited like little kids in a candy shop. We decided on a drift first up to see what mother nature would provide for us, and a nice steady straight drift line to the southeast was began. This way we could cover the surrounding area with a bait on the bottom rather than sounding around for an hour. The bait jigs went over and all we could catch were 35cm hussar, mmmmm have to slab them I guess as a livie over a foot long mite be a bit too big for a Red thing....:P
We were using 50lb main line, a number 10 ball sinker above a swivel on a 45cm 100lb trace to two 7/0 snell rigged Dynatec chemically sharped hooks.
One crewy out of the 4 of us was using a double dropper paternoster style rig, as he likes eating parrot fish, so that was his job was to catch some mixed reef fish for his lovely wife that has a sweet tooth for the venus fishies.
On the first drift we got 4 hussar, 3 parrot, 3 grinners and a 7kg Red Emperor on a butterflied Hussar. :D;D
That worked well we thought, so back a mile we went and moved over about 50 feet to restart another drift. So this we did for the next couple of hours marking good shows and big bites on the GPS as we covered the new ground. We found that the patch was about 60 meters wide and very patchy, with a sandy bottom in between outcrops of 1-2 meter high bottom growth with the fish only right ontop of the growth patches. We tried to anchor but they were that small that being 5 meter off the mark would get us grinners and nothing else.
Forth drift over the now marked track with a better choice of baits, half a grinner head end, with the knife ran up to the gills making for a lovely butterflied grinner about 7 inches in size and the tail ends were slabbed and used for the parrot fisher....;)
The rod buckled over and Peter the first timer, was grunting some sort of noise that should probably only be found in a toilet cubicle, he nearly slipped over trying to keep it up, pump and wind steadily mate, the sharks won't worry you....::)
I got the video cam out to film what ever this stressing thing was, as it came into few, I called it for a "Red Thing",,,, as it came up in the clear deep blue water, Pete could not believe his eyes, into the net slipped a Red Emperor just under 12kgs.:o
Happy days and high fives all around. Over the next couple hours we only got one more red there and a few more parrot and half a dozen hussar for baits later on.
We then headed to the Stuart Shoals area east of Musgrave to the spot where a mate caught a pair of 15kg reds a few weeks back, they were his fish, and no others lived in that area, after 4 drift passes not a show.:'(
We anchored up on a ledge just on sunset to have a beer and cook some fish and chips watching the sun set past the island on a glassy calm afternoon is truely a special thing to enjoy with a few mates.
After a quick fish and chip fold over, ( grilled parrot fish in butter, with thinly sliced potatoes lightly fried put down one side of a piece of fresh bread with the vacant side of the bread folded over to make the top of the sandwich, thus the "fish n chip fold overs"...lol.
The Red Throat Emperors began to take a liking to some whole small cuttelfish and we put on half a dozen in a short while just before the run stopped. We had a couple more shifts in this area and another drift, but to no avail.
We decided to head back to the first spot, as we were confident that the Red Things should be there buy the shows we found that morning.
We drifted agin along the same lines and managed to tally up 7 legal reds in the next 2 hours. By midnight the fish gods turned off the switch, we did another 5 drifts in and around the area with nothing interested in taking a bait, not even a hussar...
The guys took this chance to catch some zzzzzz's while one kept fishing and on look out as a trawler was working in the distance. As the sun came up, we tried the Mussy ledges for a trout but had no luck on the orange things either, we headed south to the Red Fern area for a cople more parrot and 2 grass sweetlip in the next 2 hours. It was decided at 0800hrs we were tickled pink with our catch, so the outside bar mark was entered and a trip home at 30 knots in a glassy calm sea topped off the two days on the water for us.
What I learnt from this trip, looking for new ground is a must ever time I go out, grinners are great Red Thing biats when the head end is butterflied and jiggled in the right areas that a Red should be, (near hussars and Trigger Fish)...;) And that the fish will often bite for only few hours a day, so if you can work out when this is, be on the best spot for this time, inbetween is when you should be sounding around or having a beverage and a nap, because when the Red Things are hungry, you will want to be ready for that couple hours of great memory making fishing. :):)