queensland New Boat and Other Stuff

[Smithy]

Half Day Morning With Garyth With SQCS Out Of Mooloolaba 13/02/11

This was a mixed trip on the new boat. We departed the Kawana Waters Hotel pontoon in the new boat and had no dramas today. We got to the spot and put the lures out. Half a kilometre into the troll we took a hit that ran 20m before pulling the hook for Garyth. There were bits and pieces of bait and fish marking mid water but no joy. We trolled for a bit more and my usually reliable bait marks in that neck of the woods were empty. Back to the main reef complex to reef fish.

First drift and a 2kg pearlie and a keeper parrot came aboard. Mixed in were heaps of baby red emperor. It looked good after that but didn't happen. Lots of undersize fish. We tried here and there with Brogan landing a nice grass emperor. Back to the troll as we watched a boat trolling past hookup and things looked good on the sounder. 1km into the troll this time Brogan had a run on his rod. Same result. 10m of line came off and that was it. Back to bottom fishing and we scratched up a few trag jew. Now for the 6 week snapper/pearl perch and trag jew closure to start. There are plenty of pelagics to chase though and I think I will target the hussar and parrot in one spot and pigfish in another spot for any crews dead set keen on reef fishing.

Full Day With Bruce Out Of Mooloolaba With SQCS 12/02/11

Bruce had booked this one in ages ago to beat the snapper closures. After a bit of trouble finding the new departure point, the Kawana Waters Hotel, the boys finally arrived. We packed them all aboard along with their gear and cast off the lines. Coming down the river my temperature started to rise and I knew what that was. I had done an impellor. We anchored 200m off the rock walls while I changed it over. Off we went again and headed to my parrot spot.

Today it wasn't a parrot spot, more like a hussar spot. They kept hitting the deck and it was a battle to keep the bait up and to cut all the pec fins off. The joys of no decky on a bigger boat! Somewhere there I tried to cut my finger off and the day got better for me. At least the fishing was good. Along with the hussar were a few parrot, a couple of painted sweetlip, a trevally and lots of baby red emperor. Some brown maori cod were just going under as was a red throat emperor. With that done it was time to chase snapper and pearlies before the closure.

On that leg Zane let rip with seasickness up the front. The first time a customer had not made it to the side or a bucket in 3.5 years. Bruce's soft plastics rod was also ejected out of a rod holder while travelling by a wave and was not seen again. The day was getting better! Anyway this spot produced a good pearlie and a good parrot but was loaded with undersize pearlies two at a time. We moved on for bigger stuff.

The next spot didn't let us down with a couple of crackers, some more parrot and Zano got a nice squire, what we were after. We also got a few trag at the end of each drift. Another fish we can't chase for 6 weeks now. By then a few boys had succomed to seasickness and tiredness so it was time to head in. About 8mile out I got a fuel blockage so cleared the filter and changed tanks but we had to prime the engine and crack an injector. Thanks to the boys for lending a hand again on this one. Whilst drifting I must have picked up a rope so I had a bit of vibration and was running a bit hotter for the return to home leg. After sending the boys off I couldn't budge the rope. Luckily Jeff came past on Reel Capture and was kind enough to jump over and cut it off for me. Problem solvered but what a day.

Here are the fish in the esky.

And on the wharf.

SCGFC Gamefish Classic 6/02/11

This was to be the first trip with the new boat. Along for the ride were Marty, Rick and Dan. A tough weekend of fising with only one juvenile black marlin tagged on the inshore grounds and a handful of blues and blacks tagged on the shelf. Tournament wise it was very successful once again with 26boats. I was run off my feet with my fiance Jules doing the radio skeds for the weekend and helping out Tony the tournament director and committee all weekend and the days before and after plus trying to keep the boys happy in their first tournament while it was tough fishing plus teething problems with the boat.

Rick bought along a Go Pro Camera and captured this great footage of us on the troll and running. Check out how comfortable it looks.

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New Boat 02/02/11

Headed to 1770 to pick up the new boat with Conor. Thanks to Roger and Heather for the ride up and Conor for helping with the ride down. Stayed at the old owners Mick's place for the night. 12 hours, 415 litres of diesel and 185Nm later we parked at Mooloolaba. With a lot of barnacles we lifted it on Thursday to chip them off and hit it with a gerni. That bought the speed back up to 20knots at 2,800rpm. In survey for 8 once again but 4 will be my main number of people. Still trying to sell the Stabicraft if you know of anyone.

Half Day Morning With Rod With SQCS Out Of Mooloolaba 26/1/11

Rod and his offsider were up on holidays from Melbourne. They didn't particularly want to go on Australia day but the weather was closing in and it was the last chance to get out for a few days and as part of their stay.

We jigged up live bait which was a novelty for them. We then headed to the spanish mackerel grounds. They were quieter today but we watched a couple of boats get some before it was our turn. We missed one good hit but ended up with a spanish and a yellowfin in the box from the three hits. Not too bad at all and home early so I could go to an Australia Day party in Redcliffe.

Full Day With Nick With SQCS Out Of Mooloolaba 25/01/11

Nick, Jim and Jimmy made up the crew for this one. Back on the same program of trolling minnows down the middle and skirts from the outriggers. We ended up with a rainbow runner and two wahoo before switching to live bait for spaniards. They were there but we lost them every which way ending up with one in the boat. Still had a nice esky full.

Half Day Morning With Dan With SQCS Out Of Mooloolaba 24/01/11

Dan booked this one in. We had five us on the boat as we departed the Coast Guard Boat Ramp at Mooloolaba and headed to the live bait grounds. We loaded up on livies once again then headed to the fishing spot. We put the lines out and first pass we landed a rainbow runner.

