Full Day With Jim & Damian Out Of Mooloolaba
September 9th, 2010
Headed out on a full day today with regular customer Jim and Damian who has been out with me before but is between boats and suffering withdrawal symptoms from fishing. We left the Mooloolaba harbour and headed out to collect live bait. The first area was empty so I ran over some more marks and found a good supply. We loaded up on yakkas and got a few slimey mackerel at the end.
We had a few drops on some shows I found on the way to the spot I wanted to fish but they only produced undersize pearl perch. We got to my spot and decided to start off on bait first to see if we could get any snapper or pearl perch. We got some more small pearlies but Damian couldn't resist sending down a livey for a kingy. I think he got bricked but Jim brought a small one up on a piece of squid. Next drop they both put livies down and a couple of small kings came up. Next drop Damian hooked up big time on something taking a fair bit of drag. This turned out to be the 15.6kg kingy in the photos below. We got our bag of kings, a snapper, one of the biggest trag jew I have ever seen in the flesh so we headed of to try the next spot.
Once again we found the kingfish on both bait and livies. One was the most unluckiest fish ever with a big tangle I had to cleat it off, snip the line and retied with a good king tethered mid water the whole time. Jim got him and he so he had to be pretty unlucky. I talked the boys into going for an explorer on some trawler marks I had been given but we drew a blank. Back to where we were fishing for a few more snapper. Once the northerly hit the fishing went right off. A few livies got bitten in tentative bites but they never followed through for the hookup and we didn't add to the esky. The other spot was the same. It went quiet on the northerly. We stopped off on a cobia spot on the way home but other than an undersize cobe that had to go back and a few grinners it was very quiet.
Full Day With Mark With SQCS Out Of Mooloolaba
September 4th, 2010
Mark booked this one in with a couple of his work mates. We punched north into the northerly and a had a snapper fish off Coolum Reef. We ended up with a good snapper and good grassy up here for the session.
We headed out and stocked up on live bait. We continued onto my parrot spot but it was quiet. I headed to my pearl perch spot and it was quiet too. I headed to a spot a mate calls his reliable spot and we pulled a nice pearl perch here as well as a parrot. Seeing as we were in the neighbourhood I headed to a good pearl perch spot of mine. They didn't dissappoint and we pulled a good procession here. Mark also caught this baby bar cod. These guys probably grow to 50kg when grown up.
Another boat headed our way and I didn't want to lose this spot so I moved off it before he found us. I was just about to rig up some livies and send down for the boys as I know it holds kingfish and amberjack too though they weren't hitting the knife jigs. I had another good pearl perch spot not too far away so off we went.
This proved a good move. One drop two good pearl perch came up together, one on each hook of the paternoster rig. Another drop a 61cm pearly came up that took drag on my Saltist/T-Curve 400 Jig outfit and about then we were being visited by whales and dolphins. I dropped a plastic in all this commotion and hooked up to a good snapper. All this frantic action was caught on film and should be good viewing. We did a few more drifts but we must have caught the fish on a bite time and they went off a bit but we did make hay while the sun was shining. It was a cracker of a day.
Half Day Morning With Garry With SQCS Out Of Mooloolaba
September 2nd, 2010
Garry booked this one in. Early on the wind was light and we had good conditions for soft plasticing down off Caloundra other than for it being a bright sunny day so they were never going to bite very long. One of the guys ended up with a grass sweetlip, my first in quite a while. I don't know where they are this year. Sometimes we get more of them than the snapper. Garry couldn't resist sending down a bait and was rewarded with a nice tusk fish. It wasn't happening so we went to load up on live bait. Even they were proving tough to jig. We got a few and headed wide to fish for cobia. I was at anchor and berleying like a mad man but it didn't happen. Off to another cobia spot but we only got grinners here. A tough morning and to make it worse the westerly got up and we had to punch home with our tail between our legs.
Full Day With Andy, Ryan & Heinz With SQCS Out Of Mooloolaba
September 1st, 2010
This was my first mixed charter for a little while and I eventually found new guy Andy, regular Ryan and one of my old contacts from Wondai, Heinz to fill the places. Heinz woke up at stupid o'clock to be at the ramp by 5:00 so we could do a soft plastics session but it didn't pay off. We left from the Coast Guard boat ramp on the Mooloolah River in the South Queensland Charter Services Stabicraft. We headed south to the soft plastic grounds but it was dead quiet. We were there in plenty of time with low light conditions but they didn't respond in the NWer.
