queensland Happy Dayz

[Smithy]

Yesterday I had Andy back with his mate Brendon. Andy is proving somewhat of a big snapper expert. He jagged the good run I had in Feb/Mar 08 then got this new boat PB soft plastic 90cm one. 20lb braid, 25lb leader. I pulled in the drift anchor and took chase expecting a tuna by the way it fought. A good honest fish.

Not to be outdone Brendon latched onto this AJ on 30lb braid, 30lb leader. Same place as the snapper and totally unexpected. Once again we pulled in all the gear and took chase. After 20mins or so I was expecting a big longtail tuna as the likely suspect. Not that big fella off a gravelly area.

Not a bad little haul in the end getting our 3 kingies easily which we needed to get the bagout of AJ/kingies for a half day trip.

[Smithy]

Today I had Daniel and mates Tom and Kevin out. The squire bit a lot harder with the one outstanding fish in the area. It was 75cm I think.

After we got sick of catching them the boys were all barred up to chase knigies. A handful of cubes and we had 30 milling around the boat wanting to be caught. Leaving a rod in the rodholder with the bare hook swinging below was a sure way to get hooked up for a while whilst we dehooked other fish. They went off. A bag was achieved in 5min flat. It was then out to chase cobia. There were none there today like Wednesday arvo so we headed wide. We put together a nice little feed of piggies there.

[straddiebrad]

once again smithy you come up trumps cant wait till i get a crew together and have a bash at them great report and good fish the snapper is awesome,you must have heaps of happy customers.brad

[yoyo]

sh*t i hope the wind behaves itself for sunday.............

[Bri The Pom]

Another great report showing some quality fish. Smithy your;e the man.

[silver_rex]

nice one smithy!! :woohoo:

[Smithy]

Got out yesterday morning. No wind eventuated. Would have got the snapper bag as we threw a heap of 35-40s back but Darren and Graeme only kept the bigger ones. Got the kingy bag and let a heap go.

[Angus]

Well done mate. Ill be making a booking soon for sure

Angus

[fisherjack1394]

well done mate that looks like awsome fun

[Smithy]

Snappy little trip this morning to try and beat the wind. My spot has gone off for some reason. Less bait shows, but similar snapper shows.

[Smithy]

Today's effort with two aboard. Got hit by the wind about 3. Was good up till then.

[Smithy]

Friday's trip. Had a couple of the boys from Ausfish aboard.

The golden was a bit of a surprise for that area.

Chris also got the best snapper. It was part of a double and a similar one to this was lost when the hook pulled.

The kingies were still there and hot to trot again.

[adambris]

nice one guys! i'll have to get prices off you if i can?

adam

[Smithy]

More pics and some Youtubes from the 25th trip.

Catch a kingie in 5 secs
/>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6ZFCD8S6fA

Feed kingfish by hand
/>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsXKJN9WtGk

[Do$tylz]

oh man.. those videos are awesome. What were the sizes of those Kingies smithy??

[Smithy]

More from the other day.

Grassy.

Squire.

AJ.

90% of the kingies are 65-75cm. The odd 10kg one and the odd throw back.

[Smithy]

It has been a tough couple of days in the wind. Matt and Rob hung in and persuded me to go wide yesterday which payed off. We started off in close on the soft plastics with Matt scoring a pan size squire on an octopus jig before about 20 knots of SW wind came through. We played around in close trying to get out of the wind and eventually headed wider around lunch time once it abated. In the end we got a few pearl perch, a few snapper and a couple of kingfish off a couple of marks.

Matt and a pearlie.

Squire.

Kingy.

[Smithy]

Weather bureau wrong again yesterday. Cancelled and got my motor serviced while all the obs were less than 10knots. Organised an arvo trip. Couldn't quite get 10/10 but got 8. Looks like the BOM are wrong again this morning and I should be out there not sitting on the computer.

Put up with 20knots of NW the morning before. Bit better quality but only found them mid morning after lots of running around and looking.

[Smithy]

July 23

Today I had Damian and his parents Hazel and Murray out. I was hoping the wind would be NW so we would have some protection in close but it was NNE so we wore the full brunt of it. We stayed super close to shore and Hazel got a couple of squire. As the wind dropped off we kept working wider and wider. A few more fish came aboard and then we cracked the magic drift and we were three fish off bagging out with double and triple hookups of squire on the soft plastics. Plenty of undersize fish were thrown back too so it ended up a pretty busy little session. Luckily it was slightly overcast and they kept biting for us.

