Corry
11-12-2023, 01:05 PM
So we had a break in the weather, figured we'd do a quick trip out of Cairns.
Decided to head up to the northside and use the new Yorkey's Knob boat ramp. What a fantastic set up. This is the best ramp that I've ever used. Cudo's to Craig Crawford MP for turning this into reality.
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The day seen us up at our normal workday time of 4am, by the time we mucked around and got the boat out of the shed, then up to the ramp, we were launching at just before 7am. As we collect some tracks and have something to follow in the dark we'll make these times earlier and earlier, but for now I'm happy to be heading out with plenty of visibility.
We were unsure on where to go as we had no marks or anything to entice our direction, but we figured we'd head slightly north and have a poke around. As we're new to the reef fishing up here we're spending a lot of our days out and just sounding around looking for spots. We had a great run out, set the autopilot up for the run, we weren't in any hurry so set speed on around 28-30knots and sat back checking out the scenery.
We stopped about half an hour in to throw some slugs at schools of baitfish, hoping that T (the missus) could hook up on a small bonito or tuna just for some fun, but alas, like most times chasing these schools of baitfish, you can follow them for hours for nothing.
We got out to the reefs after about another half hour of cruising, did some trolling around while looking for bommies and anything on the sounder that showed promise. Found a few spots that were worth stopping and dropping a jig on, had a lot of fun catching a lot of undersize trout, lippers and the likes, but nothing to write home about.
We kept moving around, trying different spots, was lots of fun watching T trying to hook up fish that she could see in 10m of water that were just swimming around her jig, was even more fun seeing how frustrated she was getting when they wouldn't hit it. I sat up the front throwing stickbaits over the flats getting frustrated with the Long Toms giving my lures a tooling, but ended up with a nice Trout that would later become dinner. We moved around a bit more, ended up with a Sweety also off the flats, and a Sharkey Mack.
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Things had quietened down a little, then I got a hit and run on a small stickbait on the little Saltiga, this thing went like a freight train, peeled line like it was cotton. As it got about 150m away, still running, and with as much hurt on the rod and reel as I was game to put on it, we decided that we need to chase it. We cranked up the electric and headed in closer to the edge of the reef, but worked out when we got into 2' of water that we weren't going anywhere. Between gaining some line and then losing it again, we were laughing at each other as we looked at our 14000 Saltiga's with their 100lb set ups sitting in the rocket launcher wondering why we weren't using them, but it is what it is, and this was going to be a battle.
It felt like forever, we gained some, and then it took it, finally it made it's way over the deeper stuff again so we were able to chase it and gain some distance back, this was between me taking a rest and having a seat a couple of times, and looking at the reel thinking 'holy sh!t, that's not much line left' quite a few times. Finally we managed to get it closer to the boat, we could see some colour, and make out that it was what we were hoping for, a GT, thanking the gods' that it wasn't a shark. We then managed to get it on board. The mandatory photo's were taken, then lay it on the brag mat, then release it.
Few things that we did to try and preserve it's energy and give it a healthy release was to hose the deck to cool it down, those that fish up here know, the decks get that hot that it isn't nice for the fish to lay on, the other was to feed the deckwash into it gills while we were measuring it, giving it a better chance of swimming away healthier.
Overall she went 93cm to the fork, so about just under the meter overall. I didn't weigh it as I don't like to hang fish from the grips. It was funny, as long as the fight took and as buggered as I was, when we watched the Go Pro footage that evening, the fight only went for 14 minutes, it felt like an hour.
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So following that, T was "happily" going back to catching every undersize fish in the ocean, still wondering how only one of us caught fish that were over 8" and the other didn't, from the same boat, using the same set ups... I wasn't game to expand on this with her too much, all I could do was wish her more luck next time.
127259
After another hour or so we decided to head for home, set up the autopilot for the trip and sat back having a few bevvies, cranking the music up, and watching the water go by. Was a great day, cooked up a feed of crumbed sweety that night and now waiting for Jasper to ping off so we can head out and do it all again.
