Young Fellas and Spooty Macks Moreton Bay

[pegasus]

Greetings all, just a bit of a report. We had planned to go up to the Cape yesterday morning but changed plans at the Scarborough ramp, feeling that the 12 knot NE /N might increase and make things a little unpleasant.
We ventured out to the reef around Scrabby then beacon bashed over to 4 beacon area. Some action with small schoolies but nothing of any size. A swim over at the wrecks and more beacon bashing homeward bound. Bryce hooked up to a sub at one of the beacons- 120 metres line out in a short time - low growl of the reel screaming at a consistent speed- not a stop, not a hesitation. You just knew that this guy was big and was going to air the bottom of the spool of 20 lb braid. . We are off and slowly motoring after him- rather than wait for the later n the fight. Unfortunately , a knot failed so lesson learnt there by the lads. Guessing that was probably one of those huge cobes that like to lurk in just areas.

Lick the wounds and off to see what these birds are all up to. Spotties. So we had a great time casting slugs at these guys- often triple hook ups, fish on , fish off , few large cruising sharks seen, bait balling.
We ended up with 12- last fish being released- left em on the chew. Good morning.

[Giveitacrack]

Top report.Nice to hear Spotties in the bay.Were they around 4 beacons ??

[shaungonemad]

Good work young fella's they are great fun.

[pegasus]

We came across them about three to four kms west of Tangalooma- the birds marked em like beacons-mid incoming tide- they were slashing away at bait- those small glassie like minnows 4-5 cm. They were feeding into the breeze/tide . We motored upwind and drifted back on to them - quiet and slow like. Not particularly fussy . We used no wire - had no bite offs. Fish around 70 cm plus mark - nil undersize.

[Giveitacrack]

Went there solo today,lots of birds and bustups,plenty of other boats chasing them making them very flighty.I hooked what i thought was a big spottie,after 5 mins or so I thought this was something else.Settled in for the battle with 2500 size Certate with 15lb,nearly spooled multiple times with 2 winds left on the backing and 45 min later a decent Spainard at least 1m+ surfaced 10 m from the boat.Shark turned up and talked me out of it 15 secs later.Dropped the lip and headed home before the wind got up,sulking all the way...

[pegasus]

Mate,

Arrrhh thats a bummer with the grey suit intervention. Would have been a bit full on a metre plus Spaniard on a 2500 setup . We saw a largish shark cruising around also- maybe a big bully 8-10 feet. Glad you got out. We were lucky there was only one other boat working when we were there and all respectfully of each other's space and tried hard not to do those things that spook em and put them down. It s good to see a good turn up in the bay. Great fun.

Cheers,

Lew

[Giveitacrack]

Thanks Lew.Had a 5000 20lb setup ready to go as well but picked up the smaller 2500.Caught plenty of Spotties on the 2500 in the past.Most people were good with only a couple driving through the schools.

[jackson4300]

Sounds like a good day on the water. I noticed last night there were some big longtail tuna frames at the ramp. Did you see any tuna around?

[pegasus]

We didn't see any longtail on the surface- it was all that characteristic mackerel slashing and carnage but guess there's a strong possibility they be there somewhere amongst it all.

[Lachie1]

So after reading this report last night and the wind dropping when i got up this morning i decided on a trip over to see what was happening. Left Manly around 8am and home about 3pm.

Lots of action about 4km NW of Tangalooma, plenty of longtails - geez they can go!! Lots of good size spotties and also got a few schoolies around the beacons earlier. Had to come home as i ran out of slugs...

Some good size sharks getting in on the action too!!

Thanks to Pegasus for the original report.

Cheers,

Lachie

[pegasus]

Lachie,

Most welcome- By chance did nt find a "sub" around one of those beacons with the lads jig hanging out of its mouth did you ? Glad you got amongst a couple and had a good day.

Cheers,

Lew

[Lachie1]

Haha no i didnt mate but after yesterday id say there will be a few unstoppables with some new jewelry hanging out of their mouths,. There was pretty much non stop action from when i found the birds about 10am, I left them biting. Interestingly nearly all of the other boats were anchored up near beacons and there was only 2 of us chasing the birds probably only in a few hundred meter radius all day.

Lachie

[MOZ]

Lachie, were you on your own in a white half cab? If so I was in the other (yellow) boat. I saw you hooked up a few times but didn't see you land any. We had 8 hookups but only landed 1 and a head. The whole one was 16 kilos, the head taken off just behind the pectoral fins was 6 kilos.

Moz

[Lachie1]

Yeah mate that was me, i didnt get any mackerel out of those massive schools that were busting up although i did get bitten off twice in amongst it all. I found the spotties in their own little schools away from the mayhem. I reckon i was hooked up probably 6 to 8 times on longtails, didnt get one into the boat though but did sight a couple and was sharked once. Had a few failures at the loop knot so something im going to have to look at there, something has to give though doesn't it??

[jackson4300]

After you blokes carrying on about all these fish hanging around, I took off from work early yesterday and was on the water about 11:30 am and got about 1.5hrs before the wind picked up but stayed out till 3:30.
Found 2 schools of bait on the surface which had zero big fish hanging around, found several schools of bait mid water but couldn't get a fish from them to save my life....
Fished around a beacon for an hour resulting in 1 bite off and not another touch using livies, pillies and slugs.
The only mackeral I saw was on the way back, solo mackeral swimming along the surface, only saw it as I just about ran it over. Stopped and drifted through the area for 15 minutes for nothing so figured I had spooked the only mackeral in the bay and continued home.