Labour day was looking good according to seabreeze, so decided to call our friend Greg and let him know there was a seat available. Greg doesn't get to go out into the big blue wet stuff, as he calls it, very often. He usually fishes the dams as he lives up at Sommerset dam.
This trip would only be his third time out in the open waters off Moreton, so he was pretty excited. Hopefully after the Bribie Longtail competition on the Sat/Sun, the fish weren't going to be too spooked.
Well the morning came and all was looking good at 4:30am as we launched the boat, but by the time we got to our first destination, the 40% change in weather, that the weatherman uses for false predictions, was starting to kick in. What started out as 6kn had become 15kn in a matter of an hour or so. But we perservered, as Greg doesn't get this opportunity very often, and he wanted to feel the power of the Egrell S10 and get some big fish, as he only gets to use his Egrell S2 and S4 when fishing in the dams.
So we set the boat into a drift pattern and started working our soft-plastics. A few undersized squire and a 4kilo Snapper later, things just went quiet, so maybe it was time for a change of position, but nothing helped
By 2:30, every other boat had gone and the wind was blowing 20+kn, what a bummer, this was not supposed to be like this, yesterday was abosolutely perfect but we both had to work, how unfair is that.Oh Well, that's life.
Unfortunately a little later, we decided it was probably time to go home as it was not going to be the most comfortable trip home and we had already spent half our time dodging the rain that was forecast for tomorrow .
So the decision was made.
Always on the way home we keep our eye out for the tuna as they are usually always somewhere in the bay at this time of year, but it wasn't even looking good for that.
About 20 mins from the boatramp, around the corner in front of the life saving club on Bribie, we spotted a couple of birds acting as though they were above tuna. They were the first birds we had seen the whole way home. And sure enough, there they were, just off the beach, Longtail Tuna. So out with the rods, on with the SP's and we're ready to play.
First cast in front of the fish and zzzzzzzzzzzzzz, off goes the certate 4000, so I turned to Greg and said "Here mate, you can fight this one, at least you will get to feel one", then Greg turned to me and was about to say "No fight your own fish, cause I got me own", and sure enough, zzzzzzzzzzzzzz, the sound of his reel was creating that awesome sound of a double hookup. So here we are both fighting longtails. I get mine to the boat. Greg is still fighting his fish while trying to pass the big net to me at the same time, when all of a sudden his fish takes off. Luckily I could get to the net which was sitting in front of where Greg was standing and boated my LT. I used to tail them until I saw a 12 foot shark take a mackeral right at the back of the boat last time I was out.
I got mine boated and then sat back and watched Greg fight his fish. "This is my First Longtail" he says as he is filling with the adrenalin of the experience. With a little coaching he got it back to the boat in about 20mins and was ready to go again. And that is exactly what he did. Between us we hooked 4 and boated 3 , inside an hour.
So after our one hour play session we continued home, except now it was a good day despite the weather because Greg had caught his first and second Longtail in that last hour of our trip, and it was a much better day knowing that a friend got to go home with a big smile and a couple of good dinners.