Gday all,
Nothing like an adventure to wet the appetite for future fishing experiences.
Lucky Phil and his two assistants plus me headed up to Double Island Point via Cooloola with the Big Rig on Friday night at 10:00pm. Met Reefmaster, Roota and Terry already set up on the beach in Rainbow Bay hiding out of the rain. Bunked down for a few hours sleep.
Sorta sunshine on Sat morning and launched the boat from the beach with no issue. The bay was alive with chopper tailor and mac tuna so we cast a few slugs to no avail. Reefy and crew spent a bit more time for similar results I think. Headed out of the bay and were confronted by 2.5 metre rough swell and 15-20 knot breeze instead of the 1.2 and 10-15 (doh)
Trolled up past Wolf Rock for no hits and then went back down to Greg who had anchored close to DI Point. Anchored and first baits were hit by small pearlies. In the next 5 hours caught 30-50 undersized pearlies (no keepers), 20+ undersized red emporer, undersize cod, undersize squire, undersize nannigai, undersize sweetlip etc etc.
Esky finished with a few nannigai (couple of good ones), couple of squire, couple of cod and couple of sweeties. Said goodbye to Greg and made our way back in for the low tide return home at 1:00pm. Slugged the tailor in the bay on our return for a hook-up every cast which rounded out the feed.
Retrieving the boat was interesting with the nice shore dump but was eventually managed courtesy of some help from passers by.
Phil and I left his associates at Tewantin as we headed for Mooloolaba and a Sat night trip to Currimindi. Anchored at 4:30ish and started with the undersize squire brigade. Managed one keeper while the boat next to us had reached their bag limit in the same time by 8:00pm. They moved to other grounds and we moved to their spot.
Couple of legals came in before I went for a cat nap. Phil landed a few more keepers before we swapped positions. Things slowed after 2:00am and we both bunked down for the night.
Morning saw a few more keepers to about 2kg and a couple of spottie mackeral for the cause. The variety was one grassy and one maori cod. All fish we caught on unweighted pillies or fish strips. Lots of bait and hooks were left on the reef.
Home at lunch time Sunday really looking for a sleep. No pictures - you'll just have to believe me. trust me i'm a journalist.
Bugman
