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View Full Version : Report from Mooloolaba, Queensland 27-28/10/01.



Smithy
30-10-2001, 07:50 AM
Report from Mooloolaba, Queensland, Australia.

Fished the Sunshine Coast out of Russell Bowman’s 5.5m plate aluminium boat “Timewaster” once again. There were a fair few boats fishing the grounds compared to Tuesday seeing as good weather was forecast, it was a weekend and the Mooloolaba GFC were conducting their Queensland Interclub. Start fishing for the Gamefish boats was 7:00 so we got and hour and a half in at the 21 mile before them which resulted in three strikes for us for no captures. Just after 7:00 a Riv hooked up on a Mahi Mahi. Shortly after we got an Australian Bonito which we put back out on the downrigger. In the next couple of hours we landed a couple of Mahi Mahi around 7kg on live Slimeys. All of the Dorados we saw were around this size and they must have been thick as we saw quite a few freejumpers. A few of the other boats fishing the 21 mile got Mahi Mahi as well but no Bills were hooked from there all weekend.

There was plenty of bird action around so the boats started heading off looking for their own bait schools. We persevered at the 21 mile before being called up by Steve Jensen on “Battledeck” to come back in to the southern end of the 18 mile as things were firing up. They got 1 Sail and there were about 6 Sails hooked up all at the same time between the fleet. By the time we got there the action had slowed and there were about 20 boats fishing the scattered bait schools. All of this action at the 18 mile happened on the turn of the tide. We worked it over pretty hard before pulling our gear in and heading up to the middle part of the 18 mile. We trolled over this looking for bait but none was present so we got on the plane again and headed to the 21 mile.

Within minutes of setting a spread, a bibless minnow on 4kg was hit resulting in a good Mahi Mahi to Russ. We trolled a while longer before trolling over the Barwon Banks looking for a place to put the anchor down overnight. We anchored on a 40ft drop-off and got the berley trail going. A Cobia on a livey was the first fish from here followed by a procession of Snappery-Squire and a good Spangled Emporer on 4kg and 6kg line. After a while the big boys moved in and we had trouble getting the fish up the ledge on the light gear. This continued into the night before we turned in then the first few drops the next morning.

At first light we pulled the anchor up and checked out a few marks on the northern end of the 21 mile area. We headed back to 21 mile and were the first boat there again. Shortly after a 5.2m Kevlacat recently on the scene landed a Mahi Mahi and we weren’t far behind using liveys. It looked the same as the Saturday, plenty of bait on top and the sounder with plenty of activity but no Billfish. It must have been the Dolphinfish in company with the Dolphins of the mammal variety agitating the bait.

Before we ran out of time we headed down to the southern end of the 18 mile. We put 2xpushers out and 1xbibless to troll around until we found a good bait school to live-bait. We didn’t really get a chance to live-bait as a good Sail zeroed in on the pusher on the 6kg outfit bill whacking it for a few seconds. As per usual it all happened in slow motion and it took a while for it to register that I should be putting the throttle down. This I did but we missed him the first time. This whole time not once did the drag click over. When he came back the second time on the same lure the reflexes were a bit quicker and my brother on strike had the rod in his hands. A stab of the throttle, the Gamakatsu SL12S hit home and we were connected to a big Mooloolaba Sail on 6kg line. He did a lot of his jumping out wide, a lot more than usual and came in quite easy. Might have been because he was hooked in the bottom of the mouth on a lure and we were leading him up all the time and not from the side. At 2.2m short length and around 46kg it was a good fish for 6kg.

Seeing as we had to pull the pin at 10:00 we put out a full spread and got serious. A bit to the south of us we saw a freejumper that got airborne about 4 times. 3 of the 4 boats fishing the area chased after it but we couldn’t find any bait nearby so we went back to our original marks. After another couple of passes, at exactly the same place as the first fish we raised another on a different size, different brand lure in the same position (port flatline) and same colour (purple/black). This fish only hung around for a short while but it has given us great confidence in lures for a predominately live-bait port. At 10:00 we pulled everything in and headed for Mooloolaba across a dead flat but not quite glassy sea doing 24 knots.

Conditions varied from 15 knots of sloppy NW first thing Saturday morning, dropping off to a light Northerly wind in the afternoon and through the night, then it swung SE at around 10 knots before flattening out to nothing.


Smithy

"Work fills in time between fishing trips!"

Wesley_Pang
31-10-2001, 04:20 PM
Smithy,

I'll give you a call.

If the weather is a goer, I may head out this weekend.

Wes