July 21

Today I had Jess, Lee, Cam and Dawn aboard. They had done lots of fishing overseas and in the northern territory so it was a different for them fishing in 50m+ deep water. Lee got off to a good start with a 77cm snapper. We had a triple hookup of moses perch at one stage as well as a trag and a parrot off the first spot. We got a few squire off another spot and whilst travelling to a spot I hardly ever got to we ran across a dead humpback whale. First off we noticed a big school of cobia and we quickly nabbed two of them but they wised up pretty quickly. We then noticed the two tiger sharks in attendence. One was about 3m and the other 2m. The cobia then seemed more interested in following the sharks around than eating the scraps torn off by the sharks. We missed a couple more bites on livies and pillies but then it was time to come home. I gave the postition to the shark net contractor who then took a research scientist out the following day and they tagged the smaller tiger shark with a satellite tag. Hopefully it will get famous like Neil the Shark - the famous great white who had his position live on the internet. It has also been suggested that it was killed by Orcas going on the bite marks on the belly and the way the tail was bitten to disable it. They then eat the tongues out as a delicacy. It is a fish eat fish world out there or in this case, mammal eat mammal.

This is a dead sperm whale that was anchored off Currimundi a couple of months ago to save it drifting onto the beach and creating a health hazzard. It had great whites and cobia on it but I missed seeing that by a day. We pulled one rat kingfish off it.

July 20

I had Andrew out again along with Gavin and new guy Eugene. They were out to jig for amberjack. This time livies outfished jigs with Eugene catching a 10kg aj for his first fish ever and Gavin also getting one around the same size on a live bait. The fist fish was on a live tailor and the second one a live slimey mackerel. On the jigs the pearl perch kept coming. We spent all of the middle of the day stopping and dropping on likely shows only to keep pulling pearl perch on the jigs. Late in the day I found a nice bait ball that screemed fish. Sure enough we found a school of rat kings. We had triple hookups galore here on the jigs with one yellowtail king coming up on a jig bringing 6-7 of its mates every time. We kept our four fish there for a bagout of ajs and kings and released a heap and left them biting.

July 19

Micheal Mackenzie was out with me again along with Nick who had been with me on our killer Rainbow Beach trip last year. Mick had just bought a new setup nearly like mine comprising a Saltist 40 reel, a Berkley Dropshot jig stick and 80lb Exoset braid for jigging. We started in close on the octopus jigs and soft plastics drifting while I tried to stock up on live bait for later. We headed wide and Mick's $27+ Japanese jig sure worked well outfishing the livies with a few kingies before Nick landed any. Nick also got a pearly I think. Back to the pigfish spot and sure enough they were there again unlike the previous visit. A couple of pearlies also graced the icebox. We ran to Caloundra Wide and scratched up some more pearlies before it was time to head in.

July 12

Geoff, Frank and Brad were back down from Toowoomba again for a days fishing. The swell was cranking but each set was a long way apart and didn't worry us. We tried plastics for an ok squire on a plastic for Brad and Frank got a grass sweetlip on the octopus jig. We tried a close in wreck where Brad pulled a nice big gold spot estuary cod and Frank pulled a squire on the jig. Things were not looking good for Geoff by then. We headed to Wide Caloundra to try and improve the esky and we ended up doing pretty well on squire, pearl perch and yellowtail kingfish.

[Smithy]

Thursday's fish.

[Smithy]

These are the photos from the day we found the whale.

The best snapper of the day.

One of the cobia with the whale up close.

The tiger up close feeding on the whale.

A couple of Cobia.

The catch.

And pics from the 30th of June. Khalif actually hooked this AJ all by himself on a live bait on the 30lb braid combo but his dad Paul and myself had to put the finishing touches to it. Pretty good for the structure it came out of.

[Smithy]

And some stray pictures from Mick’s last two charters with me.

With a kingy on his new Saltist 40 Berkley Dropshot combo.

A pearly the same day.

A two person catch.

His share.

The trip before.

And the 31st of July PM trip I forgot about with the Noosa Yachties Fishing Club.

Keira and a nice gold spot estuary cod. She also got a couple of ok size squire too on the livies. We were actually going to AJs and kingfish.

Jim and what we were actually targeting with the live baits.

And Grant with a bonus brown maori cod.