Reply With Quote
I am jealous, my wife would have divorced me by sunset if I come home from fishing by 10pm
Joke aside, what beautiful conditions on the water, well done
Good to see a few more offshore reports being posted on here of late. Here’s a quick report and some pics from a trip off Moreton Sat just gone (9/4/16). I didn’t take a lot of pics and we didn’t catch anything special, nor real decent numbers, but it was a great day out offshore. Oh, and I wanted to keep up my 100% record of posting a report for every Brissy offshore trip I have done within the last 4 years…! (I’ll let you work out what that means)
1st surprise of the day was at the servo early Sat morning, where fuel had jumped 25c/L overnight… just in time for the last weekend of school holiday madness I guess. Bloody thieving mungrels!!!
Headed thru the SPB middle channel with 3 other club boats around 0700 for a “gentleman’s start”. Wow, there has been some big changes in the last few years here hey? The bar was predicably good (given the conditions), but I was surprised at the depth in the middle channel – much deeper than expected (2nd surprise). The plan was to start around the bottom end of some reef in around 60m and work our way north (and deeper if required) to find some of those scaly things with tails, then fish the last of the daylight into the dark up near Moreton, then head round the top and back down to Manly in the dark.
It had been so long since I had been offshore off Moreton we plugged in some ‘top-secret’ starter marks the ‘deckboss’ brought along – as we thought that all the fish on my old marks would had died of old age by now!!
After clearing the bar (bar, what bar?), I set the AP and headed out to the bottom-end mark of our ‘plan A’. As we approached there were 2 boats already very close to the mark, in fact from a way out I could see I had to cancel the AP to stop running over one of the boats. 3rd surprise. Is there really such a thing as secret marks off Moreton anyway?
All good, one was a fellow CC owner who obviously has the same supplier of ‘top-secret’ starter marks, so we ‘hopefully’ stayed far enough away and started a little more west & north than planned, sounding north along the reef from there. Wasn’t long before the sounder was looking real fishy, so we dropped the lines without the chute and started the account.
Hmmmm, those fish mustn’t have been looking at the sounder we were looking at (!!) … or was it… bloody lockjaw…? Yep! For the rest of the day it was hard work to get the esky to reflect what the sounder was telling us ‘was’ there. Worked our way north, putting the odd fish in the box and throwing a few back.
Used a variety of jigs, SP’s, mullet, pillies and squid (and the ‘famous’ combination of these two), plus whatever else we thought of when things got quiet(er). Got smoked a few times by big Ambo’s probably, but it wasn’t till around 1430 or so after another move until we (or at least the deckies) put some half decent fish into the box. The skipper was taking it easy… I was pacing myself !! Or that’s my excuse anyway!
At yet another ‘top secret’ starter spot, ‘Pearly central’… a few boats were within a mile or so, but it seemed that although the sounder said different, the Pearlies were spread out, asleep, and/or also had lockjaw. A few squire came over the side, some went back, and we caught a large number of huge Grinners and S/Bakers – the biggest I have seen in fact. WT?? No Pearlies but everything else, and plenty of small squire! Eventually worked out that the Grinners had taken possession of the Pearly grounds, and after a bit of sounding around luckily the deckboss nailed three Pearlies in a row.
Worked our way north closer-in to Moreton, a few miles south of the Cape. Got a parrot and a few tasty Moses and a few throw-backs, but other than one big bust-up we didn’t have much to show for the fishing time into the dark. Cleaned up and left the grounds for home around 1830.
Had a few more surprises white water rafting round Comby with the second club boat, who had only been round a few weeks prior, so we were following them.
4th surprise – picking up the breakers on the Radar where we didn’t really expect them given the good conditions (but the tide was running in hard) , and hence then slowing right down. 5th – seeing the second boat heading back towards us! 6th – after thinking my compass and plotter were playing tricks on me, working out there was a lot more run-in over the shallows than I expected, and I was travelling backwards heading/motoring forwards! WT??
7th – after just having avoided them bar one decent wave slapping us on the side, having to make a very quick judgement to back over the breakers/white water (WT x 100!!) to avoid my bowsprit and anchor punching a hole through the side of the other boat after they unexpectedly turned to port back towards the white water (and us), while watching their GPS, and not seeing us trying to clear the white water that they were fast being pushed into!!8th – after a quick ‘get out of here’ and another 180 spin we were in deep water… but not having enough spare undies on board for a quick change all around….
All good in the end, back at Manly around 8pm after a very pleasant trip down the bay back to MBTBC, with only a ripple on it. Weighed and sorted the fish, dropped the deckies off, and back at home at 2200 for some kip after a nice cold ale while washing down some gear. Let’s do it again boys, but I won’t wait this long again in between trips…
Cheers
Brendon
Not a big’n by any means, but the best snap of the day
The deckboss hooked up. As you can see, conditions were terrible…!
… and got the Pearly to the net
Pearly in the boat. Not bad ‘deckboss’!
The esky back home. Should have been better if the skipper had pulled his weight…!
I am jealous, my wife would have divorced me by sunset if I come home from fishing by 10pm
Joke aside, what beautiful conditions on the water, well done
Hi Brendon,
We had a similar day at Wide Caloundra with fish on the sounder but not on the chew.
That Inner Freeman channel has a nasty bank extending out from Moreton Island now and I have had to change my track through there after many years of using the same track. The deep water is close to the Venus Banks and as you found out the run out tide gets your attention!!!
Cheers...
Scoota...
Cheers scoota, I'm a Southsider, so don't go that way normally. It was the run-in, so not so bad with a NE'ly going the same way, but still was a decent tidal flow.
Great Report, Those bloody Grinners are EVERYWHERE atm..a few of our good fishing spots have just been smashed by them with double hook ups straight away pesky little(Big) buggers, i have never seen them that thick out there in my life.
560c Bar Crusher "Overtime"
Good report top effort well done.
Great read, thanks for making the effort!
Thanks for the report!
Shame the fish didn't play the game, cracking day out on the water though!!
What is it with grinners lately? I was fishing near Caloundra 12 mile on Friday and they were thick as I've ever seen, and large as I've ever seen!!!
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
I was out off Point Lookout on Friday and couldn't lose a bait - fresh squid, mullet, pillies. Drifting at 2.5kn with or without the chute didn't help.
2.5kn is a fair hike Wags, did you put your trolling lures out ?
The drift was above 1.5kn without the chute on Saturday (1st drift), but mostly around 1.1-1.4 or so with it deployed from memory, sometimes a tad higher. Barring the first drift, we used it all day, except up close to the Cape. We didn't fish deeper than the 29's all day, so can't say what it was like out deeper. Water temp around mid 28's too, bit higher than I recall as normal for this time of year - but then, it has been a while!
Posting Permissions
