Well, I ran into ozbee at the local tackle store and he mentioned a night trip out wide, leaving Tuesday Arvo. No worries, spoke to the boss, and after a bit of bribery with the promise of a few fillets I got the arvo off from work, plus Wednesday.
The spot we were off to was the same one Ozbee had been doing so well with reds, so expectations were high to say the least. It was easy to round up a couple of blokes and make our way down th Ozbee's place and the weapon for the night, his 680 patriot with his brand new 300 zuke on the back.
I was about a 2hr run out in 1.5m plus seas, but it felt like much longer and we couldn't wait to drop the lines down. Once the anchor took hold we found we swung a different direction, but still persited with a couple of drops which yeilded a couple of undersize reds and a couple of big mouth nannies.
Making a second attempt to anchor on the mark was proving difficult in the dark and we only ended up further and further away with each attempt. We had one more go and things were looking good, but this time the anchor didn't hold, so more rope was let out, and we backed up a bit to dig the plough in, only to end up in no mans land. We figures stuff it, lets just give it a go here.
Well the action was slow, and the crew was dwindling in number, people dropping out to have a kip, but as soon as the tide stopped the fishing kicked in, with reds and nannygai coming in consistently, I would say the bite was hot, but it was very consistent which is what your after in 70m of water, nothing too quick cos your arms will fall off.
We ended up with 42 fish all up, between 5 anglers, 22 big mouth nannies, 11 red emperor, 2 spanglies, 1 red throat, and a quick drift in the morning produced 6 trout.
Ok to answer a couple of questions below:
Bait used was mainly squid, with a few hussar that were caught during the night, plus a few mullet.
Biggest fish of the night went to Ozbee, with a 12kg Emperor and Max with a 12kg big mouth nanny.
Patriot went really well, rough fuel figures worked out that it does 1.4 km per litre, 0.4km better then the etec, though they are only rough at the moment, Ozbee is still waiting for the NMEA cable to go to the GPS. It was a bit bouncier than normal due to having no tabs, the blokes doing the install on the new donk busted a transistor and ozbee is waiting for the part to come in so it can be fixed, so now she porpoises a bit, and gets a bit of a list about her every now and then.
now pictures:
There's one with the first red of the night for both John, and max, a double header of nannies for me, Ozbee's BIG red, and Max hiding behind the big nanny. Also is a shot of the 2 eskies a 300ltr box/seat chockers, plus on with 1/2 doz trout caught that morning before heading in. Then of course the obligatory lawn of death.
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...how did you find the ride in the 680 in those seas Scott???...i can only imagine what its like too try and pull up a fish from 70meters of water!!!...who caught the biggest fish???...what sort of bait were you guys using???...many other boats around or did you have the place to yourselves???...great read Scott...juuuust need some piccies now 
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