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Well it was time to venture north again for our annual family trip to 1770. I can remember the first time Dad took me up there. It was before GPS’s were a standard feature in every boat (we didn’t have one) and we got some good oil off some guy we talked to at the caravan park. We put our trust in him and headed off a compass bearing for a set mileage and stumbled across some ground. The old black and white lowrance at the time indicated some growth on the bottom and we dropped the pick. We then proceeded to fill the boat with lippers, hussar, cod and parrot. It was a great trip and stays vivid in my mind. This is what keeps bringing us back here each year for the past 16 years.
Chaos 1st trip The forecast wasn’t the greatest so we left the ladies at home and the old man and I left with nervous guts knowing the creatures that lurked in some of the holes and ledges that we knew about. The wind was blowing about 10-15 knots and white capping from the SE but was fishable so we put the hammer down and travelled a fair distance to the first area of interest. As soon as we motored over a spot close to another waypoint we generally fish the sounder lit up and some nice red blobs appeared close to the bottom. Anchors away and we swung round onto some nice looking territory. Livies were deployed and within seconds of reaching the bottom the vibration on the line indicated that the livies weren’t happy with what they saw when they arrived at their destination. Lock the drags. We decided to name the mark Chaos as rods doubled over for the next 30 minutes or so and more fish were lost than caught. I think the old man rigged up about 5 or 6 times in a row at some stage through this. We were mainly hooking large trout and they were steam training us into the bommies. After the first 10 minutes of being bricked I decided to lock the drag to full on the tyrnos and not give them an inch. That’s when we started to get a few off the bottom. The tide started to run and the trout went off but then I got a nice red and the grassies came on the chew. We bagged a good few then the sharks came in for a look and everything shut down. We shifted round and gathered some hussar, parrot and lost a few more good fish. This was a good 1st trip we thought to the holiday.
Brother in Law Blooded - Trip 2. A 5/10 knot variable was finally forecast and the boat was fully crewed. Mum came along and my brother in law came out to get blooded for the first time. A long but comfortable trip out saw us at a new area to check out. We sounded round for a bit and found some bottom that looked reasonable so the pick went over and we started fishing. It was very slow at first and I think this was due to the stage of the tide and the time of day it was. We shifted a few times and finally came to rest on a nice show. Dad deployed a livie and hooked onto a nice maori straight away, then a nice cod. So I chucked on a trout lollie and it sunk to the depths. As soon as it hit the bottom the livie went into a panic and something big snavelled it. The drag was fully locked so it was against me and the fish to see who won. I thought it might have been a chinaman at first but then we got colour and a nice trout of 8.4 kg surfaced. We bagged a few more nice grassies, parrot and a heap of hussar then the wind got up cause of a storm forming to the south so we pulled the pick and headed in for the day.
The Darkside – 3rd trip A 15/20 knot SW/S was forecast so we waited to see if it would drop off at lunch. We got a little impatient so we headed out but stayed in close and got some bait. The wind slowly started to drop but not enough to warrant a trip out wide. We went over and checked out an area in close that we’d never been to before. As we got close to the mark the sounder lit up on a nice show so we got pretty excited. I worked out the drift direction then we went back and dropped the pick. We deployed our baits and they got smashed straight away on the bottom. We all thought you beauty! We started to fight the fish up but the tail motion indicated our worst fears. We’d anchored on a big school of trevors. Trevally after trevally were caught for the next 1 ½ hours. I decided then to convert to the dark side and try some rubbers. The trevs bit hard on the chooks. I tried all sorts. In the end I tried some white glow in the dark ones in 6”, they bit on everything. Eventually I caught something other than a trev - a nice little scarlet and a couple of little squire. My old man hates plastics and continued to use bait and we finished off with just a feed of sweeties for the day.
Droppin out – 4th trip With another dodgy wind forecast we left mum at home again and headed wide. This time we wanted to go back with some heavier tackle and try to beat some of these big trout we’d been hooking. We had a 2 hour window before the current was going to cause us grief so we hammered out to the spot. This gave us very limited fishing time. The bite was red hot. Again first drop smashed. So I got out the broom stick with 70 lb on burtha - a 10” alvey. Adrenaline ran with the next drop cause I knew I had a good chance of landing one. My rod doubled over and I cranked into a nice one. This trout wasn’t getting away. Dad got a nice size one too but he continued to get smashed up on 50 lb. We wished we’d brought the deck winch now. The trout went off the bite and the grasssies came on and we got into some nice ones. Then the current eventually became unfishable so we headed in.
Origin glass out - 5th trip. We by the looks of the chart this was going to be our last trip out. It was a variable forecast so we headed out and got some livies and headed to an old spot we’d fished in previous years – we nick named it Chinatown cause of the amount of giant chinaman we’d caught there before.
First couple of hours we got nice sweeties, trout to 6.5 kg, hussar and parrot. Then the china’s arrived. Mum broke her back on one. I loaded the tyrnos up on a few. Dad finally won the chinaman award. He caught 3 consecutive china’s in a row. The china crown had a new owner. We all went back in with broken backs driving in complete glass out. Very memorable.
Great report, I hope you have left a couple up there for us we are going up for another trip in a couple of weeks. Some very nice Trout there but not too many Reds did the weather keep you inside the reef or were they not on the chew?
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