Crisp Bee
28-08-2012, 12:43 PM
Was out north of Moreton on Sunday with a mate trying to raise a feed.
We were drifting along gently, the wind had dropped and it was very quiet. The quiet was shattered suddenly as an explosion of air from a massive whale that surfaced about 20m behind us coming from the left. WOW awesome Huge, it slowly headed down in a kind of rolling motion. A minute later a slightly smaller whale surfaced less than 15m behind us and waved a fluke at us before diving. about then my rod gave a shake and i grabbed it and hooked...... nothing, so I fed out more line and put it back in the holder. Another whale surfaced about 5m behind us.... just lifted his head and eyeballed us before slowly diving. Then i looked as another whale appeared beside the middle of my boat it stayed a metre or so underwater untill it was clear of my boat before popping up for a breath and a bit of a roll and wave at us. I then saw the first whale (I think) turning around 30m away to the right and heading for us, diving. That was when I noticed my bottom bashing rod with pink 80lb braid going wild and peeling line. As I reached for it I saw my rod with green 50lb braid and the drifting Livie peeling line as well. I thought oh shit I've got a whale or a good school under us in 70m water. As i grabbed the bottom basher another whale bobbed up 20 to 25m behind me to the left with the pink and green braid streaming off it. It stayed a while and just sort of eyeballed me. I was wondering where the other big fella whale was going, and was a bit concerned for this whale with my two lines across it. I grabbed a knife and cut both the lines hoping the weights would pull the lines and be free of the whale without setting the hooks. The hooks should have been a long way from the whale still close to the bottom. The whale just slowly drifted down into the water and seemed to head south away from us. I saw the blows, but I don't know where the rest of the whales went. All of this took only a few minutes. I was just stunned, I could hardly talk and I was trying to absorb what happened in such a short period of time. I was hardly bothered to rig up and drop another livie down.
We are living in a fantastic part of the world, to have this happening in our own back yard.
My friend with me on the boat is from Japan and had never seen a whale before... he was very worried, but somehow i wasnt very worried, I seemed to trust them as they were totally aware of their own size and space and the space around them, and we were no threat to them.
We were drifting along gently, the wind had dropped and it was very quiet. The quiet was shattered suddenly as an explosion of air from a massive whale that surfaced about 20m behind us coming from the left. WOW awesome Huge, it slowly headed down in a kind of rolling motion. A minute later a slightly smaller whale surfaced less than 15m behind us and waved a fluke at us before diving. about then my rod gave a shake and i grabbed it and hooked...... nothing, so I fed out more line and put it back in the holder. Another whale surfaced about 5m behind us.... just lifted his head and eyeballed us before slowly diving. Then i looked as another whale appeared beside the middle of my boat it stayed a metre or so underwater untill it was clear of my boat before popping up for a breath and a bit of a roll and wave at us. I then saw the first whale (I think) turning around 30m away to the right and heading for us, diving. That was when I noticed my bottom bashing rod with pink 80lb braid going wild and peeling line. As I reached for it I saw my rod with green 50lb braid and the drifting Livie peeling line as well. I thought oh shit I've got a whale or a good school under us in 70m water. As i grabbed the bottom basher another whale bobbed up 20 to 25m behind me to the left with the pink and green braid streaming off it. It stayed a while and just sort of eyeballed me. I was wondering where the other big fella whale was going, and was a bit concerned for this whale with my two lines across it. I grabbed a knife and cut both the lines hoping the weights would pull the lines and be free of the whale without setting the hooks. The hooks should have been a long way from the whale still close to the bottom. The whale just slowly drifted down into the water and seemed to head south away from us. I saw the blows, but I don't know where the rest of the whales went. All of this took only a few minutes. I was just stunned, I could hardly talk and I was trying to absorb what happened in such a short period of time. I was hardly bothered to rig up and drop another livie down.
We are living in a fantastic part of the world, to have this happening in our own back yard.
My friend with me on the boat is from Japan and had never seen a whale before... he was very worried, but somehow i wasnt very worried, I seemed to trust them as they were totally aware of their own size and space and the space around them, and we were no threat to them.