queensland March 2010

[Smithy]

Gary, Paul & Ray Half Day Trip

March 31st, 2010

Good weather and a heap of boats out fishing made life hard and our luck just wasn't in. No billfish for us this morning as the boys wanted to learn live baiting and trolling but running out of time on a half day we headed in to chase the abundant mack tuna schools on the surface which had the boys twitching to chase from the outset but a bit of "buck fever", inexperience and the ultra calm glass out conditions made approaching the schools difficult to say the least before trying to temp them with hard to cast long distances, tiny slugs to "match the hatch" so to speak. When tuna are feeding on 15mm long bait it gets very hard to temp them on 15-20gm slugs let alone 40gm ones which are much easier to cast any reasonable distance. We hooked a few landing one but it was one of those days.

9 Sailfish Day

March 30th, 2010

I was wanting to get Karl out who had just welded up a few cross members of my boat trailer as well as my mate Mick Guse who was yet to catch a billfish after years of trying as we knew the action was red hot. We teed it up with friend Steve Brooks to head out on his 34' Black Watch "Ymer" to fish for the day. Bait was hard to get but we set off to try and find the pilly schools with 12 yakkas and 1 slimey in the live bait tank. We were able to convert those 13 baits into 11 bites for the day which was good going. The pillys were hard to find but eventually we found them and hooked up not long after. This turned into a double hookup with Mick losing yet another billfish but we were tight to Karl' fish. We tagged it and set up again. Repeat performance again with Mick and Karl both hooked up. Mick went to the front of the boat while we charged backwards after Karl's fish while Mick watched at least 700m of line melt off his reel. We tagged Karl's then headed up forward while Brooksy walked to the front of the boat with a tag pole. Mick had to wind all that line back in which he did and then Brooksy got the tag away for Mick's first fish but not very conventionally.

I was a part of the next double hookup and I had to go to the front while we chased Mick's fish. I luckily only lost around 500m of line before coming back into the cockpit to finish tagging it. This was an average size 35kg model but very stubborn. We tagged it about 40mins in on 8kg breaking strain line which we were all using on the day and released it at the 60 odd minute mark. At the end someone jigged up a full string of pillies so I put one on and sent it down and hooked up straight away on this one in the picture. It was shot by Roger Bayzand of "Blue Reela" who ended up with four for the day including the one with Russ Housby in the water beside it. Thanks to Rog for the pictures. In the final washoup Karl ended up with 5, Mick 2 and me 2 tagged sailfish from 18-40kg.

Joel & Michael Half Day Trip

March 29th, 2010

We could do no wrong this day it felt. We did miss a massive wahoo strike trolling out to the grounds on the high speed skirts as conditions were bumpy and I was down to the 10-14knot speeds where these lures are effective. We jigged some livebait and put the high speeders out again looking for the pilly schools which were quite mobile but they contained the sailfish. We found them and sure enough our first live bait out was snaffled by a sailfish. We ended up with three for the morning and didn't go anymore than 20mins before hooking the next one or having to pull the pin to come home.

Lyle Half Day Trip

March 27th, 2010

Lyle was back again along with his dad Loren and mate Gary to experience some of the billfish action that had been going on. It was a slow morning for the fleet of boats out but we jigged up some good live bait and that setup our day. Jim from Aquasition mobile marine was first to find the pilly schools but we were the first to capitalise. We had a black marlin on for a few jumps one pass over the bait and missed about 5 other hits from various species before we hooked one of the abundant mack tuna. With the gear in we started to livebait and went on to catch a succession of sailfish in amongst the fleet. It was a good little session and we finished up with 3 sailfish and jumped another black off as well as some other billfish bites we missed.

