Well guys I'm now living on the Gold Coast. Don't have all my stuff organised as I've just arrived. I don't have a sounder for my boat or all my fishing stuff here as it's all in storage still. I don't have a digital camera with me yet either so there'll be now pics this time sorry, but none of that was going to stop me getting out in the glorious whether on Sunday. I figured that the spots I like to fish were going to be full of boats anyway so I'd get away without a GPS or sounder. Sure enough, plenty of boats marked the way. I figured livies was going to be a help with all the boat traffic so I tanked up on them first. Only managed two slimies out of the 25 livies. Headed up to the spot and proceeded to slow troll a slimy and a yakka around. Figured with about 15 boats anchored and about 15 more doing laps around them that I might try a little wider and slower. After about half an hour the slimy rod bent over and started howling. Yehaa, onto my first 2005 spanish. I can get used to living here!
After a noble fight, especially over the final metres, a very stubborn spanish of close to 20kg hit the deck. Alright!!!
Out goes the last slimy and within 5 minutes he's gone too. 15 kg reel howling, although this time it's just a 7kg mack tuna fowl hooked. Had me fooled for a while.
With only yakka left I wasn't as hopeful, however after about 20 minutes I missed a spanish strike. (poor yakka, lost his tail... and head!) About continued trolling with a yakka on my brand new 8kg rod. Saw willo take off then, in his nice bright red hat. But was too involved with fishing to go over and say hi. Sorry mate. Anyway, seems that when you took off, everybody else figured it was over and decided to follow you in. In about half an hour there was only about 5 of us boat left. Anyway, had a solid hit then on the light gear and spend a good 10 minutes subduing a 14kg mackie.
After having a baby striped marlin tail walk all the way past the boat I decided to have a bit of a troll for marlin. Did a lap out to 9mile and back and had marlin come up and have about 5 goes at the lure until it peeled a bit of string and then let go. I don't know what else he could have done to hook himself properly. Next time! Can't wait to get all my gear sorted. This Gold Coast rocks!!!
Wes