Hervey Bay Report

[Smithy]

Hervey Bay Report

On the weekend we fished the Maryborough ANSA Interclub in the waters of Hervey Bay. The Bay turned it on and weather co-operated as well. The main species captured in the comp were 7-8kg Queenfish, 4-7kg Longtail Tuna, 2-8kg Mack Tuna, 4-11kg Spanish Mackerel, Mangrove Jacks and Estuary Cod.

Once again I was fishing with Russell Bowman in “Timewaster” and we had one of our club juniors, Scott Baker on board.

We followed last years successful plan of chasing the Spanish Mackerel in the morning then chasing the Tuna in the afternoon. We got to our Spaniard reef just before and deployed the three swim baits off the flatlines and the one off the Downrigger. We had 6kg line on the downrigger line as well as the outrigger line. The two other flat-lines were 4kg breaking strain. As per usual it was about 4 hits for every hook-up with Spaniards. The first fish, a 9kg Spaniard fell to a troll bait on the downrigger and was caught on 6kg line on a 6500 Baitrunner. The next Spaniard was caught on a little overhead sporting 4kg line and it was over 11kg. Scott caught both of these fish. They were really responding to big baits. During the course of the weekend we rigged 4 Tailor and one Mack Tuna. All of the baits except one swam perfectly and each time we got them swimming they only lasted about 100 metres. The Mack Tuna only lasted about 50m.

Once we ran out of rigged baits the temptation of the crashing Tuna became too much. The fish were 2-3kg and we nabbed 4 pretty quickly on 3 and 4kg line. I was able to get a couple of Mack Tuna around 2kg on 2kg line. A few fish were lost during this session with other fish in the school running into the line under tension the main cause for losses. After I had my two fish you are allowed under ANSA rules Russ was able to secure two on 2kg as well. Scott had 2 on 3kg as well so we had to look for other species. Rooneys Point was the right option to fill out our 5 fish bags. Nothing was happening when we got there so we went looking for liveys and had lunch. We didn’t do much good so went out and trolled the Rooneys 4 mile for a bit. One boat was anchored and seemed to be pulling in good numbers of School Mackerel by spinning slugs off the bottom. We trolled and had the hit on the Mack Tuna. One of our club boats was a bit further south and they pulled up a few Blackall. Now the tide was running we decided to head into Rooneys.

This was a good move as there were big Tuna schools working along Fergusons Spit. They were mostly Longtails with a few Macks mixed in. Russell and I threw poppers whilst Scott threw slugs. Scott seemed to pull the Macks out of the schools whilst we pulled the Longtails. I was lucky to land about a 5kg fish on 3kg whilst Russ threw 4kg. Some were getting up around 10kg and they were taking a while on 4kg. Because they were reasonable fish we put a popper on the 6kg outfit and Scott pulled a few line class fish in. Russ got his 2 fish on 4kg line and I had to settle for one on 6kg. Once we had all bagged out we tried to get Scott some on 4kg but by then they were a bit more spooky and we didn’t get much of a shot at them before they went quiet on the change of the tide right on dusk. We blew a bit of gear during that frantic session as well. Mostly due to trying to tail them off the leader when they weren’t quite ready. The schools were that thick we also had some hookups where other fish ran into the line. The fights were also taking a while and we were getting a lot of pulled hooks from the hook holes becoming enlarged during the fight.

Rooneys is about a 2 hour run from Hervey Bay so we elected to camp on Keiths reef for the night and do a bit of bottom bouncing. We didn’t do much good because we went to bed early but we got up at 3:00 and headed back south to our Spaniard spot so we were there for dawn. We arrived in the dark and had breakfast before deploying the baits. Once again it was about 4 hits for every fish and we were going through our bait supply quickly. Russell landed one Spaniard on 4kg then we set about looking for liveys. We got 2 Yakkas and about 3 Pike in quick time so we rigged them and started trolling again. Whilst setting the baits and after we had only moved about 50m the Yakka up top took off. This was also another Spaniard about 6kg on 4kg line which had us tied up for a while because it was hooked in the side. After landing that fish we were about half a mile from the reef so we decided to troll back. We had just deployed the last Yakka on the downrigger when it went off and I ended up with a nice School Mackeral on 6kg line.

There were some Tuna working by now and we were virtually out of rigged baits so we went into tuna mode. Some of the Tuna we caught form this spot the day before were in the Jellybean size and we thought if we could catch some more of those we would be able to deploy them for Spaniards. I looked up at the rocket launcher with the 2x2kg and 1x4kg outfits with slugs on them and settled on the 4kg one thinking I will be able to pull them in pretty quickly so they will be in good condition. First cast and I got an instant strike. This fish nearly 3 parts emptied a TSS3 with 4kg on it and it was still unloading on me when we were chasing it at 8 knots. When I popped it off a while later it was still doing arcs 50-100m out and it hadn’t even begun the back breaking circling under the boat. I wasn’t meant to be landed on 4kg as it was about a 20kg Longtail Tuna. We pulled the pin then as the wind was up to 20 knots SE and headed back to Urangan.

At the weigh-in the Bribie members had done well on big Queenies, big Mack Tuna, some longtails and one big Broad-bar Mackerel on 4kg line. Hervey Bay came second with some big Estary cod on light gear, try 4kg+ on 2kg line and Kingaroy probably came third. Some guys also weighed in some Mangrove Jack caught on 1kg and 2kg line by fishing sandy holes at night on the Fraser Island side. Scott our junior took out the Junior trophy with 2xSpanish, 1xMack and 2xLongtail Tuna. His brother fishing on another club boat won the Sub-juniors.

[matt_fraser]

G'day Smithy,

Sounds like it was an awesome weekend!! Jeez the Bribie and Hervey Bay boys must have got some quality captures to beat you.

I was hoping to catch up with you this weekend at the Brisbane comp, but I'm now working Sunday. Should be able to make it to Gusey's the following weekend.

Matt

[Lucky_Phill]

good report Smithy, well done