Noosa Wide Tuesday

[Back In Black]

Juna & I went out wide Tuesday, crossing Noosa bar at 6.30. The bar didn't exist. Couldn"t tell where the river & the ocean met it was so calm. Anchor winch failed last trip & my marine mechanic has followed everyone else to the mines, so its still not fixed, & the deckie on the last trip failed to pull in the sea anchor, so after a while at 15knots, it shredded!!! So no anchor or drogue, & the current was running. Two size 11 ball sinkers struggled to find the bottom. Very quiet till the change of tide at lunch time, with only a, you guessed it, a banana fish on board!! Two good snapper hit us both simultaneously & the balance followed over the next 2 hours. My PB snapper at 3.8kg with Junas hitting 2.8kg.Her PB is 4.5kg so I still need to improve. I tend to specialise in the 1 to 2 kg pan size, whilst Juna always land the biggest, so this was a nice turnaround. Conditions sloppy in the morning & calmed right down late afternoon. We did 33 knots all the way back to Noosa. To hell with the fuel!
Saw for the first time a HUGE pod of dolphins , in excess of 100, smashing a bait ball, with terns overhead diving amongst them, covering an area the size of a football field.
Great day, a nice feed, a PB, albeit small to what I see reported here, but I'm still taking it!
Tony

[outwide1]

Nice feed Tony,i like your shed too.lol
We too had a pod dolphins around us on the 36fth line off the pinbar smashing a school of bait.
Awesome sight to see.
Cheers Mick.

[Goodoo haven]

Well done. Some nice fish caught there.

[Back In Black]

Mick,
When I upgraded to the cat, we had to extend the shed by 2.4m in length & add 1.2m to the height. Then it got vandalized by my psycho ex office administrator, hence all the mesh & security, but its a beauty. Anyone who can break into my place & get the boat absolutely deserves it.

Doug,
There would want to be a feed. We would have done 150km all up, but thats part of the fun. We like to go wide so we don't have to endure the car park like conditions on Sunshine Reef.
Tony

[Spectre]

Hi Tony

Thats a good haul of fish ...3.8 kg is a nice fat snapper to.
Sounds like a top day out ...sure beats workin as they say !!!
Is the current running north out there yet ..?
Should be starting to trickle in that direction v soon if not already.

Cheers
Phil

[Back In Black]

Hi Phil,
Yes, it was a northerly current, & fairly strong. I'm just trying to work out how to stop my work interfering with my fishing?? Trouble is I need to work to fill the boat.
Tony

[Spectre]

Roger that ..usually a bit of run to the north is good ..but not when its strong like that !!
Yeah ...a rite pain the the ar$e this work caper.
Bit of an evil necessity eh ...!!!
Weather looks crap for a bit now ...so u did well to get out when u did.

Phil

[Back In Black]

Thats why we went Phil, looking ahead it will be at least a week or more till we crack good enough weather to go wide again. Rang Gary from Frenzy Charters to see the go about our deep sea venture on Saturday, but he said it looks highly doubtful, so we"ll just have to each snapper instead of bar cod & blue eye. Thems the breaks!
Tony

[rosco1974]

nice feed mate..as you said weather is looking crap for sat.got my fingers crossed but i think its going to be called off.was so keen for this trip..owell if sunday is half ok i will be off moreton again
cheers rosco

[Back In Black]

Rosco,
Gary just rang & canned the trip,
Tony

[rosco1974]

no worries mate thanks for the heads up

[Te Whiti]

Well done on the snapper Tony, thats a nice catch.

You said your electric anchor winch, can i ask what brand it was?...I'm just about to have a Stressfree winch installed next week on the cat and hoping that it was a decent brand.

Mark

[Back In Black]

Mark,
Mines a Stressfree. We don't think its the winch itself, but a wiring/cable issue. We have power at the back of the boat, but lose it before it hits the winch. We are really happy with it. Which size winch are you putting in? What size is your cat?
Tony

[Te Whiti]

Tony,

I've only heard good things about the Stressfree winches so I am hoping this little addition will last a while. They're not cheap and with the re moulding of the anchorwell which is being done by Kevlacat to install it, the whole exercise adds up a bit.

We were manually pulling 100 metres of rope and chain off the Hards a couple of weeks ago and that gets old pretty quick.

The boat is a Kevlacat 2400 Offshore and the Stressfree is a Maxi NG 1400.

Mark

[Back In Black]

Mark,
Money well spent I reckon. We had to hand haul a Sarca anchor 85m & I don't want to do that again. You"ll be rapt in it.
Tony

[Still_Dreamin]

Nice fish. How much space do u need for an anchor winch