When it looked like nothing was going to happen we punched out to the live bait grounds to load up on livies. We did this easily with good size slimey mackerel. Out at the parrot spot things were quiet. We got a few but it was not red hot. I then headed to the pearlie spot. This was a top move. First drop both Heinz and Ryan's rods buckled over to good snapper. The fish stayed hot and we worked away at some good pearl perch and parrot. Once they went off, if we drifted a bit wider, we got onto some teraglin. At the end of it the esky looked pretty healthy and the boys had a top day.
Half Day Morning With Jeff And Steve With SQCS Out Of Mooloolaba
August 31st, 2010
Jeff invited Steve out on this morning half day. The soft plastics fishing had been a bit hit and miss but after getting five the last trip I thought we might go allright with these experienced guys aboard. It wasn't to be and we tried a fair few spots for three ok squire and a heap of bonito. The bonito I have frozen down and should make great spanish mackerel baits for summer. Once the sun was up the action died so I headed off to try for cobia. The livies were even hard to jig up. It was just one of those days. Down at the cobia spot a couple of boats were anchored on a couple of the better spots so I kept going. We stopped and dropped on any likely show all the way home but did no good other than for undersize stuff.
Full Day With Mark With SQCS Out Of Mooloolaba
August 29th, 2010
Mark was up on holiday again from Canberra and he had booked me in for a half day morning. We knew a big southerly change was coming so the plan was to fish it till the wind came then fish for gar in the river till 11:00. We actually got in a good soft plastic session and only came into the river for 40mins or so. First cast of the day Mark's dad was owned by a good snapper that found the reef after taking 10m of line in the blink of the eye. A good start! A bit later he got one and then at the end of the drift way out the back Mark got one. We headed to another reef and this looked the goods with bait everywhere, even on the surface. It sure was good with a fish, a bite off or a follow every cast. A lot of them were undersize or just on snapper but we got another three keepers here along with a couple of school mackerel. One particular bait ball on the middle of the drift was stacked with fish and we got hit every cast. Once back in the river we established a berley trail and had the gar all around the boat and in the quick fish we had the guys ended up catching eight or so.
Full Day With Carl With SQCS Out Of Mooloolaba
August 28th, 2010
Carl booked this one in as a present for his son for his birthday. We had a dream run down the beach in the light westerly winds and set up for a drift over our soft plastics area. A few undersize brown maori cod and black tip cod found their way into the boat but no snapper or sweetlip early on. Eventually the boys hit their straps and we got a couple but it was tough work. We sat out the westerly before pushing wider to jig bait. We ended up getting a good tank of slimeys as the wind kept dropping for us. We headed to the parrot spot and once again it didn't dissappoint with the usual species of parrot, hussar and iodine bream. Conditions dropped out perfectly for us for the run home.
Full Day With John & Garyth With SQCS Out Of Mooloolaba
August 27th, 2010
John booked this one in but I had to do a ring around and only Garyth jumped at the chance of going out in the good weather forecast. I headed to the reef where I had the soft plastic success the last comple of times to start out. Early on John was busted off but it was very quiet. I think Garyth ended up with one and John did as well. Things were grim so I headed to the parrot spot. This was unusually quiet with only a couple hitting the decks. Off to another close by spot and even though it too was quiet, John ended up with a couple of cracker cockies. The bigger one was 59cm so just a bit smaller than the ones that had been coming in a couple of months ago.
Full Day With Alvin With SQCS Out Of Mooloolaba
August 22nd, 2010
Alvin was back again with his wife Amanda and mate Emil. His bad luck continued with the weather with a great forecast put out by both the BOM and Seabreeze.com.au but the reality was very different. We put in at the cruisy time of 6:30 knowing the boat ramp at Mooloolaba would be a hive of activity early based on that forecast. I was right and as I was coming up Parkyn Parade to the ramp boat trailers were out on the street everywhere. I launched and got a spot a few minutes walk down toward Penny Lane but I have had to park at the Wharf before on super busy days. We headed out from Pt Cartwright in about 12knots of SW. It quickly got up to 15 and by the time we were at the bait grounds it was a good 18knots or so. We jigged some live bait beside Slack Attack who had allready had a good hookup on a marlin or a tuna and our hopes were high. The bait went to pieces and we only managed a few yakkas. The wind eased off to 15knots so we headed to the parrot spot.
First drop on the first drift and Amanda hooked up and landed a nice gold spot wrasse. On the first drift we ended up with 10 keepers. We kept chippping away and built up a nice box of parrot and hussar. The wind eased to 12knots or so but then shifted south and built back up to 17-18. We headed in to try and beat it but it was too late and a yucky sea built up on it. We got back in a bit late but with the catch below.
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Nice photos and report. Cheers, Darren
