Reply With QuoteGreat read and some quality fish caught there, well Done
Ken
Set off from Brisbane with Nathan, Matt, Anthony and myself for what we planned ( hoped ) to be a great fishing trip to the Bunker Group. The weather was apparently meant to be very good but we were going by the BOM colour by number charts, i.e. someone leave their daughter in charge of colouring in the wind charts with their crayons and these aren’t checked. The uncoloured areas which may have been 40 knots are now 0-5 variable. We left Brisbane in Nathan's awesome 200 Series Cruiser (best tow vehicle I've been in) towing a unusually soft riding and dry 2400 Kevlacat, well compared to my usual ride in my Stabicraft 529. We had a brilliant run from Agnes to Sykes at about 40-50km/hr even though conditions were far from perfect. Once we anchored up in the shallows behind the reef we found out that the fish weren’t biting so we decided to cook up some snags and get some much needed rest as conditions did somewhat deteriorate around midnight. I think Anthony did put a nice big squid in the esky but that was all. The boys laughed at my $12 Kmart sleeping bag which was thrown on the bare floor but I am used to sleeping on the soft checker plate of the Stabicraft's floor so it wasn’t much different. Little did I know that it was raining on me during the night but Anthony woke me up and I decided to move under cover and continue sleeping, just prior to a massive downpour.
Around 5am we woke up and stomached some ice breaks and some hot bacon and eggs. We fired up the twin 140 Suzukis and motored out to some new areas which we hadn’t fished before and had no marks for. It wasn't long before Anthony run over a nice bit of ground on the sounder and we quickly turned around and went back for a closer inspection, finding a nice show of reefies including what we thought was Red Emperor. Couple of drops into the day with Anthony already being dusted twice by some solid fish and Nathan has hooked up to a solid fish, up popped a huge Black Spot Rock Cod about 130cm in length. While retrieving his hooks we soon discovered that it also had one of Anthony’s rigs in its mouth. After getting snagged up and losing my rig, I proceeded to drop down twice and landed 2 x 10kg reds in quick succession, once of which had the bait and rig in its mouth that I lost while getting snagged! We loaded up on a few different species here including Red Throat , Goldband Snapper and massive Pearlies. After moving around a few times during the day and fishing countless good shows we ended up with 10 Red Emperor (All to myself and Anthony), 10 Red throat, 5 trout and a mix of other species including Maori Cod thanks to Mat. Mat couldn’t seem to find anything on the ocean floor other than Cod. We anchored up for the night behind Broomfield Reef and cooked up some Rump steak and salad for dinner before getting some much needed rest.
Day 2 and we awoke to awesome glassy conditions at 4am and after a quick breakfast of bacon and eggs we raced out to some northern marks to see if we could improve on our already healthy looking esky. First spot is looking awesome and I drop down another hussar fillet on a prototype fly and I am on with another 9-10kg red coming over the side. Nathan landed his first red for the trip at about 6kg and Matt continued to top up the Maori Cod and red throat quota. Anthony caught up with some very nice 9-10kg Reds falling to some ganged flys with hussar fillets. Nathan and Anthony also landed some stonka Pearlies which were very large and were quickly dispatched to the cold box. We pulled the pin at about 10am and raced back to the ramp in smooth seas sitting on about 60km/hr effortlessly in the Kevlacat. At this stage Mat was still in the corner sulking surrounded by about 1000 dummies lol.
Thanks to Nathan for the awesome ride in both the Kevlacat 2400 and the 200 Series Cruiser. It’s the best car / boat packaged I've been in ever. Thanks to Matt, Nathan and Anthony for a great trip with lots of laughs and friendly banter back and forth. I hope it's not too long until I get to go out with you guys again.
Nathan and Mat learnt lots and quickly realised that is no easy task to catch a good haul of Reds, with Anthony and myself scoring all but one of the reds which made it to the esky. Mat also learnt that Anthony was not kidding that he runs 12-14kg of drag at strike and still get dusted up by big Reds, they certainly are the brute of the reef! It was also good to get one up on Anthony knocking over a couple more Reds than him so bragging rights will be mine until next trip!
Great read and some quality fish caught there, well Done
Ken
Great effort guys. What depth are you fishing?
Awesome read there Sean, cheers been waiting for the report.
You's put a few miles in on that trip aye...... well atleast ya's did it in style, in the cruiser and Kevla rig, mate.
What sort of depth did ya fish up that way?
Cheers,
Leon.
from 40-80m leon...
Nice work brother!!
Seano,
Well done, another good tally mate. What did you think of the ganged fly's? Cant wait to get upto that ground again soon myself. Fingers crossed, might need you and Anthony to come up and help get rid of the grass and weeds that's chocking my boat =(
nice work boys.....and to do it in style ...added bonus.... lucky buggers......bet you are stilling
sean is that a tomato cod anthony has in the 4th pic? if so are they good eating?
cheers for the report mick
...........GOOD THINGS COME TO THOSE WHO BAIT.........
Good fish as always Sean.
Gee gone of the days of chicken rolls and a bag of burger rings.lol
Doing it in style.
I must admit though i don't mind a steak at the end of a good days fishing.
Well done.
Mick
Great report Sean, thanks for putting in the effort to do so.
Like Nathan,I'm currently running with a 200 series cruiser and a 2400 Kevlacat and whilst we've only taken it out twice so far, have been pretty impressed with the combo.
We didnt come back with Reds like that though!! Well done to the 4 of you.
Mark
Hi Mick,Originally Posted by outta line
nice work boys.....and to do it in style ...added bonus.... lucky buggers......bet you are still
sean is that a tomato cod anthony has in the 4th pic? if so are they good eating?
cheers for the report mick
That is just a deep water trout from about 70m, they tend to be really red in colour due to the lack of any form of red light at that depth, which makes red appear dark brown/black, you will often notice that shallow water trout are more brown in colour than red. Red light fades out in the first 5-10m of the water coloumn.
But yes Tomato Cod are definitely good on the chew and we often get some good ones up that way.
Anthony
Nice going there fellas - that's a great trip. Any chance you got a photo of those pearlies you mentioned ? Or how big they went ?
Cheers
cheers mate......got what i though was a tom cod last time i was up there now seeing that pic maybe it was a trout. Was caught in 70m along with some maori cod. i know what you are saying about them being red evan the flesh was a pink/red colour and when cooked went firm.... wasnt game enough to eat it just didnt look rite plus there was red emp to be eaten...wasnt going to keep another one but if they eat all rite will give it another go.... cheers again mick
...........GOOD THINGS COME TO THOSE WHO BAIT.........
Hey Mate,
They were probably about the 3-4kg mark, certainly not as big as the ones I got last trip in May which went 73 and 76cm! But still good pearlies none the less. Didn't get any pics unfortunately.
Previous report is here:
http://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/sho...ay-Day-Weekend
Anthony
Nice fish boys yet again. Looking forward to getting up to 1770.
Cheers
Luke
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