Alison & Stuart Half Day Trip

March 26th, 2010

We moved this one back a day to get slightly better weather but it was still a bit lumpy. We did it tough early but fishing on any little bit of bait had produced for us the past few weeks. We jigged up a bit of bait and livebaited a couple of spots but had no joy. Eventually we got a bite which was a surprise spotty mackerel around 7kg from close to the bottom on my mono rigged leader sinker bait. At least we now had a feed. I headed to the area where I had my last double hookup and there was a bit of bird activity and it looked pretty fishy for a tuna or something. I slipped a single CD18 Rapala out and trolled into the area to look for bait on the sounder. I only went about 100m before we had a black marlin on hooked on the trebles. Stuart fought this guy and we released him shortly after a quick pic or two. That is what Stuart was after and he went away a very happy man even if it was caught a bit unconventionally.

Jim, Josh & Darren Gamefish Trip

March 23rd, 2010

This is from my customer Jim.

"Tuesday morning and I was up at 3am, out of Brisbane and at the wharf at Moololaba by 5.15 to meet the charter boat, recommended by my old fishing mate Copey, all a present for my 60th birthday. Myself, Josh and Darryl [plumbers] met the skipper Smithy. This boat is the new style of game fish chaser that is more nippy and manoeuvrable.

We went out very wide, 12miles, a VERY long way chasing the slimey mackerel [ this is the mackerel you catch in Ireland Mike] that the marlin feed on. We put out swimming live baits of slimeys on 3 rods [one each] and after a series of hits retrieved the front of the baits with the back [where there is no hook] cut off 3 times by marauding Wahoo, the cut on the bait is so clean [ like an incredibly sharp knife] that even when you wind them in, the half bait is still alive. Wahoo have rows of very sharp teeth and look like gargantuan Mackerel.

Jeff, in the boat alongside us, hooked into a 45kg juvenile Black Marlin which then proceeded for 15 mins to give us a real show leaping out of the water, spinning and jumping. This was 11am and he then announced on the VHF that he had his fish and was going to work. Jeff is a Tiler, good for some !!!. But we had no such luck and started trolling lures, still to no effect. The depth sounder allows us to find large schools of bait fish but their predators wouldn’t take – we could see them on the fish finder radars but no hits. By midday we were meant to go back but Smithy had brought up 4 marlin the day before, landed 2 [ Marlin destroy tackle very easily] and I think he knew we would go home disappointed so he asked if we had no rush why didn’t we stay out. We trolled for the next 2 hours tracking baitfish schools and jigging bait when we could, setting live bait lines when it was best and then trolling again ALL to no avail. We were working real hard for these fish.

Then I spotted a 4 meter lump of barnacled wood in the distance, a fence post, these objects attract fish purely because there is nothing else on the surface for miles, we trolled past it and the lures got hit by Mahi Mahi, a fast running surface fish, bright fluorescent green and hyperactive. These were youngsters, about a kilo and good eating. We landed all 3 fish and turned back for the floating wood. At the next pass, all hell broke loose when mine and Darryls rods went off with screamers. The crew concentrated on Darryls fish as he was winding line back on his whilst mine just kept running and I couldn’t stop it. They landed his 7kg Wahoo on 15kg line. Mine was still pulling away and I was down to the last 20% of line. Line was 15kg breaking strain. We settled in for a long fight so I put on a gimbal belt on the butt of the rod [saves any embarrassing damage !!] and after a couple of water swigs we started the fight back to retrieve some line. It came close to the boat at one point but as soon as it saw the boat it careered away again at a frightening pace, the reel wasn’t whirring it was literally screaming on the ratchet as the fish took off for about 50 metres. Then he went deep. I finally got him back again, stopped him from getting too close to the boat or the propeller on one sortie [ the line is so taut that if it touches anything it just breaks] and after much ado we realise that he wasn’t hooked in the mouth but was foul hooked in the fins under the gills. No wonder he had so much energy and was so hard to turn and retrieve.

Managed to get him close to the boat and Smithy threw the gaff across him but proceeded to rip the hooks out, OH NO the fish was free, instantly Smithy stabbed again and gaffed this big Wahoo and pulled him aboard. Everyone jumped out the way to avoid the vicious teeth, quick swipe of the knife and he was quietening in the fish box. Although most of him was protruding out of the box. This was a horse of a fish Tired, shaking, sweaty and elated, I had a swig of water

-relishing a moment of a lifetime.

