MONSTER Spaniard. Sea Fever does it again!

[FisHard]

Straight up, I want to declare that I've got no financial interest in Sea Fever Sportfishing Whitsundays. I've posted a few trip reports of my adventures onboard with them and just got back from a 4 day run from Airlie Beach to Cairns. I'm not going to bore you with the blow by blow description, but here's the lowdown:
Weather: Glamorous! Only touched 15kts for a few hours. 90pc of the trip, less than 5 kts!!! Hot.
Trip route: Ash was taking the boat (Reel Work) from Airlie to Cairns to fish several weeks of the heavy tackle Marlin season. We discussed doing a trip, just as a private trip with everyone sharing costs. Our target was Flinders Reef, approx 160nm from Airlie and some 120nm offshore! We fished Flinders Monday afternoon, all day Tuesday and Wednesday morning. We steamed overnight Wednesday back to Noggin Reef, approx 40nm from Cairns and fished there till heading to Yorkeys Knob on Thursday arvo.
The Fishing!: OMG to be honest, Flinders was disapointing. We got Dogtooth, heaps of Red Bass and a stack of Big Coral Trout, but only a handful of GTs. Btw, we only fish with lures, either poppers, jigs or plastics. We did not have any bait onboard! We worked very hard for what we got at Flinders, but scored some crackin fish. I upgraded my PB on GT: 35-40kg. I also got a 12kg± GT on 12lb braid. Ken scored a lovely Maori Wrasse (popper) we got a single Wahoo (15kg) and had a 300-400lb Black take a pusher, but bust the 80lb line mysteriously. We found a handful of smallish Dogtooth Tuna, but the are tough critters to deal with. I scored a nice little pup on the 12lb gear that was very lucky! It was suprising to see how many quality Trout would come up and nail a big popper. We realeased amost everything, because all of our crew were flying home out of Cairns These popper munchers were average size of 5 kg at least. Red Bass were also prevelant, and all big models 6 kg plus.
We made the call the head back towards the GBR to fish Thursday so we could find some more GTs. Boy, did we find them! We reset the Seafever GT record for 1 day to 22 fish. Awesome fishing!!! This was at Noggin Reef. All credit to Ash's guiding skills here. He hadn't fished this area before and put us straight into the action. He really is a superb captain. Ok, so we nailed 22 GTs in a day (nice fish too, mostly in the 20kg range) but checkout the pic below for the trophy fish of the trip. We estimated the weight of that Spaniard to go at least 35kg, maybe more. I'm 6'4" tall to give you some scope of its enormity. I got it on a stickbait casting into a school of bait hanging aroung a bombie. The fight was underwelming on heavy GT casting gear, but when it came to the boat, we were all shocked to see such a monster Spaniard. It was a monster!!! After a few pics, she swam away: a great result! On top of all of this was another heap of mixed reefies like a triple hookup on Passion Fruit Trout, some big Yellow Lip Emporer, a handful of Red bass and a couple of Shark Mackeral. That day at Noggin was awesome beyond imagination.
Btw, Ash is in Cairns for about a month and has a few spare days available for charter. If you're up that way, look him up for either the heavy tackle thing or some surface action around the reef.

[Richo1]

Great report sounds like an awesome trip. Monster Spanish as you said. GBR and Coral Sea is fantastic when the weather is like that.
Hope to get some similar results at the Diamond islets next month 😃

[FisHard]

Good luck out there Richo! There was bugger all current or bait at Flinders and it wasn't as good as we had hoped. I think Diamond would be a better bet from all reports. Good luck on the Doggies, they are wickedly cunning!

[robtarr]

Thanks for the report....awesome
Also thanks for the heads-up I'll be at Palm Cove for first week of Nov. will have to see if Ash has any room left for a day trip
Cheers Rob

[FisHard]

Thanks Rob. The report doesn't really convey how dam amazing this trip really was! Whilst the fishing at Flinders wasn't red hot, it is the most beautiful patch of water I've seen anywhere in the world! It makes the hairs on my arms stand up when I think abou cruising over the shallows. at some points, we were well within casting rang of the reef edge, but had 300m under us! We are sorting out dates for next year now. Looking at flying into Lizard is and exploring from there. If you can make up a group to do a trip up or back, it would be well worth it.

[Goodoo haven]

Well done mate. Nice fish.

[MEG-A-BITE]

Some awesome fish there,well done.