It had been two months since we'd had Alchemy offshore due to the relentless winds, so when I saw the forecast for this long weekend there was no question what we'd be doing!
Our plan was to chase a few nannygai, then hunt around some new ground. We set off from Ross Ck on Friday arvo, arriving at our nannygai spot around 5pm. Nic scored a nice little cobe on her first drop and I followed shortly with a grassie. Nic was using a 7" Gulp in Lime Tiger rigged on a single bottom basher rig while I stuck with squid. Next up was a grunter for me, then Nic scored two nice fingermark. Things went quiet, so we took time out for a feed.
Just as the moon was rising we got onto a few good nannygai. Nic's Gulp attracted three nannygai between 5 and 7kg, while I followed up with one on squid at 7kg. We decided that would do for the night and called it quits.
The fish were quiet Saturday morning, so we headed out a bit further. We had a fish at Morinda Shoal which produced an average small mouth nannygai for Nic then headed out to Broadhurst reef. We arrived in time for lunch, then spent the next couple of hours snorkelling.
I've been keen to find a legal red, so we set off on a search of an area I saw on the GPS chart that I thought might be home to a red. The bottom was quite flat, then a slight rise saw the depth go from 60m to 58m. On the edge of this rise was a very small show, with another couple of small shows a bit further on in the 58m area. In the past I would have given this a miss, but this time I thought we'd have a drop to see what was there.
First couple of drops were fruitless and I was thinking of moving on when Nic brought a bright red tomato cod to the boat. We went back to the start of the drift and dropped again. I had a couple of light bites, then my bait was smashed. A short time later and my first legal red emperor of 5.5kg was in the boat.
Nic and I were stoked, but given her great form this weekend I should have realised I would be outdone. When we went back for another drift, Nic's bait was smashed. It was clearly a good fish as she struggled to keep him off the bottom, but her patience paid off as a great red of 9kg hit the surface. We were both stoked at having scored our first legal reds in the same session. We went on to get another good nannygai of 7kg and a parrot from this spot.
Our 140L esky was full and we had to put Nic's red and the last nannygai in the food esky, so as the sun was setting we headed inshore to drop the pick for a comfortable night.
This was by far our best offshore trip since moving north 12 months ago. I think next time we'll do some more exploring to see if we can find a few more of those reds.
Regards,
Dave.
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. Nice fingermark as well ... foxy
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Re: ANZAC Reds
