Left the mooloolaba ramp at 9pm friday night to head out to the hards for a few days hunting around, there was four of us onboard and unfortunately the wind was blowing a little stronger then i would have liked so i headed to the banks rather then plow head on into the sloppy conditions.
We crossed the banks and went to the 100meter contour to fish a few deeper drop offs to begin with. The first few drifts produced some nice fish that included nice nobbies, pearlies and a few larger then average trag jew. With such a positive start and conditions improving we headed north to the hards and tried a few marks along the way, nearly all produced quality fish.
From the hards we headed wider to try some shelf country but unfortunately the current was in full fury and with the boat doing 3.5mph on the drift the fishing was hard and although we landed our share of fish it made for unpleasant fishing so the call was made to head back to the hards and try some new areas.
On the way we passed over a good showing and quickly spun around and dropped the lines, this was the start of one major session of none stop large nobbies and pearl perch. A careful sounding around of the area revealed another 4 large rises, all rising near on 10meters.
We fished these areas during the afternoon and as darkness fell apon us and the northerly wind began increasing we moved and anchored away from the better showings had a feed a listened to the rugby league final on the radio.
The wind picked up during the night but began subsiding by 3am and prior to day break we began once again from where we left off with more drags screaming and the ice box filling up. The vast majority of fish landed were snapper but paul landed an AJ and a cobia and the only legal red of the trip a 65cm specimen. Adding colour to the ice box were more than a few parrot,moses perch one coral cod and doug landed several large gold spot wrass.
Adam whose pretty much a regular on the boat nowdays really dissapointed with a "chemmy special" dragging up a wobbygong after one extremely boaring battle. Fortunately he did redeam some respectiality later on by landing some nice fish, but this didnt last long as he went on to catch the only grinner of the trip
By midday we'd had enough, we'd found and marked a few more spots that warrent further investigation and left for home. catch ya...foxy
adam fighting a fish in ideal weather conditions
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