Bob, Pete and I headed up Wathumba way on Saturday 8/7/06. We’ve done this trip for about the last five years now around the June or July moon. The main target is snapper / squire at Rooneys. This has proven to be a great spot to target these fish, and unfortunately will likely be the last time we get to fish tis spot as it is due to be green zoned next month. We have other spots up the top end of the bay too, but this has been our favourite for a long time.
I’ve also been keen to get out over Breaksea Spit, though have never really been confident to tackle it on my own given it is so far from help should something go wrong. This trip changed that though.
We arrived at Wathumba around 7am on Saturday morning, set up camp and got back out while the tide still allowed. We hunted around a few close marks until the early start (picked up Bob from Bris airport at 12:30am) caught up with us all. So back to camp for a siesta, and a few beers.
Sunday morning arrived with a forecast of 10-15kn SE, so we decided we’d head up around the lightship and out from there. On the way I decided to check out the 13 mile crossing on Breaksea, which Smithy gave me marks for about 12 months earlier, (thanks Smithy). From the inside it didn’t look too bad even though we were into 2 hrs of run out , so we poked into it for a closer look. All in all it wasn’t too bad, but we did have to push through a couple of sections of pretty decent pressure waves.
Once on the outside we headed directly east for the 90 metre ground hoping to find pearlies, but on the way we found some great looking country and shows in around 50m. I marked this ground and continued out. We gave the deeper stuff a go for about an hour with only one pearlie, so headed back to the 50m ground. It was here we caught the bulk of the fish, with red throat, coronation trout, hussar by the bucket load, gold spot wrasse, maori cod etc. After getting a good feed we headed back in at the 13 mile with a rising tide. No sign of pressure waves, a dead flat bar. What a contrast to the morning’s crossing. From we headed down to the lighthouse and dropped the pick for the night.
Next morning saw us wait for the 7am weather forecast then back to the bar, again on the run out, and again those same nasty sections of pressure waves, but the Fisher loved it! We headed to the same 50m marks, as well as explored some more interesting looking contour lines, all in around the 50m depth. We caught more of the same as Sunday, plus got blown away by numerous unstopables. We landed a couple of cobia, and Ajs as well as more reefies. We were all fishing 50lb tackle and after get done over a few times I stepped up to the 80lb braid. At least this kept the beasts out of the reef, but ended up in straightened 5/0 7766 hooks. No idea what these were. Big Ajs, cobes, reds, who knows? Again we headed back to the bar with the rising arvo tide and headed to Rooneys to fish for snapper.
We arrived at Rooneys around 430pm and dropped our SPs down on the drift. We’ve fished SPs here before, but this time we decided to try them exclusively. By 6pm we had our bag of 15 snappery squire to 3.5kg, with nothing kept under 50cm and several released. How much fun was that! Time to head back to the creek for a few beers and a comfy night in camp.
By the time we got back to the creek we’d already done about 400km and used a fair swag of our fuel supplies, so Tuesday saw us heading back to Urangan to re-fuel (only 500l this time!), re-ice, fillet the fish and freeze them down. Pete and Bob headed off for more food as well as a trip to the airport due to Virgin sending Bob’s bag to Perth from Melbourne instead of Brissie on Friday night. I stayed with the boat on the trailer in the car park and filleted the fish while they were away. Quit a few people drove past and had a good look at what I was up to, so I wasn’t all that surprised when the friendly Fisheries boys pulled up alongside at the back of the carpark where I was trying to keep out of the way of everyone else.
Talk about a thousand questions, not that I mind as they were only doing their jobs, but they didn’t leave a stone unturned. Of the whole fish left, they inspected each one to ensure the pec fins were removed from the coral reefies, then matched up the fillets and counted every fish on board. Whole or filleted. The inspector explained that a lot of rec fishers still aren’t removing the pec fin, which apparently is a $375 fine up to four fish and a summons if you have more than four without the pec removed. They also quizzed me on where I had filleted the fish, ensured I knew not to return these to the boat on the water, and confirmed that Bob and Pete had been with me fishing. I think we were about 15 short of our coral reefie bag limit for the three of us, but had our bag of snapper. Before they left they inspected my EPIRB and flares too. Very thorough, but pretty decent blokes all the same. Anyway, we got the boat back on the water and headed back to camp.
Wednesday was a pearler of a day with variable 5-10kn winds so out over the bar again, this time with a rising tide for the run out and in. Even though the seas were dead flat the current was raging from the north which made the fishing very difficult. We still managed a feed of wrasse, parrot, hussar etc, plus got blown away – again! At the end of the day we went and played with the Rooneys squire population once again with the plastics before anchoring for the night on the southern side of Rooney Point.
After a sleep in on Thursday we broke out the 2-4kg bream spin gear and prospected the shallows around Rooney Point. Here we found tailor on the chew. All little choppers to about 36cm, but heaps of fun with the light gear and SPs. We hung around here most of the day before harassing the squire at Rooneys for one last time. They weren’t as keen this session, though we each got four or five on the SPs again, as well as finding a school of tea leaf trevally which kept us amused for about and hour or so before the squire came on the chew.
Friday, and the weather finally soured. 25 – 30kn SE greated us. We headed out up the island from the creek a bit to try the SPs on some of the close stuff but without reward. The tough decision to write this day off was made and a “lay day” was called. Back to the creek by 11am, esky re-organised to ensure a steady supply of coldies, and the festivities began. There are enough stories for another post in this day alone, but since they’re not fishing stories I won’t bore you with them! Though Pete is still complaining about a sore head.
Well, it all had to end at some point and a day on Hervey Bay with 20 – 25kn northerlies is as good a day as any to head home. We broke camp and departed the creek arriving back at Urangan around 2pm. We all had a great trip. Caught new species, and in total we caught something like 30 different species of fish. Ranging from bream, flathead to cobia and red throat. It’s a real shame that Rooneys is to be green zoned, but now I know what’s over the bar I’ll be back again and again. Only trouble with the offshore stuff is the distance. Over eight days on the water we covered 812 km.
Dave.
Pics to follow.
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Originally Posted by Alchemy
