. We headed for Fraser on the Wednesday before the comp started (Midnight Saturday starting time) with the new boat still being worked on right up until we left. We had a crew of five this year consisting of my old man his mate Andy, Rob (maccamania) and Foxy (dfox). Foxy had only recently just purchased a new V8 turbo diesel landcruiser ute and this was given the duty of towing the new boat to our destination and didn’t it do a great job
. The trip up the island wasn’t that bad although we had to go up and around the first lot of rocks as the water was pushing a little to high which meant gently rock hopping our way through with no worries. Indian head was a breeze and the best I had ever seen it with very moist sand and a gentle slop up into the track making for a trouble free run for most. Like other years there’s a problem left hand corner on one of the tracks a km or so past champagne pools and this become our first problem. The corner turns left reasonably sharp and houses a 4 foot vertical bank holding shrubs, sticks and small stumps making the corner hard to pass without pulling the boat into the bank and causing major paint damage. We have a fairly lengthy draw bar on the trailer so there is a fair distance between the rear 4x4 wheels and the trailer wheels so taking the corner as wide as possible with the fourby was the plan but not an easy task with the rear wheels sliding down into the tracks. We snatched the rig up to maccas 4x4 and after some great driving by the boys they managed to pull the boat through with only a couple soft plants sliding down the side and only an inch or so off some nasty stumps that would have made the paint job look very second hand. After arriving we soon learnt that we weren’t the only ones who struggled on that corner and many had damaged their good paint jobs to that nasty corner.
The 4 days we got out weren’t all that crash hot and it blew a good 15-20 knots the whole time and rained also but at least it was fishable even though I drove the boat all day long backing up on spots so the boys could keep the baits in strike zone for longest possible time. I think I only had about 10 drops for the whole trip but I got some nice fish on those even if the rod holder caught a nice red at one point while I netted 3 other fish the boys pulled up. After hitting many marks I had found previously it was soon apparent the fishing was slow so I knew I had to find new ground. It was a bit of a gamble travelling some pretty big distances both north and south of Waddy point but it paid off in the end with a couple of spots producing plenty of good reds, red throat, coronation trout, blue Maori cod, Maori cod, Amberjack and other assorted reef fish. At some stages we had 4 way hook ups on nice reds, which makes for good fishing and the effort well worth it
. Andy was trying out his new Shimano electric reel which made for some good laughs and interesting viewing but in all seriousness was extremely important for Andy to fish with after having limited movement in his right arm after being ripped off and reattached in a terrible work accident. Foxy got a Red Throat that went 4.34kg on the first day of the comp and saw him on the leader board which earned him a pathetic little spinning combo that would only be good for catching bait (sorry it’s a sore point of ours) but was later knocked off by a 4.37kg fish and then some bigger ones later in the week. We caught about 25 goods reds during 3 days of the comp with the biggest a very nice fish but in poor condition and going just under 12kg. We weren’t complaining and the quantity made up for it and we threw at least one or two legal ones back a day to upset some blokes we knew (sorry Morgan it was foxys doing)
. The 4th day out we spent chasing a big Red Throat sweetlip on some rough ground but our persistence and patience didn’t help us and we couldn’t find one big enough for the board but we tried our hardest. After that the weather turned nasty and I felt sorry for all the people who were camping and got hammered with those cyclonic conditions. After all the reports of people having a terrible time getting down the beach Friday night we were pleasantly surprised to find our trip down the beach on Saturday a breeze and better then on the way up. I have some video footage but the camera died just before we started slaying the fish but I will try get some footage together soon and post it.
.(didn’t even mark the paint) We managed to free him after some work and 10 minutes later he was back for more. Not a real bright bird that one.
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Lots of people waiting for some action at the indian head track
Some of the riptide boys trying to get there way through the tracks. The tight left hand bend caused some big issues this year and damaged lots of paint jobs
Unfortunately many peoples boats ended up with scratches down the site like this due the nasty left hand corner about 1km past champagne pools.
The trailer under this AMM was a mess. It was missing the front axle assem and the rear axle was bent like a bannana. It stayed like that all week
"whats the time"
VHF CHANNEL 21
he he he ... (Greg had nailed me for the same thing in a BNB article a while back).
