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Bowen, Nth Queensland

nadders

By nadders
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nadders Newbie

nadders

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Shane (dragons7), Mark (tugger) and I just got back from our trip to Bowen in central QLD. I have a lot to write and a few piccies but the piccies will be up soon, not just yet so i'll keep yas waiting :P

The trip was awesome, we were only up for 3 days and 2 of them were spent fishing (one driving the 13hrs back to brissy)

The target for the trip was mainly mackerel, of the spanish flavour. According to skipper mark who had been up there for a week already, the mackies were going insane and they were very, very thick.

Unfortunately they weren't quite so thick once shane and I arrived, but we still got onto a few.

Day 1:

First day out saw us up bright and early at 5am to hit up an awesome spot called Abbotts Point, which is basically a huge HUGE coal wharf that stretches 2.5km out to the open ocean, kind of like the oil pipeline minus mudflat multiplied by 4,000,000 :lol:

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This spot has reefy patches all over and its filled with HUGE fish. We mainly drifted pillies and sent a few to the bottom, first drop saw some nice trevs of various subspecies i think at 70-80cm:

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the trevs kept on coming but no macks yet. We trolled around towing a large wolf herring and got a huge hit, but the probable spaniard didn't hook up :(

not to worry, out to the mackeral patch we went which is a gravel area about 1/2 way back to the ramp. We scored more trevs here of all kinds, a baby cobe and got some big mackerel hits. We lost about 5-6 all up to snippings, beheadings and landed a 3m whaler which swallowed a hooked mackie whole.

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That many fish were lost to snippings it was unbelievable, we were using black swivels and getting them in asap but as soon as a fish would take a run, his buddy would snip the line within 5 seconds.

Oh well, we decided to head back to the ramp, get some more ice and bait and head out for the night session.

We went back to Abbots Point for the night session, this was one of the highlights for me. More trevs landed including some more biggies, and we scooped up a squid that was attacking a livie we had hanging out the side. A tentacle from this squid saw its way into a 61cm largemouth nannygais mouth, which i brought back with me. Was a good fight on the 1-3kg bait jig rod with 6lb lol.

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At night time this place was going off, huge BOOFS all over the place and massive bait showers. We decided to throw an XOS popper at the pilons while waiting for hits, and jesus did they get smashed. MASSIVE surface strike, like someone threw a handgrenade at the water, followed by 10 seconds of intense ZZZZZZZZ on locked drag until the line pinged on a pilon. This happened twice, and was the coolest **** ever lol, these were likely very big GT's as they were not up against light gear either. The surface strikes were purely insane.

We saw a whale surface about 50m from the boat at this spot, which was awesome, and skipper mark landed a 2.5-3m shovelnose which wasn't awesome, haha.

Being out on the water for like 16 hours, we decided to head back in, get some sleep and hit it again early in the morning

Day 2:

On the second day we headed to an offshore island called Holburn island. This is a fantastic looking rocky little island surrounded by reef and mackerel :D

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You can tell by these images how beautiful the conditions were, they were like this all weekend, 5 knot winds max and zero swell or chop, an offshore glass-off.

We trolled some lures around the reef edges for a bit with no luck, so we anchored up on the edge of a reef in a nice current line and threw some baits out. The water was so clear here you could see the bottom in 20+m, and the bottom was absolutely swarming with fusilier and shark mackerel. We each caught some sharkies to about 1m, kept jigging up fusies and having them smashed and snipped. At one point mark had a sharkie on right under the boat, it was a decent size fish looked about 1m or so, then a frigging massive spanish (i think) zoomed in and smashed its head off in the blink of an eye. It was awesome hooking a mackerel as you watched it take the bait, then watching it in the water zooming around at intense speed, some of the coolest fishing i've experienced by far.

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After the tide settled and the action died down we decided to head back to the mackerel patch and try for some spanish. Hits were quiet, then we dropped one pilly to the bottom and pulled up a 70 odd school mack. A few minutes passed and one of the floaters got smashed, i saw it cut through the surface and i knew it was decent. Turns out it was a 110cm spanish for the skipper, which was a tiddler compared to the 22kg he got earlier in the week but we wanted to see a spaniard and we saw one so everyone was happy. I have a new appreciation for their ridiculous teeth, as i just barely brushed its open mouth in the esky and cut my finger to the bone :cry:

All up this trip was awesome fun, although the mackerel action was not red hot like it had been that week we all got a few fish, some nice shark mackerel and some good trevs, insane bustoffs and awesome scenery made it well worth the 13hour drive back (we flew up, drove down).

Absolutely fantastic fishing and i loved every minute of it, would not hesitate to pack up right now and head back. I am so jealous of what is on offer up there lol, i think i found my retirement plan, and I have to say once more thanks to Mark (tugger) and Shane (dragons7) for an awesome trip I appreciate the offer to come up and loved every minute of it.

The other boys have some more photos and video footage but I'm not sure if i can post some of the footage publicly yet, if i can i'll put it up, some sweet clips of macks zooming around etc haha. I didn't manage to get a photo of every fish on my camera, but Mark has some more photos including his catches from the week before we came up, so stay tuned for those (awesome fish in there).

Cheers,

Dan

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nadders Newbie

nadders

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thanks for the replies everyone

yeah henry it was very awesome, everyone there was very friendly and the fishing resource is so untouched compared to down this way. i can see myself doing some trips up here in my boat, although Marks 535 (i think?) cuddy cabin was a very comfy and smooth ride, my little 445 tinny could handle it no worries just be a bit wetter and lumpier haha. driving back down to brisbane was cool, seeing all those famous rivers like the pioneer, burrum and mary rivers etc that are crawling with barra and threadies, makes me want to pack my gear up now and drive back up right away hitting every river on the way haha.

too bad its back to reality and work for now :P

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tugger Enthusiast

tugger

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got this spanish the weekend before shane and dan come up he went 1.54m and 22kg .we saw a 20 kilo cobia landed beside us that day but the fish were thick you only looked over the side to see mackerel of all species swimming past 2m away from the boat .had fun on catch and reasing heaps of spotties and school mackerel before the big fella hit IMG_1746.JPG

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tugger Enthusiast

tugger

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don't know what happened to the original photo over time on the site but here it is again

got this spanish the weekend before shane and dan come up he went 1.54m and 22kg .we saw a 20 kilo cobia landed beside us that day but the fish were thick you only looked over the side to see mackerel of all species swimming past 2m away from the boat .had fun on catch and reasing heaps of spotties and school mackerel before the big fella hit IMG_1746.JPG
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