Four month Drought Finally Broken after the Floods…
Well it had been four months and two days since I was last out on the wide blue yonder. The weather was forecasted to be 10 knots and seas around one meter in height, my three days off lined up with the forecast so it was time. Time for a few RED things…
Brodie and John were the selected crew for a quick day trip out about 19 miles from Burnett Heads. We left the ramp around 7am so that I could assess the damage to the channel markers at the mouth of the river and plot a safe course for our return later that evening.
We headed out of the harbour and were greated by 15-20 knot south southwesterly winds and seas 1.5mts.. They got it wrong yet again…
I was confident the seas and wind would drop out as the day went on so we took it steady with a following sea and made it to the spot in about an hour and ten minutes averaging 16-18 knots.
I sounded around whilst the anchor was prepared and then nosed into the slop travelling over a nice show for the first try. Brodie used squid on paternoster dropper and was first in with the line heading down to the bottom before the boat had settled on the anchor, YES Fish!!! Straight away he called out letting us know he was on…A nice little Red Emperor undersize started the day off for him.
Then John managed a nice Grass Sweetlip using a Tranzam Lure on his little baitcaster, he would cast out, let it sink, then work it slowly across the bottom and back up through the water column, he got a mackerel, a sweetlip and a huge trigger fish on the lure, (Well actually about 16 trigger fish) during the day was the finally count I think.
I began fishing and was chasing a Red Emperor for the dinner table, so I used a whole mullet with one fillet partially cut away from the backbone to allow it to swing freely from the gill end, I use two snelled 7/0 chemically sharpened Dynatec hooks with 80lb leader then a number 10 ball sinker above the swivel on the main line of 24kg. The 8 inch mullet was fed down and within 30 seconds I could feel some interest in the bait. I slowly lifted the rod tip up and then as the bait was lowered back down the fish engulfed the butterflied mullet presentation. The fish was giving some nice head thumps and I called for the net as I knew it was a nice fish. The image of an 8kg plus red emperor coming into view through from the deep depths below is a sight many never forget and although I had not been fishing for over 16 weeks, when I seen that sight again it was very welcomed.
The fish were pretty hard to temp for the rest of the day, with a few more sweetlip, a hand full of hussar, another legal Red Emperor around the 5kg mark and a couple of small estuary cod gave us a nice feed. Brodie also managed to bring a 10 foot plus shark to the leader after a mammoth 75 minute battle. Well done Buddy!
The trip home just after sunset was much nicer than the trip out, with 28 knots the average speed making the 19 mile run in around 50 minutes.
The next morning we cleaned thefish and the boat, with everything tidied up by lunch time, I was about to reverse the boat back into the shed, when I thought what a lovely day it was… I should go fishing again!
The phone was picked up and three new crew were arranged for a 1730 hour departure from Round Hill Creek. I shot around to the servo and refuelled the boat, organised Vern to pick up 4 bags of ice on his way in from Burnett Heads, Reuban to get the drinks and some tucker and Steve would meet us at Rosedale after he finished work at 1600hrs. We met Steve at 1700hrs and then pushed on to Agnes Waters and the Ramp at 1770 just as the sun was setting.
The run out was comfortable at 18knots and we dropped the first anchor just before 2000 hours. The hussar were present and it did not take long to reach our limit of 40 hussar, so we all changed to the big bait rigs and put on either whole cuttle fish heads, full hussar fillet slabs, or a whole 20cm mullet hoping for some quality fish. The bait jigs were dropped down and were just ripped to pieces by the razor gangs below, a few small slimies were collected. These returned a nice little Red Emperor of about 5kg and a few Spangled Emperor around 3-4kg. As the night wore on, I decided I had beater feed the crewies, so I filleted up a few Hussar and a sweeltip and cooked some fresh fish and served it up on slices of fresh bread for the boys. Whilst I was cooking tea and enjoying a cool beverage, Steve had baited up his rod and sat the butt on the floor of the boat with the drag still done up pretty tight, well a fish grabbed the bait and before he could react the rod was snatched straight over the side of the boat, Bye Bye to a near brand new Shimano Tekota 700 reel loaded with 24kg line and a12-15kg rod combination!
Oh… you have to laugh about it I guess now, but at the time it was quiet upsetting to see such a nice set up go disappearing into the darkness of the night ocean. Steve has worked some overtime at work this week to replace it for me, that fishing I guess, wasn’t the first time we have lost rods over the side, and probably won’t be the last, but I hope it is.
Well back to the fishing, for the rest of the night, when the tide changed we managed to find a school or Small mouth Nannygai that averaged 3.2kg each fish. We were using cuttle fish heads on the Snelled rig set ups, and fishing up off the bottom which was giving the best results and hook ups.
When the sun came up the next morning the nannygai seemed to retreat to their holiday homes and the fishing slowed from what it had been during the dark hours of night.
At 0700hrs we pulled the pick and headed in on a near glassed out ocean. The drive back to Bundy was uneventful and after a shower and a few hours sleep we met back at my place to do the clean up later that afternoon.
We all got a nice feed of fillets from the catch and despite the lost rod and reel, these two trips in two days has certainly broken my fishing drought and made some great memories for us all.
Thank you to my crew members for the great couple of days on the water. Iam already looking forward to our next trip -now that I have once again wet my off shore fishing appetite.
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