It is almost impossible to plan the weather for a fishing trip 4 months out, but the outcome wasn’t too bad. On Monday our crew consisted of myself, Murf, Timbo (Timfishin4fun), Tallo (a mate from Bundy). We arrived at Burnett Heads ramp early as the forecast wasn’t too bad and headed out to some marks provided by Marvin (Thanks Kev) – I had a generic mark for the area. On the way out we spotted some birds working and after some effort boated a 5kilo mactuna for bait. Out at our first mark, we drifted the areas for small bites – then what we thought was the fish of the day…turned out to be a 6-7foot Hammerhead. Off to our next spot (thanks Kev) we had started pulling some fish aboard, not a lot often, but good fish every now and then. We caught up with a crew we met at the ramp and their report of slow fishing confirmed our slow bite as well. After a couple of phone calls from concerned parties on land had us head for home as there were storms south of us heading northward. The wind and swell had picked up as we neared the coast, but we still had time available to troll the spoil grounds for macs.
We headed up to JT’s area on Tuesday ready for 3 days fishing from Wednesday. Up early Wednesday morning and started heading out to the wider grounds only to be met with a crappy wind and swell due to storm activity North of our location. We stopped halfway to our destination as the conditions had deteriorated and decided to alter plans for the day. A quick fish where we were then head to the islands for some Spanish Mac trolling. On our first drop, first drift, Tim and Murf were onto good fish and we thought this was the spot…..but fishing after that was just bait soaking….
The next few hours were spent trolling for Spanos around Barren Is and squidding with some good squid going into the ice and the smaller models in the live well for afternoon hot bite session. We met back up with JT, Bill and Splitty only to see these guys holding up a legal red, then having the hide to ask us for a live squid – because they run out….. Now getting this live squid to the other boat was a feat in itself – something to be seen to be believed. Anyway, after some time the wind died off enough for us to venture out wide for the afternoon hot bite. We picked up (just) undersized reds, trout, cod, hussar, and 1 very unlucky tuskie as it should have been in bed. Tim must have dropped the bait on its’ nose. 7.30pm we decided in the it was time to head back in and as we had done time and time again, drove off the spot to float our anchor – well this time it was different as our anchor didn’t float – I’d run over the rope and left the anchor holding the bottom. Our run back home was good except the Smart Craft fuel gauge was not playing the game. I knew we had fuel left in the tank, but the gauge was showing bugger all in it. Tense moments with 15kms left to go and showing gauge showing 10l left. Fuel used gauge, however, was on the money with 50l still unaccounted for.
2nd day off Yeppoon, saw us (Tim, myself and Bill) head back to the ground holding my anchor. We, or more to the point…I had a great day – now I know this may be hard for most of you to realize – I caught most of the fish. Grassy Sweetlip, Hussar and Venus Tuskfish was the order of the day.
3rd and last day had us heading northward in search of Spanish macs. We found some ground holding bait and started xraps around. We ended up with 3 solid Spanos after 4 hookups and several more strikes. We chased some squid on the return home with some nice specimens in the box with me getting a face full (and boat full) of ink – once again operator error. Whales were everywhere we ventured in the two locations – Bundy and Yeppoon.
Thanks to JT, Bill, Splitty, Tim, Murf, Tallo and the boys from Bundy making it a memorable trip.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDpTyR9a3BU
Cheers,
Wags
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Originally Posted by Greg P
VHF CHANNEL 21
also thanks again to JT for his hospitality and Timbo for all the information and hard work you put in
