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Moreton Madness


samsteele115

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Hey everyone.

Well yet again I have been on a fishing hiatus due to my only free day to fish (Sunday) being too windy for the past month or so! The plan was to take @bersim and my brother out in the tinny for a day of fishing. I was going to pick them up from Moreton Island as they were staying over there for schoolies week. Unfortunately this plan fell through so I called @Luvit to see if he wanted to be my decky instead. He already had plans to take his son Luke out for the day so after checking with him if it was ok I joined I was given the all clear and got my gear ready to meet them nice and early in the morning.

 

We were greeted by no wind and a relatively flat bay which was not expected so instead of sticking to the original plan of fishing the bay for mackerel we decided to poke our nose offshore to see if we could find a Kingfish or Spanish Mackerel or whatever else!

 

There was a lot of action on the sounder and we had a brief bite time catching cod, amberjack, spangled emporor plus a plethora of other small reef fish species.

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All of a sudden the bite slowed even though there was still lots of action on the sounder. We persisted for an hour or so before deciding to move on and head back into the bay for the original plan of mackerel and tuna. Unfortunately this whole time Luke was not feeling too well from the swell so he spent most of the day sleeping on the front deck the poor bugger!

 

On the way back we stopped at a mark that Wayne had on his GPS. I had a Halco Roosta popper on whilst Wayne was stuffing around tieing on a lure and on my second cast I was very surprised to see a boil around the popper and I hooked up!! It was a solid fish and after a couple of minutes I lost it due to shredded leader. Original thought was Spanish Mackerel or GT due to the shredded leader but from the action that followed I think I worked out what it might have been…

 

We drove back to the same spot after a very fast drift in only 10m of water and it didn’t take long to get more interest around the popper. This time I saw the culprits as they fought over the lure in an array of swipes and slashes on the waters surface. Kingies!

There were some big fish among this group and I saw the fish that ate my lure and it was miniscule compared to the others. Judging by the size of the others I thought I was hooked up to only a 70cm fish and the others were well over a metre! After a strong tussle I got it near the boat and was surprised to see the size of it, not being as small as I first thought. Into the boat it went and it measured at just over a metre!

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So the scary part is, those other fish having a go at the popper would have been around 1.5m brutes if this thing in the pic above looked tiny in comparison…

 

We kept this one for a feed and with adrenalin pumping just wanted to get the lure back out there knowing full well I may not have a chance on the gear I was using with one of the monsters… Being in such shallow water they found the bottom easy once hooked up but luckily there was just scattered structure and it wasn’t all gnarly reef down there so we had a chance on most occasions…

 

Wayne hooked up next as he cast his Gobblers Soft Plastics 4.75” Jerk Shad in baitfish colour (there you go mate, did the plug for you) behind my popper. This proved to be a very effective method. The popper always brought them up and excited them but they wouldn’t always eat it. So when a very realistic baitfish representation was cast behind the popper they obviously couldn’t resist.

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This action continued for at least an hour and we would have hooked about a dozen and got plenty of hits. We hooked big ones and small ones, but most of the time unfortunately the small ones got to the lure first!

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Wayne got blown away twice by what could have only been one of the XOS sized fish we were seeing, unfortunately it was all over pretty quickly once he was hooked up to them. Very powerful fish that’s for sure.

 

We ended up boating at least 7 kingies (can't remember exact number), a 90cm ish school mackerel and many other smaller fish from earlier that morning so it ended up being an absolute cracker of a day when we weren’t even planning to leave the bay at all! One of those days to remember.

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We both joked on the way home that our various deckies from AFO probably think that we don’t take them to all the best spots because we always seem to have great sessions together but not always when we take out other people haha. Definitely not the case, just one of those things being at the right place at the right time. It's amazing to think we have this quality of fishing just half an hours trip from the Bribie boat ramp :) 

 

Most fish were released but we did keep a few that will be enjoyed thoroughly. Thanks for reading and tight lines!

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Sam.

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Thanks @timtam_! You're right, all prior knowledge from previous and failed sessions definitely contribute to a successful day like this one. Its all learning.Yep taste great! We should tee up a session soon.

@sax Thanks. Wouldn't recomend light gear to be honest! Just risk losing that fish of a lifetime. Some pelagics like mackerel and tuna you can get away with using light gear and just play them out. Not really the case with these guys cos most of the time they are hanging around structure and will certainly have no problem reefing you even on heavy gear.

I was using 30lb braid with 50lb leader on a longtail tuna combo and would call that undergunned for big kingies around structure. Unfortunately left my offshoure popping combo at home!

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Thanks for doing the report Sam. Very good and a lot less spelling mistakes than mine. Hope more of those days exist. 

Had the kingfish last night for dinner everyone liked it. 

Can't speak highly enough of the techice ice box, keeps the catch in pristine condition. 

 

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9 hours ago, kmcrosby78 said:

Awesome session there fellas, well done. Did you catch the kings offshore or once back inside the bay - wasn't sure? I haven't caught one since I was a teenager (yep, a LONG time ago ....) so I need to rectify that!!

Inside the bay

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