FNQ road trip 2016

Had an awesome trip in Oct. again with the first stop at 1770. The fishing was tough but still came up with the usual suspects. Some stonker pearlies from east of Sykes. On to Hydeaway Bay for R &R for a day then to Lucinda, god I'll never get sick of that place. We did several trips out of there including a three day trip to Pith and No Name Reefs again, fantastic place. So many options, shallow reef, deep shoals and the shelf edge all within a couple of miles. Speared a cracker of a reef Jack and caught great fish. Plagued by Cobia on a spot just out the front of the jetty one morning, what a problem they were. Hand feeding a 200kg groper at Bramble reef, got a little bit of footage of him but it's not that exciting. Moved on to Mission Beach and did a couple of trips from there, again a great spot and same options. Up to the Daintree and a three day trip to Opal and several other reefs nth of there. Drifting 2m beside a croc in the river while the croc tour boat blundered about on the other side of the river, skipper wasn't happy when he realised we found a lizard to film and he didn't, even though I'd been trying to call him over. Feeling benevolent I went back to the wharf at the ramp and picked up an elderly couple who were passing through and took them over to the croc for a look and some pics, they were so appreciative, I felt all warm and fuzzy having done my good deed for the day. Stayed a half hour too long on the last day at No.1 Ribbon reef, we could see the weather coming but you know how it goes, just one more fish and the forecast wasn't too severe, we still got a bit of a flogging on the way back to the bar in 20kn of SE on the port shoulder. Deckies side so it was OK, sorry Graham. Getting harder to do those multi day trips in a small boat. I'm not going to bore you with more trout photos, but we had great variety of other species, let a stack go and fed so many to the mongrels again. Sharks in trouble? I don't think so. I went as far as putting the shark shield down as my mate let a bait out and landed a 3kg trout first time we tried it. I lifted the s/s as he brought his fish up. Hadn't landed a whole fish for 30min previous. Something to think about.

Tell me how you used the shark shield? Did you put it down there after you hooked the fish or before?


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good report mate. How did you go at hydeaway bay. love that place. we are heading up in march for another 2 week stint. Cheers

Hi fellas,
Josh I'm not a big fan of Hydeaway for fishing. It's 50Nm to decent reefs compared to better options nth and sth of there. Mackerel season can be good inshore around there, a few inshore crays and muddies and you can normally scratch a feed up off the bottom if you put the time in but I normally only stop there because an old mate has a holiday house and we catch up over beers, watch a few sunsets from Monties, tell lies and recharge my batteries from the workout I've given my body by the time I get up there, and prepare for the even bigger workout further nth. Watch out for stingers, every year at least 1 or 2 get belted by irukandji or box jellies around there.
Odes, I know the feeling with shark feeding. I've only tried the shark shield on one trip fishing the paddock nth of Undine. We were copping an absolute flogging from the mongrels, red after trout after red getting eaten so as my mate let his bait down I lowered the S/S down at the same pace and when he hooked up I pulled it up with him. His bait was 38m the S/S was at about 30m. First time we tried it he landed a 3kg trout without any problem but we did still get fish taken after that so I can't prove that it works regularly but it did on this day, couple of reds, couple of nannies and a few trout and jacks. Sharks were bad wherever we went this trip, 1770, Lucinda, Mission, Port Doug, all the same. They're totally out of control. Had macks bitten, red throat, jacks, barracuda, cod, cobia, various emperors, they weren't very fussy this trip even biting each other. The only sure thing was landing red bass and paddletails. did over a thousand Nm and couldn't shake them off anywhere. One particular day they left us alone and it just happened to be a day the trout went nuts. felt like we'd won the lottery.

It suprises me that this problem hasnt got into the mainstream media yet.
It is a phenomena that ive been watching develop for at least the last 5 years, and I just wonder what will ever change it? Conditions for such numbers of sharks must be good. I guess we can only hope that like other animal plagues there comes a tipping point where the plague collapses, and things return to normal?


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Mate, sounds good to go. It's a shame you didn't find time to tame the hammers at Brittomart! Maybe next time! I am however interested in this shark sheild! Would work wonders out at Shark Shoal off the Ville!