Banks rough overnighter

[The_Sponge]

Still new at this, but seems there is not much happening around at the moment so thought I'd give a post a go....and provide a little reading material.

New to reef fishing offshore but went out to the banks last Tues/Wed 17th & 18th gone, and again Tues/Wed 24th & 25th.
1st trip was rough up till midnight then like glass the following morning. We took 10 snapper ranging from 2kg up to 7kg, a few pearlies and fingermark, a small yellowfin, sweetlip emporer and a lovely dolly heading back in, dolly was 1.2m long. will try and post a few pics of that trip but let me warn yous that I am no photograher as you will see. Also caught another 10 keepers but deceided we had enough for a feed for the whole family and then again caught about 40 other undersize fish all types, coral trout, red emporer, hussar, wrasse and all the above undersize too.

2nd trip was really rough getting out, took nearly 3 hours to get to a spot but the action was red hot once we anchored up only lasting for a few hours, first hook up a nice coral trout, then it was snapper one after the other, we kept only 10 that night but hooked up about another 10 keepers which we released and again about another 30 unsized fish too, next moring conditions had improved but was not like glass and the fishing was even better, bagged another few snapper, 6 fingermark, a green jobfish 700mm long, red throat emporer, coral trout, a few pearlies and then we deceided that was enough so we released all the rest, catching another 20 snapper which would have all been keepers and heaps of other mixed species, all in all I think we must have caught 100 fish (and I am not pulling your leg)
heading off the old man hooked onto a GT which measured just under the 1m mark, he was also released. Then we got a double hook up of 2 nice dollies, but both got off before landing.
Anyway hope that gives a few of you guys a bit of a fix, I can tell you that all 3 of us in the boat on the last trip provided plenty of berley.
ps- no pics of this trip as the camera batteries went flat out on the boat and was too tired to fix it up when I got back.

The sponge.

[zulu]

Sponge, nothing wrong with those photos or the results!!! Have not fished the barwons for three months, getting itchey web feet,
cheers troy

[The_Sponge]

Yeah was pretty good, still trying to work out how to make the pics smaller and post them better, practise will make perfect I guess.
cheers

[chemmy]

great work mate the first day looks a treet. Do you have you gps on movment alarm or does one of you just stay awake when you are over nightering??? i ask because dad and i are keen on giving it a go and with results like your it only make us keener.

[trout3030]

Sponge,
Great fish but the fish you are calling fingermark are moses perch. Same family and a great eating fish. Moses perch dont grow as big and they are redder fish than the fingermark. Fingermark once they get a bit of size about them are a bronze colour. A few other differences also. There is a chat thread on here somewhere about it.

[szopen]

Whatever anybody else says.

Looks like you had a great time.

[CHRIS_aka_GWH]

spongy,

great pics & a good report.


Buy yourself a pair of stiff scissors & put them in the boat.

I notice you haven't clipped the pectoral fin off the little red guy.

If fisheries pulled along side you may be down some serious $$$ today.

You must remove the pectoral fin on "coral reef fish" unless you have a yellow background on your rego - pro.

Do it on all fish, the "Coral Reef" label is confusing & the legislated list is as huge as the fine - I don't think you have to do it on snapper but you must on Spanish Mackeral but not spotty mackeral, on moses & fingermark but not on jacks etc - go figure.

Not meaning to preach - we came close at Xmas but fisheries had a human face that day thank christ.

chris

[DICER]

very very nice pics and fish your brought up....

[Mad-One]

BLOODY NICE CATCH WELL DONE . And good pics too

If you go to the help section there is a post there and a program you can download to resize your pics and easy to use

Cheers Phil

[The_Sponge]

Thanks for all the tips fellas, I am too still feeling pretty good about the catches, have only tried reef fishing a handful of times before.
I did actually know that pink fish was a moses, well my missus told me that but I keep calling them fingermark for some reason, must be the black spot, so any reference to fingermarks in my post are really moses. pics are of what is left of the catch as two of the guys already took their dinner....pity no camera for second trip..........more fish, more species and bigger!!!

yeah, like I said before we are only new to fishing for fish other than pelagics so for the first trip we did not know about the regulations and cutting the fin on some fish, but after that trip I rang the fisheries and got them to send me a booklet on rules and regulations etc so all the fish on the second trip were cut, we just cut them all to save going through the book to find which ones had to be done and which ones did not.......its good you guys let the newcomers know this sort of stuff though as I still would not have known if I did not get the booklet from fisheries.

still having trouble identifying some fish for size etc like is a spangled emporer the same as a grassie or gold spot sweetlip, then there is the sweetlip emporer or the red throat emporer??? and trying to find out if you can eat jobfish and what the eating quality is like, I have seen many pics on ausfish of them so I assumed you could eat them but maybe someone could let me know about that too..........or if yous know of a good book with colour pics, size, quality etc in it too.......

in regards to the overnight fishing........MAKE SURE YOU TAKE SEA SICKNESS PILLS................
all 4 of us first trip got a bit quesy with one providing berley, but second trip we thought we would try some of those wrist bands but once we saw the water we all hooked into some pills as well........still was not enough, we all berleyed but felt better after it...........

the idea was to have someone stay awake each night for both trips as we wanted someone to fish all through the night anyway to see if you could catch fish all night and to see if you caught different fish.........the boat was rocking so much both times though that if we had of used a movement alarm it would have been going off all night., none of us got any decent sleep anyway.............the guys that we met at the boat ramp before we left all thought we were crazy heading out into the rough stuff............and now we've done it I think we will definately wait for calmer weather before doing that again.

all the fish were caught for about a 2hr period around sunset and the same again on daybreak, got not even a nibble for the rest of the night, would have come back in if it did not take so long, same thing happened for the second trip too................lucky we did catch fish otherwise I would be put off reef fishing for ever!!!

still to catch a parrot and a big red emporer................these have eluded us so far!!!
cheers

[kleiny]

good to see some nice fish, always like to see a nice dolphin fish.
kleiny

[Big_Ren]

Nice fish Sponge. The overnight thing can be a daunting proposition in less than desirable conditions and it is essential someone keeps watch at all times. Some big container ships use those waters as passage and take an awfully long time to turn and pull up. They can really bear down on you quite quickly and put out a big bow wake. Anyway sounds like a couple of good trips for you guys.

Cheers
Paul

[620sf]

Some good fish there, and some perfect conditions. Sounds like the weather was pretty average that 1 night, makes for a long night.

Luke

[-spiro-]

Nice catch put together pitty about the overnight conditions. My last 3 trip have been in sloppy conditions and i caren't wait for a glass tripo again.

[KIMO]

Great post Sponge, Im from South Australia and we fish the gulfs at night quite a bit down here the two bigest problems with this apart from weather is Ships leaving ports on the high tide, these are usualy quite visible if awake or yatchs these things sneek up on ya and thier mast light if on just seems like another star.
Interesting your catches were dusk and dawn ,how did these times co enside with your local tides? o and what part of the country would I find the Banks? Im of to the Johseph Young Banks to chase a few Marlin next Thursday. This is of Jervis Bay South Coast N S W odviously diferent banks, but from your post maybe I should head your way some day.
Cheers Kimo