11 August
Today I had Joe, Mike and Troy aboard. We started of soft plasticing for snapper with Mike landing one legal one and the boys letting a few undersize ones go. I jigged bait and caught the most for a couple of weeks. Getting livies had been pretty hard lately. We tried a few different spots and with the sun now high in the sky it was time to try something else. We went and had a go for cobia but they weren’t on the job. We went to a pretty productive amberjack and yellowtail kingfish spot and thought is was going to be on for young and old with a tank full of livebait and good shows everywhere. The first drop produced a kingy about 8kg for Troy then Mike got an AJ and things were looking up. About then the tide went slack and so did the fish for an hour or so. Once it started to run again Joe ended up with an AJ then everyone caught a second one with the fishing getting hotter and hotter at the tide started to run. I gave the boys the option of staying and catching releasing more AJs or kingys for the rest of the day or to chase a few reef fish. The first spot we found the current racing at 1.5knots so we ran another 4 miles or so to try and get out of it. This we did and ended up getting four or so pigfish, letting a few go, catching a couple of pearl perch and letting a few go and losing something that was pretty good just under the boat to a tangle. All in all we put together a good feed for the day.
10 August
Today I had Sydney visitor George who used to hold the boat grass sweetlip record and Marcus from NZ out. We started off on plastics and the first couple of spots didn’t fire. I went back to one of this years more reliable spots and had a double hookup of mid 50cm fish straight away. It got quiet from there and George picked up a second fish a while later on a different spot. I now had enough livies to think about chasing some Cobia. The first two spots we drifted had good enough shows of fish but no Cobia. We were just at the end of our drift on our first drift on a new spot when the Baitrunner 6500 started to let go line. This was it and we were on. George was first on it but with the fight lasting 1:10 at least, we all had a go on the outfit with 10kg low stretch Platypus line. It was a beast of a Cobia in the 25-30kg bracket. Marcus will be sending some pictures soon.
8 August
Alvin was booked in for a full day again. Unfortunately we knew a bit change was coming through and we weren’t sure when but we thought we would have a quick soft plastic snapper fish anyway. We got a quick fish in till 8:00am with Ilan getting a couple Alvin a nice mid 60cm fish. Ilan also let quite a few undersize ones goes.
7 August
Today I had Aaron, John and Mick aboard. We got our few snapper on the soft plastics while I jigged for livies. We ran the livies to the AJ/kingy spot and found them on the chew keeping 2 kings and 4 AJs. To round out the day we ended up with a nice pearl perch as well.
6 August
Al my old boss from my time working at Kingaroy Shire Council arranged for another couple of guys to come out with me. Julian took to the soft plastics nabbing a couple of good squire one after another and missing a couple. Andrew took over from one I hooked up on the demo cast as well as one of his own but Al couldn’t turn a trick. Things were not looking good for him in the Casket Ticket stakes. He got a bit of revenge on the AJs and kingies though. Andrew got busted up time and time again but Julian was once again the BP quiet achiever getting them on Al’s Charter Special combo as well as jigging them on one of my outfits. He took out the casket ticket for first, biggest and classic catch.
5 August
This was my worst trip in a few weeks. Unluckily for Keren and her dad it happened on their first trip out with me and on about our fourth date. Any of the other dates were in amongst some good fishing. It could have ended up a pretty good morning if everything that hit our hooks stayed connected. I had been in a good run of not many lost fish but this morning we managed to lose 3 with 2 of them big snapper I am guessing by the takes and fights. One was on a live yakka and Keren lost one just under the boat when the hooks pulled on a nice snapper on a soft plastic. She did get a nice squire though. The cobia didn’t want to play when we went chasing them and so far they have been very hit and miss.
2 August
This morning I had Greg, his wife Sue and their mate Mike out for the morning. The point of the trip was to get Sue comfortable with being offshore as Greg has trailerboat himself. We started off in close in the SWer as it is calmer the closer in you are in Westerlies. After the first few spots failed to yield I headed to most productive spot in the area which was a bit further out but Sue was ok with things by then. Mike was first on the scoreboard the one straight away next cast. Sue got one and Greg missed one on the bite. Sue got another snapper then both Greg and Sue got busted up by good fish. That was it for the morning with a few changes of location and with the wind getting up we decided to turn it from a full day booking into a half day.
1 August
With a late cancellation I had a quick ring around and luckily got Dwayne, Mark and his mate Zane organised for a late start but a ¾ day fishing into dark.
The first livebait spot was hard going and the wind was worse than expected. We waited for it to drop off all day like forecast but it never did and we had a washing machine sea all day. Our next livebait spot went super good and we were pulling up slimey mackerel pretty easily. With a tank full we headed to a spot that produces either amberjack, kingfish, snapper or pearl perch. Unfortunately this day all three spots failed to produce a snapper or pearly but the kingies were out to play. First drop Zane got a nice AJ as part of a triple hookup but Dwayne dropped his fish and Mark got a kingfish.
Next drop was a successful triple hookup but this time they were all kingfish.
With one to go to get a bag limit Zane decided to jig 400gm knife jigs as with a single hook the fish are hooked on the outside of the mouth and release better while Mark chose an octopus jig on his heavy soft plastics rod and Dwayne stuck with livies to get his second fish. Dwayne missed his but Zane successfully jigged one up and Mark also connected on the octopus jig.
Just under the boat Mark’s outfit got tangled and with two laps around the trim tab it looked over. Mark freespooled under instruction while I got wet out on the boarding ladder trying to work things out. I eventually handlined this fish in on braid into the net and cut the lure off feeding the line back that way with no obvious damage done. It was one unlucky kingy and he rounded out the six.
We tried the next spot and it was more of the same so a few went back. We waited for the dusk bite on another spot as a shower of rain went through but it never happened so it was time to head in.
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