Reply With QuoteGreat trip, great report Jeff
While enjoying a leisurely lunch with a group of friends at the Big Fish Tavern a bit over a week ago, I received a phone call from Mark (Te whiti) letting me know he had just hooked up up his KC2400 and was about to depart for a fish up off 1770. In the chat, we discussed the weather forecasts and Mark said he was pretty sure that the conditions were going to be great, and far too good to pass up on the opportunity for a fish. So on arrival home, I started to prepare the Seatrek while brother Ray headed for home to grab his gear.
I got the Seatrek out of the shed at 2pm, and thanks to the use of a trip checklist I have on the computer managed to get all of the required gear and equipment into the boat (its an age thing....), but it helps to make sure that something important (tackle box, bait, sounder) is not left behind. A quick trip to the shops to grab enough food to last at least 2 days on the water, and by the time Ray got back, everything was ready to roll. We departed my place at 7pm with the boat fully loaded with fuel, 50kg of ice, and 60 litres of water as we would not make it to 1770 before the servo closed and I did not want to wait till after daylight the next morning to launch, and possibly have to park a long way down the road from the ramp.
We dropped the boat into the water at 2am, right on low tide being the day before the full moon, and were able to secure a car and trailer park right opposite the ramp. Low tide meant that we were not going to be able to get out the entrance, so I cruised over and dropped anchor among the moored boats to get a couple hours sleep while the tide rose enough to cruise out of the river. Unfortunately, the welcoming committee of mossies was overly enthusiastic and it took a huge amount of Aeroguard to deter them long enough to allow us to get some sleep.
Daylight saw a conga line of boats launching to take advantage of the good forecasts and we joined the line and headed offshore in glass calm conditions. First stop was to be the spot where a mate Rod caught his 14.5kg red last October. There were some really good shows on the sounder in the area where we fished and it did not take very long before some nice fish started to hit the deck.First a nice brown maori cod, then a couple of good sized tusk fish and when my bait got slammed, a nice trout hit the surface. Ray was quick to put the net into action, remembering the big trout I lost beside the boat on a previous trip.
A quick check on the scales showed it to weigh 4.1kg. Rays rod was sitting in the holder while this was going on and he was soon scrambling to get hold of it when it locked over to a good fish. I was still in the process of despatching the trout when he called for the net as he had a nice red coming up. I slipped the landing net under the fish and it was high fives all round. Its always a great feeling to put the first red of a trip into the boat. it tipped the scales at 6.7kg.
We continued to catch a few nice fish throughout the rest of the morning, but by mid day, the lack of sleep was taking its toll and we cruised into the shallows on the southern side of Fitzroy and dropped the pick to allow us to grab a couple of hours sleep. What was left of the afternoon was spent fishing the shallows with plastics and unweighted baits and we managed to catch and mostly release a fair swag of red throats and a lone green jobfish before heading for the lagoon for a good nights sleep. There were already around 10 boats anchored up in the lagoon when we got there so I worked my way through to a nice area without any nearby boats and got the Sarca down and we sat back with a nice coffee and relaxed for a while before cooking up a feed. It was absolutely calm all night in the lagoon and I enjoyed one of the best nights sleep I have ever had in a boat. I don't think I moved from the moment the head hit the pillow, till woken just on dawn by the distant rumble of thunder from a storm back over the mainland.
Not sure if it shows us as keen or not, but only one boat beat us out of the lagoon that morning. I headed out to some country in 60 - 65 metres and with no wind and not a lot of current, the fishing was easy and we set about filling our quota on really good sized tuskies as well as a few good red throats. We also managed to add some more trout to the tally with Ray scoring the first of the morning at just under 60cms in length.
We were actually getting quite a few baits eaten by small whaler sharks throughout the morning and when a whole mullet fillet was grabbed, initially I was a bit annoyed and called it for another shark until some good head shakes had me second guessing. The sight of a crimson glow down deep had me calling for the net and shortly after, my best red for a while at 10.6kg was on the deck and I was letting rip with a few yahoos.
