It seems I'm left to write about our little journey. My comrades in arms must have broken fingers and are obviously unable to type.
Well as the title suggested we (Mackmauler, Lucky Phil and I) were planning on a Banks trip given the forecast of good weather and the proximity to the full moon. Sanpper and pearlies were the target species.
Rob and I haven't fished out that way much - and Phil is not that much of a regular himself but he had a mark or two for north of the Banks given to him by and old time fisherman. We were banking on the banks providing us with a feed.
Left Brissy at Midnight Friday night and left Mooloolaba at around 1:30am. I was meant to be whale watcher but it was bloody freezing and my eyes were watering too much so I tried to sleep up the front - should have joined Rob down the back. Spoke to every man and his dog on the way out with the Ausfish boys in full cry.
We found out target area around 3:00am finding nice rises and structure in the 70m depth with plateaus up to 50-55m. The sounder showed fish holding in good numbers so a drift was in order to work out what was feeding and which way the wind/current would take us.
The first drop yielded nothing as Phil was - how should I put it - becoming gastronomically challenged as a result of becoming a bit disoriented in the pitch black conditions. With no references - sun or moon - Phil was finding the lights of the cabin a bit much and I thought he just kept looking over the side for bearings - he was however testing his famous and now patented "silent spew".
After Phil and then Rob taking turns at doing loop the loops trying to get back to the mark - I had us anchored on some good looking shows at about 4:00. First drop resulted in bites and hook-ups with Rosy Jobfish coming to the surface. They were steady for a good 45mins and only broken by bloody great tea leaf trevally that were going 5kgs.
Before dawn Phil landed the first snapper and he continued to set the pace while Rob and I caught "the others". Phil soon had the boat highlight with a nice 6.5kg Nobby and Rob followed up with a 7kg Spangled. As the sun came up I put out the floater and got immediate success with 3 nice snapper - one a pigeon pair of Phil's. The Rosies kept coming - as did the snapper, trevs and then a couple of parrot. One of Rob's parrot had to be rescued from the mouth of a giant cod. Rob called a good fish then about 10m from the bottom his good fish became a better fish. A tussel of strength and mind eventuated in a 2-3kg parrot hitting the decks after being stunned and descaled by
Mr Cod.
As the morning progressed the bust offs were numerous with many big fish out doing us. At about 8:30 the yellow tail kings arrived and it was impossible to get a bait through the 5-7kg fish. It didn't matter if it was the surface or the bottom - every drop resulted in a kingy. We kept a couple for the esky but It got that bad we had to move. Fishing this good was becoming boring
We tried a couple of drifts but nothing of any note. A short trip over to see Spiro and then we were home on a relatively calm sea and a glorious day.
It took Phil and I nearly 2 hours to fillet and clean all the fish at his place and that was after Rob had already taken "his" catch home. Our entire catch was notable for the absence of pearlies - only 1 legal but then again we didn't really move around and chase them. The abundance of other species made up for the lack of the pearlie ones.
Of course being the Wallies that we were. I forgot my camera - as did Rob. Phil brought his but left the memory card at home
No bag limits were breached in the making of this story
Phil with a couple of eskies full.
,
. Rob looks a bit short of breath holding up those couple of snapper 