Things were unusually quiet so we moved up the grounds a bit to the next spot. Once we got to the area we took a triple hookup of yellowfin tuna. Unfortunately only two made it into the boat. Out with the gear again and another lap and we had another yellowfin. A while later we had a fish in the pattern and on hookup it jump revealing itself to be a mahi mahi. It was pretty quiet for this spot so we moved up to the next one. Another yellowfin ended up in the box then we took another triple hookup. These proved to be spanish mackerel. Only two made it to the esky and with the gear allready in we decided to fish for AJs on the jigs which the boys wanted to try.

After a while one jumped on and it ended up being an almaco jack or high fin amberjack. A livey produced another and a few more hits were missed on the livies. One last drift then it was time to head home.

Not a bad morning at all.

Heavy Tackle Day on the Shelf 19/01/11

Once again good weather and no charter booked in. Conor and I decided to hit the shelf up again after reports a boat on the Gold Coast got four blue marlin from 6 hits. We didn't see a thing all day except some birds and a couple of big pods of dolphins.

Half Day Morning With Glen With SQCS Out Of Mooloolaba 18/01/11

Glen was back again with a couple of mates on a half day. Last Christmas he was out and we got into some big snapper and grass sweetlip but this was going to be a trolling trip as I hadn't bottom bashed since November and didn't know what was going on. Trolling was going good and so it was today. The boys ended up with an awesome mixed bag of 6 yellowfin tuna, a mahi mahi, a wahoo and a spanish mackerel. It doesn't get much better trolling wise on a half day.

Marlin Day on Ymer 17/01/11

With no charter booked and good weather I jumped at the chance to jump on the 34' Black Watch Ymer. We livebaited a good show early on for a maybe bite and a wahoo chopoff. Once the bait went to pieces we went on the troll. We eventually found the dirty water edge from the flood and pulled a heap of wahoo off it. We had enough of them so it was time to chase marlin again.

Mid afternoon another wahoo jumped on and a bit after that we had a fish on that did everything right but didn't jump. After two minutes or so we pulled the hooks on it so who knows. I put a skip gar out in the same position and a while later a black came in behind it looking to eat. It pulled it out of the clip, we freespooled and Dan came up tight. After a short battle Mark got the tag in and Dan released it. I was on photo duties. Late in the day we watched a trailer boat jump one off so there were a few in the area.

Half Day Morning With Josh With SQCS Out Of Mooloolaba 16/01/11

Josh booked this one in. He is yet to get a marlin and that is what we were chasing but all we came up with was a mahi mahi before the weather got too much for us. We jumped another one off and missed a couple of other bites that popped the rubber bands with a bit of force but it was hard to know what they were. They didn't bite the tails off the gar so they were probably not wahoo. As it transpired we probably should have gone on the Saturday which we cancelled the morning of as the Sunday weather was worse even though the weather forecast was suppossed to be better for us.

Trolling Day on the Shelf 06/01/11

With a last minute cancellation I did a quick ring around and came up with Luke as a starter for a rec trip. Club boat Ymer was 2/3 on blues the day before plus 4 big mahi mahi so I was keen to see if they were still in the same area. We found a couple of hoo on the way out, one just after a squall then were 2/3 on big dorado like pictured. We didn't see a stickface though. We worked 200-350m for the day.

Full Day With Rod With SQCS Out Of Mooloolaba 05/01/11

Rod was back again this time with a full crew. We grabbed some livies on the way out then got to the spot. With lures in the water it only took 2mins to hook our first wahoo. The hooks fell after a while and this proved to be the pattern for the day. Hooking and losing them due to a number of circumstances. They were good hoo the way they were running line off and the damage to the skirts. We tried livies here and only got a barracuda and what we suspect was a good hammerhead shark. They definately wanted lures. Eventully we got a nice one.

We tried a bit further along and finally found the yellowfin tuna we were looking for. We caught a couple of them as well as pulling the hooks on a couple. All in all a good day with good weather conditions.

Full Day With Dave With SQCS Out Of Mooloolaba 04/01/11

David booked this one in. He was visiting from Melbourne. We started off trolling some high speed lures over the Gneerings as the sea was a bit lumpy. We did no good at that so we loaded up on live bait. Just as we were doing that the wind got up a lot worse. We headed to spot we were getting AJs and kingfish and settled on the anchor. They didn't come thick or fast but we pulled a king and an AJ there as well as getting busted up about five times.

Things went off so we headed in a bit closer to try for a mackerel on live bait. They didn't want to play either. Conditions were on the improve so we headed where we had caught the mackerel the day before.

First bait out and were were hooked up bigtime. We played this for half an hour before it wore through the 58lb single strand wire. We missed a couple more hits before trying to spin for school mackerel again. We ended up with one lost and one in the esky doing this. A tougher day but we still ended up with fish.

Half Day Morning Out of Hervey Bay With SQCS 02/01/11

I had spent the Christmas-New Years period on family holidays at Hervey Bay but the Sunday was the first chance to get the boat wet. We put in early at Urangan and headed to Wathumba. We found the spotties there but only mangaged to put one in the boat with others falling off boatside. We kept travelling to try and find the "motherload" but we never did. Before we knew it we were at Rooneys Pt. We put the skirts out to try for a quick marlin but it wasn't to be. Heading home we found good numbers of spotties at the Arch Cliffs. We were home in time for lunch. Not a bad little morning.

[cameronh]

Nice work as usual Smithy, we'll be out again soon, can't wait to jump aboard the new rig.

Cam