Of course, the next time a mullet fillet got eaten, I was again calling it as a red until a big screaming run put paid to that theory and a 20 minute tussle had a one of those big whalers with the high dorsal fin rolling around beside the boat. Perfectly hooked with one on the linked 7/0s inside its mouth and the other outside meant he was never going to bite me off and it took some neat knife work by Ray to get close enough to cut the leader without losing all of the gear. Another highlight on this day was when a really big cobia followed a hooked hussar to the boat. The fish kept cruising around the boat so I took the sinker off and dropped the hooked hussar back overboard and the cobia immediately swam over to grab it. Ray had his camera out and was taking some good footage of this big fish as it kept trying to slurp the hussar off the surface, and I kept lifting it out of the water to make sure it could not grab the hussar. After teasing the cobia for a good 10 minutes or so, I took the hussar off the hooks and dropped it back over the side. The cobia swam over slurped the hussar down and cruised off. We also had a school of small dolphin fish around the boat for a while, but chose not to try to hook any of them as we did not want any for the ice box.
Once again we spent the afternoon hours chasing red throats in the shallows on light gear and they were very willing to play. We kept a few of the nicer ones, but released most of those we caught. By this time I was also starting to worry about how our ice supplies were holding out as the two days had been extremely hot and while the fish in the ice box were nice and cold, I did not want to risk them by overloading the box too much. With the sun starting to set and a light northerly blowing, we cruised back to shore. The rising moon just on dark showed that we would have ample water to cross the creek shallows when we got back to shore. After getting the boat ready for the trip home, we got to the servo and fueled up the Patrol, grabbed a 20 kilo bag of ice to recover the fish to ensure they remained in first class condition and made the trip home. By the time we reached Apple Tree Creek, I was not capable of driving any further, and pulled over to grab a few hours sleep in the boat. I pulled in to the servo just south of Gympie to refuel the Patrol and stopped beside a big Noosa Cat with commercial numbers on the sides and a pair of Hondas on the back. Pretty sure it was Ausfish member Shane C and said hello to them while doing the refuel. We arrived home just on 8 o'clock and began the long task of cleaning up after the trip. Final tally was 32 fish in the ice box. Two good reds, 5 trout and a mixture of red throat, tusk fish, maori cod, tomato cod and green job fish made up the tally of kept fish. All in all, just about a perfect fishing trip, and one of the better ones we have enjoyed for a long time. I really have to say thanks to Mark for fueling the incentive to make the trip on short notice. Here's hoping for another weather break to allow us to do it again.
cheers
Jeff
Great trip, great report Jeff
Great report Jeff!
That was Shane and myself Jeff.
You guys did well too, the fish were biting their heads off those few days.
That is one nice boat you guys had.
Thanks for the report
Great report! Thanks for taking the time to share it with us! Good stuff!
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Ausfish mobile app
Great effort and a great report well done.
Thanks Aussie. Hope you and Shane also had a good successful trip and put plenty of nice fish into the boat. I must admit that I was impressed with the outfits on the transom of your boat. They are some serious bits of fishing gear.
it sure was a couple of lovely days on the water with plenty of quality fish willing to bite. Does not get any better than that from my point of view.
I am very happy with the Seatrek boat. It is a great looking boat and handles sea conditions very well. I hope we can catch up with you guys again up that way. Will make sure I say a proper g'day and stop for a quick chat if we have time.
cheers
Jeff
Great report, cheers.
Definitely yell out for a chat next time Jeff.
We did exceptionally well too, we filled the box in 2 days.
Those reels on the back of the boat are amazing gear, they are the Kristal XL655DM.
The old reds have no chance with them with 100kg of drag, sportfishing at its finest,lol
Lance
Originally Posted by Short Fuse
Very nice, good to be able to take the opportunity when the conditions are right. Hardly even jealous here!!!
Great report thanks for that it was a great read. Very jealous
what fuel are you using at 50 km
Fuel figures for my boat are - best cruising is at 4200rpm giving 22 -23 knots at 1.4 litres per NM. At 50km (26 knots) speed, the boat uses 1.6 litres per NM.
Over the course of a trip like this I average my fuel out at pretty much 1.4km per litre across the entire trip. For the trip in this thread, we used 180 litres for 2 days out around Fitzroy.
cheers
Jeff
Great effort guys, I need to get my act together and get back there. I see you've got grab rails all the way around on the combing, is that something you especially asked for as i havent seen Alan put them on his boats before. I like the idea.
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