billfish bliss at hervey bay m&g

[Jigsrule]

Well done boys. A very memorable trip indeed

[Humdinger]

forgot what more would you want for a great birthday

[Reefmaster]

With the predicted weather forecast I decided to head up Wed night and slip out Thursday morning. The sea had glassed out by lunchtime and we were picking up some good fish but the sharks were flogging the hell out of us on just about every spot. We still managed some good fish including some nice reds and good mixed bag of reefies.





I dropped the underwater camera down on a spot where sharks were giving us grief and captured some great footage. Some big sharks cruised past the camera while red emperor, morwong, amberjack, green jobfish and hussar were in plain view.






I came back to that spot just on dark hoping the sharks may have moved on. Trent pulled this awesome red just under 17kg on the first drop so to say we were happy was an understatement.

[Reefmaster]

The next day was pretty quiet so we decided to have troll for some Billies and the rest of the Ausfish gang were already getting among them closer in. As the other guys have stated the action was insane with loads black marlin being caught left right and centre. We had 3 or more fighting over the lures and double hooks were a common sight. We trolled for just over 2 hours and ended up going 31-18-8 which was just crazy. I ended up with 4, Trent 3 and the Oldman 1. We trolled Pakula cockroaches in Lumo and purple (frigate) and micro sprockets in lumo all on 8kg line. We broke one gamagatsu SL12's hook and bent the tips on a couple dojo hooks as well which didn't help our conversion rate as I'm not sure how long the hooks were damaged for.

A lot of the below pics are screen shots off my video camera.














Regards,
Greg

[netmaker]

thats a monster red and some top pics mate.

[Humdinger]

wasn't that bait ball huge

[fishfeeder]

Was a great weekend and when was the next one ??

Some awesome photos and fish there and I can't wait for cobiaman's book on all you need to know about catching Marlin hits the shelf in a week or two...

I think Tangles is going to do up a report of our efforts, which i think was good for our first trip to that area...

Thanks again to all for a fantastic weekend on the water..

Cheers
Brett

[Humdinger]

ok i'll bite . why is muddy not liking our posts ? is it because he's at work
sorry anthony we'll try to wait for you next time

[marvin]

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I had a bit of trouble believe it or not on getting one person to come out with me and my young bloke Brodie for an overnight trip up to Rooneys Point and the Break Sea Spit area. As soon as school finished Friday at 3pm I picked up Brodie and the first words he said was " Are we going Dad are we?" Yes mate, we are, you should have seen his slow dragged out steps change into something lick an olympic sprinter... He was yelling at his mates as he left the school grounds, " See ya Monday Tyson, I'm going Marlin fishing with my Dad" Brought a wonderful smile to my face to see the excitment and anticipation he displayed. We shot off home, got out of the school clothes, put on our Ausfish shirts, hooked on the boat and were departing Bundy by 4pm with Dwane as our third crew member. Who had to give up his cricket match on Sunday if he went fishing... Decisions decisions... We arrived at Urangan harbour just before 6pm, so with no mucking around we launched White Horse 2 in the wet stuff and headed off to Moon Point and then began our run up the inside the island to Rooneys point. We hugged the island and travelled up doing 30 knots in glassy calm seas. We arrived before 8pm and met up with the boys on the northern side of the point, it was a mini Ausfish boat city, so after we asked permission to join up onto Bulls anchoring system, a cold beverage was shared by all. The barby que was kicked into gear with rump steak burgers and snags with tomato sauce on bread filling the gap between the beverages. The boys that had fished that day were soo excited about the days results, I did not hear one sulking story from anyone, maybe except for Muddytoes.... sorry mate... There were smiling faces everywhere... We hit the sack by 10pm and had a great sleep in the calm sheltered waters about 30 meters from the beach. By 4am we were on our way towards the 13 mile crossing, the run out was a bit choppy, but we pressed on steadily. When we hit the outside of the spit, the lures were put in and our trolling was began with Brodie on first strike, it didn't take too long before we had billfish attacking the skirts, we had two or three spikes sticking out of the water as they checked out each lure before one decided to smash the long corner. A 6" tropic angler dark blue skirt, the teasers were pulled in, then the other lines were cleared as Brodie picked up the rod as the Black marlin was leaping off in the distance. He was telling me to chase it after it took a 100 meters or so of line off before we slowed the boat down whilst clearing the deck. He played it to perfection and the 1.7meter little black was brought boat side, usually we would tag the fish and disconnect it in the water, but I just wanted to get it in for a couple quick pictures so he could show Mum what he had caught... The little guy was trembling like an Etec with a busted injector...LOL... He held it up for the photo's and then we tagged it and swam it boat side until Brodie said "OK Dad he's good to go" He gave the fish a loving pat as he let the bill go and the fish swam back into the depths. High fives all round. One of my proudest moments, watching my son release a marlin at the age of 12 years.
Well next fish hooked up was a wahoo on the rob gaden bluewater qantas colour diver that we run short in the prop wash, Dwane was tickled pink as he had not caught one of these speedsters before. My turn on strike came and went with only a stirke but no hookup, Brodie was back into it with the screaming of the short rigger, a nice Mahi Mahi was leaping out of the water with the skirt lure hanging out of its mouth. Margie loves the taste of these fish since our hooney moon game fishing trip in Fiji 14 years ago, she had asked Brodie to catch her one before we left, and happy days he did... This one came into the boat and went onto the ice immediately.
We trolled out to some reef structure and decided a bottom fish for a couple hours would be worth a try, we dropped the lines down in 55 meters and landed a mixed catch of Nannygai, snapper, wrasse, hussar, mouri cod, thumbies that gave us about 10kg of fillets after the clean up back at home.
We trolled over the spit bommie area after lunch for an hour but only managed a few follows from trevally. We called it a day around 330pm to allow enough time to make the 51 nautical mile run back to the harbour... We made the offer to off load my 100 litres of extra fuel that I had put in as reserve, and the boat Anger Management was happy to take it on board as they were becoming low and were then able to fish the next morning for a few more hours to hopefully increase their catch to over 20 tagged billies for the weekend.
The run back to the ramp was very pleasant again at 30 knots running down the western side of Fraser to avoid the short chop that the bay is renound for. We pulled up to the ramp just after dark, to catch up with Phill and a few of the other boys and girls who were kicking back after a great couple days on the water.
I used 310 liters of fuel to cover 160 nautical miles by the GPS trip log, averaging 1lt per km... Brodie was still jumping out of his skin with his excitment of the days achievments. As we drove away from the harbour car park, he said "Thanks again Dad for taking me out to catch my first Marlin, I hope we can do it again one day".... With in 5 minutes of driving he was snoring totally buggered from our 24 hours on the water, but I bet he was having sweet dreams of the Marlin, the mahi mahi, the snapper, the wahoo, the yellow kings, the barby with the other boats, the hand shakes from total strangers back at the ramp congratulating him on his efforts and the life long memories we made together as part of the Inaugral 2012 Roonies Point/Hervey Bay/Break Sea Spit Ausfish Meet and Greet.
Thanks to everyone who attended and I am so happy for each and every one of you regardless of the fish you caught or lost, Trips like these are where your dreams become transformed into your memories. Best wishes, Kev and Brodie.

