So thats what the cape looks like.....

[Short Fuse]

Like most, I have been cursing the constant wind and lack of fishing opportunities. But finally, saw an opportunity on Wednesday and Thursday. Rang my regular deckie and told him to grab his gear and get to my place where I would have the boat ready to roll. We launched from Scarborough about 3.30pm on Wednesday afternoon. It was a bumpy ride across the bay with the easterly swell rolling well into the bay. Comby was nasty on the last of the run out tide with a very shallow sandbank running right out from the island and rolling white water along most of its length. There is a nice gutter though right out beside the Spitfire bank and it averages 9 metres deep, so it was an easy crossing.

Started our fishing by tossing plastics around on the northern end of Brennan's Shoal and immediately started to get into some nice keeper snapper, and they were smashing the plastics mid water.


It did not seem to matter what colour plastic went in the water, and each drift resulted in several fish hitting the plastics, and double hookups were quite common. As the sun set, the fish really turned it on and it was unusual to cast and not result in a hit.


With the moon coming up, I was interested to see how long the fish would stay on the bite on the plastics, but they did shut down quite rapidly and we last couple of drifts only resulted in small fish. As we had 6 reasonable snapper in the ice box, and had released probably over a dozen more fish, the decision was made to not anchor up and bait fish, but to head back and anchor up for the night under Yellowpatch. After a big feed of spag bol, sitting back enjoying a coffee and watching the hordes of yakkas swimming around the stern of the boat in the blue lights, I could not help myself. I sent an SMS to Grant (Moonlighter). "Greetings from the Cape. Snapper in the ice box. Enjoying a Latte at Yellowpatch". I thought the response might have been a bit stronger than it was.

We had a reasonable night at anchor although the swell rolling around North Point did make the boat rock a bit and the old tunnel slap did interrupt the sleep a few times during the night. First light had us back under the Cape looking to see if there were any fish on the rubble. Our first drift saw us get a couple of small fish which went back. As I lined the boat up for the second drift, I noticed a set of nav lights rounding North Point and heading directly towards us. The boat came right up to about 100 metres in front, sounded around and then what I most feared, the rattle of anchor chain over a bollard in the early morning calm. By the time they had pulled up on the pick, we had to wind in out lines and move as we were drifting right down on top of them and by this time were about 30 metres from their bow.

We did a few more drifts around the area, but apart from a couple of small fish, it was strangely deserted for that time of the morning. We ran back to Brennan's and found the snapper a bit more co-operative in the shallows there. At 8 o'clock I decided to head wide chasing pearlies. We found some nice shows along the 100 metre line and by this time the ocean was quite flat and the drift was a nice half knot speed allowing us to cover some country but not having to let huge amounts of line out to stay in contact with the bottom. Ray opened his account with a very nice pearlie that went just over 60cms on the measuring stick.


By the time we had 7 pearlies in the boat, we were starting to attract a bit of attention from the grey suit brigade and while they showed no interest in any small fish hooked, we lost several nice fish to sharks only getting neatly severed heads back to the boat. We pulled the pin, gave the boat a quick tub down and cruised back to Scarborough on a flat calm sea. Over the course of the trip, we only saw 4 other boats out there. We arrived back at Scarborough at 2pm, and I was quite surprised at how deserted the car park was. Somehow, I don't think it will be that deserted today.

I have to say it was a great pleasure to get the boat back in the water after a couple of months of crap weather.

cheers

Jeff

[shaungonemad]

Some nice fish there and a good report.

[Moonlighter]

Well done Jeff.

We had a run in the bay this morning and spent an hour at the Rous for about 45 whiting then Brendan was itching to go to our squid hole, we got over 20 good sized tiger squid until the tide stooped running.

Tell you what, you bring the Pearlies over and we will have a feast of calamari entree, ting starters and pearly to finish off. That would be a fair Good Friday dinner?

What are the poor people eating these days??

[PixieAU]

Thanks for the report