Hi as a newbe to this site, thought I would start by giving an account of my trip to Barwon Banks on Saturday 24/4.
Left Mooloolaba about 3:45am for a pretty smooth trip out sitting on 25 knots all the way. Headed straight out to the Eastern side of the Banks and was drift fishing the rises in about 85 metres by 4:45am. Caught 2 snapper of 3.5kg and 4kg in the first hour and then it went quite.
Scouted around and found a good show on the sounder on a good little raised section. Within an hour we had our bag limit of 10 Pearlies (5 each) and 5 Trag Jew by drifting over this one area. The Pearlies were all good sized with the biggest being 3KG (didn't need to measure any of them as the smallest was 40cm). Seeing we had our bag limit, thought we would head back into the towards the centre of the banks and finish off the morning with a few mixed reefies, so left the Pearlies while they were still biting.
Tried a couple of drifts from 35 metres out to 60 metres and each time picked up a good parrot as we went over the 50 metre line. We decided to anchor up at about 9am, so found a nice looking ledge on the 50 metre line. For the next few hours we were regularly picking up Parrot with the odd Gold Spot Wrasse, Rosy Job fish and a 4kg Amberjack. Also had 4 bust offs on 50lb gear, first 3 times from being dragged accross the bottom and the 4th time from too much drag trying to stop it. I suspect they were BIG Amberjack as they were fighting dirty by heading straight for the closest outcrop and running the line over it. I fish with braid with 5 metres of mono leader to provide some resistance against the rough bottom. Each time the Mono leader was cut up pretty badly from being run over the bottom. Oh Well, next time.
By about lunch time, we hit our bag limit of 12 Parrot so headed for home. Ended a great days fishing with 41 fish in total between two of us including our bag limit of Pearlies and Parrot. Trip back to Mooloolaba was in near perfect condition and sat on 30 knots for the trip home. This has to go close to being a perfect days fishing with great sea conditions and the fish were really on the chew.
I will have to get a digital camera so I can put photos up straight away. Took some snaps but will probably be a month or two until the film is finished of and developed.
Now, with all this fish in the freezer, I wil need a new reason to convince my wife that I need to go fishing next weekend as the "out of fish" excuse wont work. Maybe the good old "fuel will go stale if I dont use it" is worth a try. Any other ideas welcomed.
Mark
. Lucky I found this new spot - you should have come over and tried it. I got your PM but can't reply until I have done a few more posts.
... Good to know what is being caught. 