queensland Thursday to Sunday

[Smithy]

This is a report on another fishing site by my Thursday customers.

"What a day!

My brother Rob had booked a day with Smithy a month in advance with plans to plastic the grounds off the Sunshine Coast. Having been on two charters with SQCS and scoring Snapper on plastics and his first Black Marlin, Rob was frothing when the weather showed signs of letting up after looking iffy all week. Our little brother Cam joined us and as Cam and I had never been on a charter before we had been subjected to Rob's stories of fishing with Smithy so we were keen to get out there and see it all for ourselves. Rob and I were looking forward to seeing Cam (who had never fished offshore before) get onto his first ever fish on plastics.

We left the Mooloolaba ramp and cruised to Smithy's Pearlie spot (via the bait grounds), with the hope of securing a stray Snap. First drop and Rob's new Loomis is bent over by a decent fish, the drag of his Twin Power screaming! After a good fight the first fish of the morning was boated - and Rob was stoked with his early birthday present of a 4kg Snapper on a plastic.

I landed a small one while Cam's rod was bent and he struggled with a nice Pearlie.

The Snapper and Pearlies kept coming with both Cam and myself landing fish as Rob was giving us a lesson. Smithy was everywhere - netting fish, tying knots and coaching Cam into fish after fish. Cam got bricked by a head-thumping monster then unfortunately the hooks straightened on another before he landed his PB Snapper of around 4kg (not bad for a beginner!).

When the bites slowed down Smithy would start another drift which would more often than not be productive. Cam was showing us up and when he pulled a nice Tusky out of the reef (chafed leader and all) Rob and I were in awe of the little man! After the plastics session we had kept five nice Snapper and successfully released another five or six legal ones, as well as a few Pearlies.

A quick bite to eat and we were off to a mark that Smithy said occasionally holds Amberjack and Kingies. We sent down live Yakkas (we had jigged at the bait grounds) 2 at a time and although the first two drifts were not promising, sure enough the third drift was and saw Cam almost being pulled out of the boat by a nice AJ. Rob was up next with a smaller one while I was struggling to lose my livie. Cam got his second AJ in 5 mins before I was bricked around some bottom structure by a decent fish. Finally I was on and after an unconvincing fight (on my behalf) which almost saw me pulled over the Stabicraft gunwhales more than once I eventually outmuscled a nice AJ - stoked! Although quite tasty, Amberjack release very strongly so we speared 3 of them back head first and only kept one for the table.

With that the day was done and we steamed home to the sight of jumping whales and the occasional crackle of the radio reporting raging current and few fish.

I would definitely recommend Smithy to anyone keen to catch fish. Thanks for a great day mate!

Cheers

Andrew

(p.s. all Snapper, Pearlie and AJ frames were donated to research, once filleted of course)"

[Smithy]

Further to Andrew's thread it was just one of those good days. Saturday was a struggle but the fish have bit well this week, even after the moon and even in the NWer yesterday.

Dayoo's jigheads have been the stand-out this week. They did the damage early for Rob with a 1/2oz and then the bigger 2oz one was going good for Cam till he got owned by something good that found the bottom. The 1/2oz was kicking *bad word* the day after on everything till it got snaffled by a grinner that wore through the leader. Kevin who had it tied on Friday didn't get to the bottom once while he was using it. He caught three cobes on it along with a fair few tailor, bonito, undersize pearlies and the copious amounts of grinners that are on some of the grounds at the moment.

Kevin and Jack's fish Friday on a half day.

Other recent fishing.

Nice spangled which was released with a shot release.

Same charter.

And then yesterday I had 4 guys aboard and the fish bit all day surprisingly in close. Headed out of Noosa as I knew it was going to be northerly and was sick of punching the northerly slop every day and from up there I would have a better angle on things. Never seen so many flathead. We kept 20 and let about 20 legal ones go. Also got 14 tuskies, 8 pearlies, 4 cobes, some tailor, a couple of hussar, a couple of snapper and they kept a couple of the bigger pinkies. This was about 4/5s of the way through the day.