Sorry for the late report, got back and works been busy.
Went away with a bunch of lads on the Capricorn Star over August 14-21st. Left Brissy early saturday morning and the three of us got into Gladstone around 2.00pm. After a quick drive (about an hour) to find some lunch, which ended up being a loaf of bread as every store in Gladstone seemed to be closed, jumped on the boat and met the remaining guys i didn't know. The trip is organised by one fella who organises two trips a year (family friend), i'm 21 and the overall average age would have to be over 55. There was 8 of us and three crew (1 Skipper and 2 Deckies). This meant there was plenty of room on board which by then end of the week was great.
Steamed out of the habour just on sunset and headed to the southern part of the Swains.
Over the course of the week i learned more then i ever had in 21 years about fishing, as a few of the fellas taught me quite alot about just about everything to do with fishing. This was one of the reasons i wanted to go with this group as a lot of them had been doing the trip for 16 or 17 years.
The conditions for the whole week were perfect. Two days were definatly too glassy, the fish weren't biting as we only boated about 30 in a day however the quality of the trout that came on board was supherb. I'd never seen anything like it, when you could watch your bait drift down to the bottom and a trout come out an hit it, more amusing when the skipper came out and said we were in about 40m of water.
On the second day things were rather slow after lunch so i threw out a floating pillie on a Baitrunner 6500 and Live Fibre 7ft rod 30lbs finns. Within about 10 minutes i was nearly spooled, before about 30m from the boat a shark took a liking to it, ended up pulling in the head of a green job fish, three ganged hooks all bend(0/1 conversion).
I haven't done a great deal of reef fishing or fishing for pelagics so hearing this sound for the first time of all that line being torn of my reel, got my heart almost beating out of my chest. My hands were shaking for about an hour and a half and i was nervous as cause i really wanted to catch one.
5 minutes later, got hit and broke the line as it hit the side of the boat when the fish went for its first run (0/2 conversion rate). 5 minutes later hit and nearly spooled, what i am told it was a mackeral, shark took him and took all my line bar about 30m, skipper told me to grab the reel, immediatly hooks straightened and pulled all my line back in. Broke the drag in the process (0/3 ). (Another fella with the same reel, did the same thing, with the same result about 1 hr later.) Fourth one was a hit then nothing (0/4)
After some handy advice, one of the deckies gave me a pack of quality ganged hooks and some wire. Showed me how to rig up a trace, pulled out my Saragossa 18000 with 50lbs braid and used the same Live Fibre rod. Came back out after we motored to the next spot. Chucked my pillie out, within 30 seconds of hitting the bottom with my overhead, zzzzzzzzzzzzzz on again. Frantically winded in my overhead, grabbed the saragossa which was missing a considerable amount of line by this stage and proceeded to fight it for about 20mintues or so. Finally got it to the back of the boat, where it was gaffed and brought on board. Was easily the best and most adrenalin pumped fishing experience i have ever had (1/5 conversion rate but well worth it.)
The week was great, only spent one day out in the dorries, most of the fellas stayed on the main boat as moving around that much in a little boat was not an inviting proposition. I quite enjoyed it, the four of us out fished the main boat in the morning with trout, red throat and spanish being the main captures. Afternoon was so slow, just three keepers between the two of us in our boat and about 7 in the other dorrie. Tried the handline and hand casted to a small trevally which was a bit of fun. The main boat had a great arvo with plenty of coral trout, red throat and a few fish we hadn't seen much of including a red and cobia.
The 20kg cobia was caught on a $45 Rod and Reel from KMart spooled with $65 worth of 30lbs mono. Apart from an average drag which took him a few days to figure out he caught just about everything that latched onto it over the whole week. With every fish he caught from one end of the boat where the guy who bought him this reel would yell, "Bloody good rod and reel that" or "don't you go breaking that bloody reel on me"
Weather report was for it to get worse on the final day, so we made the call to come back to the inner reefs which were about 8 hours or so from Gladstone on Thursday night. Fished Friday until about 2 when the weather started to sour and headed home. Got in about 10pm and had a good snooze before the early drive.
Got up and divided up all the fish packs then headed home.
I had an adbsolutly fantastic trip. Learned so much about fishing from the older fellas which hopefully i will be able to convert into a few feeds from the bay a bit more regularly. Got an invite to next years trip so providing i have the funds, i can't wait.
I took up way to much gear, i took a broad range of everything basically.
I had a Saragossa 18000 with 50lbs braid and a Live Fibre 7ft. Saragossa was amazing, so smooth and caught some nice fish and some big sharks. Tyrnos 16 with a T-Curve Deep Jig 200 and 40lbs braid, great outfit, really liked it, and it was easy to hold all day. Both were fantastic, and caught almost everything that latched on. The Baitrunner i took up, after breaking the drag didn't get another use so i will have to pull it apart and have a look.
I found that Gamagatsku Gangsters in a 6/0 were great, only had small packs of them so went through them pretty quickly. I found they were super sharp for the trout and using pillies and squid they seemed to sit nicely in the bait. I had some cheap as Mustard ones after that but they straighted alot, so didn't use them after that day. A mate of mine suggested a $20 box of Kirby 5/0's (100 in a box), they were great, not the same hook up rate as using ganged hooks but solid.
I started using 60lbs leader however changed to 40lbs and the hook up rate improved and i didn't get bitten off or have anything fail (probably just lucky), used 100lbs at night and it didn't seem to effect anything as we caught some nice fish at night. Caught a few squid one night, few of the boys used them the next day and caught monster trout while our frozen stuff was just getting picked at. When the squid were at the back of the boat the fishing was awesome.
Sorry for rambling on for so long. Thanks to everyone on Ausfish who helped me choose some of the set ups and gear to take.
Cheers
Brogsy
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Good on you. Thanks for sharing your cool story.
Originally Posted by Daintreeboy
Re: Swains Reef Trip Report
