Hi guys;
After the all the recent negative reports on GC charters I wanted to write these guys up again. I went for a half day with them Tuesday morning and was invited to go back out again Tuesday afternoon.
Weather was winds 0-5knots, current half to 1 knot, sea glassy smooth and sunshine all day. Great whale watching weather (and we saw a few) but not great for charter fishing - no run = no fun. So we expected and had a very tough day.
Anyway, left the pontoon at 5.55am and hit the bait grounds off the seaway at 6.10. At 6.22 precisely we had filled the bait tanks with yakkas and a couple of slimeys and were headed out to the NE 36's. On board we had 4 German toursist who hadn't fished before, a dad with his two young sons and me - a regular local. We just had to get some fish up so decided to hit the Snapper marks first. 11 snapper later - 9 on float lines and 2 off the bottom bashers and we felt good. Biggest went 4kg and all over 40cms. Decided to move at 9am and try for some Trag but although they were showing tight to the bottom they could not be enticed to bite. There was simply no way they were interested in any size or type of bait and the snaps had gone off the chew as well. Matt (the skipper) burnt over 200l of fuel just trying every mark in the area with lttle success other than undersized squire, rock cod, tuskies and more 'pickers'. Everyone was happy with the morning, the effort by the skip and crew and whale watching and so we went back to the jetty by 11.30am. The crew (AJ) commented that it was only his second time in 2 years that he had gutted and cleaned less than 20 fish from a half day trip to the 36's. All the radio chat was the same. No one was getting much and our catch seemed at the top of the list!
The afternoon shift saw two asians, another family group and two toursist - all non-fishos who wanted to have fun and be taught how to fish. This time we didn't stop for the yakkas (fresh flesh for Trag) and went 3miles east of Sullies - a long way out for a half day!!! More good sized floatlined snapper came up before we went to see if the Trag marks had fired up. Three drifts later and the Trag hit hard. Doubles and singles coming each drift on all the rods - but suddenly the tourists said - they didn't want to keep any fish!!! Well catch and release on Trag in 65-70m of water is just not on so with an esky half full of Trag we went back to the snapper marks. From 4-5pm we were hit every drop on the floatlined pillies and squid, but hook up was very hard. The snaps brought up were fat 40-50cm fish but we caught and foul hooked many undersized who didn't want to go near a double 7/0 hook rig. So we gave it away and went home by 5.30.
Not the sort of great offshore report people want to read, but lets get a few facts down.
1. The skipper burnt around 450 litres of fuel total for the two half day trips with his boat just over half full of paying clients each time
2. The skipper fished the 36's NOT the 24's as he always does (except in very bad weather) for the half day trips and on full days he always starts at the 50's, then moves in to the 42's and then the 36's ensuring as many species and methods are targetted as possible.
3. He chased the fish by moving well over 20 times and we drifted and redrifted over the productive marks about another 40 - 50 times
4. All clients were good humoured - no foul language as we had ladies and children on board and the kids aged 6-10 years old ALL caught fish and were given float lined snapper of a good size to wind in immediately after hook up
5. Everyone who wanted a feed of fish went home with as much as they were legally allowed to have.
Any reader who wants to make negative comments about this hardworking boat and crew is welcome to send me a PM and I am happy to stand up for this team. As I have said publicly before, for a good day out from GC use either Fish The Deep or Sea Probe.
Cheers
Plato
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