127261
Decided to head up to the northside and use the new Yorkey's Knob boat ramp. What a fantastic set up. This is the best ramp that I've ever used. Cudo's to Craig Crawford MP for turning this into reality.
127253 127254
The day seen us up at our normal workday time of 4am, by the time we mucked around and got the boat out of the shed, then up to the ramp, we were launching at just before 7am. As we collect some tracks and have something to follow in the dark we'll make these times earlier and earlier, but for now I'm happy to be heading out with plenty of visibility.
We were unsure on where to go as we had no marks or anything to entice our direction, but we figured we'd head slightly north and have a poke around. As we're new to the reef fishing up here we're spending a lot of our days out and just sounding around looking for spots. We had a great run out, set the autopilot up for the run, we weren't in any hurry so set speed on around 28-30knots and sat back checking out the scenery.
We stopped about half an hour in to throw some slugs at schools of baitfish, hoping that T (the missus) could hook up on a small bonito or tuna just for some fun, but alas, like most times chasing these schools of baitfish, you can follow them for hours for nothing.
We got out to the reefs after about another half hour of cruising, did some trolling around while looking for bommies and anything on the sounder that showed promise. Found a few spots that were worth stopping and dropping a jig on, had a lot of fun catching a lot of undersize trout, lippers and the likes, but nothing to write home about.
We kept moving around, trying different spots, was lots of fun watching T trying to hook up fish that she could see in 10m of water that were just swimming around her jig, was even more fun seeing how frustrated she was getting when they wouldn't hit it. I sat up the front throwing stickbaits over the flats getting frustrated with the Long Toms giving my lures a tooling, but ended up with a nice Trout that would later become dinner. We moved around a bit more, ended up with a Sweety also off the flats, and a Sharkey Mack.
127255 127256 127257 127260
Things had quietened down a little, then I got a hit and run on a small stickbait on the little Saltiga, this thing went like a freight train, peeled line like it was cotton. As it got about 150m away, still running, and with as much hurt on the rod and reel as I was game to put on it, we decided that we need to chase it. We cranked up the electric and headed in closer to the edge of the reef, but worked out when we got into 2' of water that we weren't going anywhere. Between gaining some line and then losing it again, we were laughing at each other as we looked at our 14000 Saltiga's with their 100lb set ups sitting in the rocket launcher wondering why we weren't using them, but it is what it is, and this was going to be a battle.
It felt like forever, we gained some, and then it took it, finally it made it's way over the deeper stuff again so we were able to chase it and gain some distance back, this was between me taking a rest and having a seat a couple of times, and looking at the reel thinking 'holy sh!t, that's not much line left' quite a few times. Finally we managed to get it closer to the boat, we could see some colour, and make out that it was what we were hoping for, a GT, thanking the gods' that it wasn't a shark. We then managed to get it on board. The mandatory photo's were taken, then lay it on the brag mat, then release it.
Few things that we did to try and preserve it's energy and give it a healthy release was to hose the deck to cool it down, those that fish up here know, the decks get that hot that it isn't nice for the fish to lay on, the other was to feed the deckwash into it gills while we were measuring it, giving it a better chance of swimming away healthier.
Overall she went 93cm to the fork, so about just under the meter overall. I didn't weigh it as I don't like to hang fish from the grips. It was funny, as long as the fight took and as buggered as I was, when we watched the Go Pro footage that evening, the fight only went for 14 minutes, it felt like an hour.
127258
So following that, T was "happily" going back to catching every undersize fish in the ocean, still wondering how only one of us caught fish that were over 8" and the other didn't, from the same boat, using the same set ups... I wasn't game to expand on this with her too much, all I could do was wish her more luck next time.
127259
After another hour or so we decided to head for home, set up the autopilot for the trip and sat back having a few bevvies, cranking the music up, and watching the water go by. Was a great day, cooked up a feed of crumbed sweety that night and now waiting for Jasper to ping off so we can head out and do it all again.
127261