[Chamelion]

RE: Anger management... I went down to the sunshine coast very early friday morning and saw it heading north (very eye catching rig). Would you believe it, saw not too far from the first sighting today (sunday evening) on the way home! I hope nothing was amiss, they were on the side of the road rather stationary.

[Funchy]

To all that posted of their exploits on this thread... thanks! Great report with memories to last a lifetime.

Marvin, how good is it when our young blokes say thanks for a memorable day on the water?? It just not get any better than that!!!

[burleygu]

To put it nicely you are all a bunch of ba$tard$!!!!!

Bloody great fishing guys.

[MEG-A-BITE]

Well done guys,looks like a fishing mecca ATM.

[tropicrows]

Well what a trip, another epic. Great times great fishing all with a great bunch of blokes, thanks Bill.

The trip up HB was a bit slow, first up Bull1 had brake issues on the trailer, something about a brake falling off, then with the weight of the new yammie on humdingers boat slowing down the convoy. In the end we got there where we were greeted with a feed of prawns from Dave (netmaker).

Up early next day and off the Roonies, let the fishing commence. Bill & I stated trolling like the rest of the boats, out from the 13 mile crossing and after a few hours of no fishing in the boat we thought the others had hidden those bent yellow things somewhere below deck. After a quick search we came up empty, a change of plan was needed so we trolled away from the other boats but that didn’t work either. So we went back and finally had some success, what fun we had smiles all round my first black marlin.

Next it was off the hit the reefies where we caught a good mixed bag, along with getting smoked a few times and losing more lead than Broken Hill. We all meet up a Roonies that night had some beers and burnt snags while on another boat were having wagu steak, salad and red wine (Tim)
Up early next day (for me anyway) a quick coffee and Fishfeeder & Tangles followed us out thru the 4 mile “that was fun” not dangerous by any means just pretty sloppy. We spent the day chasing reefies for another good mixed bag. In the afternoon met up with Murf & Tim and we all travelled back to Roonies together. We arrived at 5.30 pm to find no one home ???. So it was just the three boat for the night, more beer and food, plenty of chitt chatt then off to bed. Sunday morning it was up early and time to head for home. Bill can fill in the gaps and fuel, km covered etc etc.

Thanks again to everyone who attended and put the M&G together.

[madmackrel]

Hey Bill and Bruce nice shirts fellas,i know where you blokes get these now saw some guys at roonies market real characters