What can I say – what a great day, SO SO memorable and a spectacular birthday present and thank you Mum, Nikki and Bill - and obviously my heartfelt thanks to a superb experienced skipper -

Enclosed some photos of my lifetime fish but more importantly a YouTube link of the last couple of minutes of the fight – it was considerably longer than this - trust me"

And the video of Jim's.

/>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfmzT-QFGjI

Corey, Steve & Lyle Half Day Trip

March 22nd, 2010

Corey had just moved here from South Australia and his father in law Steve was up visiting and making up the third was regular client Lyle. They were chasing marlin but it was going to be hit and miss if they were still there after a couple of weeks of poor weather. We didn't need to worry and hooked four off two differnt spots with Lyle getting his first billfish on his own rod and Steve handing off to Corey later on as he was suffering seasickness all morning. Corey was pumped just with a mack tuna compared to SA fishing and was over the moon with the marlin.

Terry Healy Half Day

March 9th, 2010

Terry booked himself and mate Derrick in for a half day but we could only start at 8:00am as Terry was only getting off night shift in Brisbane at 6:00am. This virtually elimanated mackerel fishing as an option starting this late so we headed straight to the marlin grounds. Passing the mackerel grounds the water was brown like coffee from the recent rain so at that stage I was happy with that call. The water was still brown at the marlin grounds but the fish didn't seem to mind as there were still good bait schools getting around. Marlin were being hooked up all around us but it wasn't our day today. I headed wider looking for blue water but it was still green to 14Nm out so back to the mackerel grounds for a last ditch effort. No joy here but time beat us in the end and a bit of patience on the marlin grounds would have seen us get fish for sure.

Alvin Mackerel Trip

March 6th, 2010

Alvin continues to be my most unlucky regular customer as far as the weather goes and this time he fronted with no bananas! We should have called this trip off but Alvin and his dad Lim had allready left Brisbane by the time I was up and about. The BOM and Seabreeze forecasts were at odds with each other but I should have gone with the Seabreeze one which was worse this morning. It didn't drop like the BOM predicition, it actually got worse and they revised their forecast at 5:30 after we had allready headed out. We did a couple of laps around the blinker as a couple of fish could have made the trip from Brisbane worthwhile and both times I passed over the same spot we got a nice spaniard on but they were too good for us in the weather. The 2nd one went around the prop making for intereting times for me to hang out off the boarding ladder cutting line off in the big swell we were in. The drifting set Lim off with seasickness so we headed back in with our tails between our legs on a day we shouldn't have gone out.

Scott 3/4 Day Trip

March 1st, 2010

Scott and the boys turned up a bit late after a big night on the drink. Things were not looking good when one of the boys was alcohol sick before the blinker. By then end they had all succumbed to a mix of alcohol and sea sickness. The wind was a bit stronger than forecast reducing me to trolling speed for high speed lead head skirts so I put a couple out. As soon as we were near the grounds we had a spanish mackerel bomb dive a lure and take 20m of line before getting off. We ended up getting about seven strikes trolling around the blinker for two spanish mackerel and a skipjack tuna. Once at the marlin grounds we couldn't get a bite out of the wahoo by trolling so we went live baiting. The bait was still there after the strong winds and rain and so were the marlin and sailfish. Thunderbird ending up hooking three for the morning. We got chopped by a heap of wahoo which was frustrating and with fickle winds between each rain squall and a bit of current we went trolling again. Doing this we took a mystery strike much like a marlin but missed it. We found some crab pot floats and pulled a few mahi mahi off them but they wised up pretty quick. Trolling back to the hot spot I marked a marlin on the sounder and sure enought five seconds later as soon as I marked the bait he was on we had two ratchets screaming. This proved to be a double hookup of a sailfish on the long corner skirt and a black marlin on the short corner minnow. The black got tangled in the leader and we had him after a short fight with a quick picture for Scott. The sailfish dumped a heap of line and did the right thing out the back and we eventually leadered it as well. With the rain bucketing down it was an easy decision to call it a 3/4 day and call it off early and head in as the rain set in for days from that time on.

Scott and his black marlin.

Nice feed.

Pictures by Scott.