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Awesome Day with Coastal Sportfishing Safaris

cameronh

By cameronh
in Saltwater

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cameronh Newbie

cameronh

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With me having a bit of a fishing dry spell lately, I decided to give my mate Thomas from Coastal Sportfishing Safaris a call and try to organise a day fishing the Gold Coast Broadwater. I've been heading out with Thomas from the Gold Coast for over 10 years now and although I have my own boat, I always give Thomas a call to organise a charter whenever I can find time to leave the office and head out for a fish on the Gold Coast.

So with a day set, I found myself sitting at my desk at the office with seabreeze open 24/7 and hoping for some good weather. Sure enough the day came for us to head out and the weather was perfect to say the least. I arrived at the Labrador boat ramp at around 6 and Thomas was there loading the boat in the water. So I grab my gear and jump on board.

The water was like a millpond, so this made it easy for us to try and grab some livies. It didn't ake long to get a few, but just as Thomas was about to pack away the net, I saw a massive kingie swim past the boat, with not a care in the world.:woohoo: This was a huge surprise as I had never seen that in all the years, I couldn't believe my eyes.... a metre plus kingie gliding past the boat in less than 2 m of water!!!.

So I thought to myself, if this is any indication of how the day is going to be, its off to a great start. With the livies in the tank we head off to a spot where Thomas has been getting bricked lately.

So I rig myself up and send down a big 7" herring. Not before long, I can feel her going crazy and I had to keep telling myself to resist the urge to strike and let the circle hook do its job. Sure enough BANG!!! the rod loads up and my line starts screaming away. I lock my drag and Thomas starts the lecky's to manovoure us away from the structure. A couple of minutes in and the rod stands up and the line goes limp..... :angry: but before I can scream out a few nice words, she loads up again and the battle is on. Another few minutes pass and we get colour, I start getting excited as I see a big silver flash start coming towards the boat. Before long, shes boatside and Thomas slips the net under an awesome Jewie!!!

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A quick measure and shes over 85cm, WoooHOOO!!

Then I realise why the line went limp mid battle.... This was the end result of a 7/0 gamakatsu circle hook!!!

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So we put her into the kill tank and reset the drift to go again. This time both Thomas and my livie start to go crazy and before I can even say double hook up, both our rods load up and we're off again. However, not long into my fight the line goes slack but there is still weight there...:unsure: so I keeep winding and I see why theres dead weight.... up pops the head of what was an easily legal jewie.... DAMN BULL SHARKS!!!. Thomas has better luck with him managing to get his jewie up and I slip the net under her. A quick measure and she only goes 70cm, so back into the drink she goes.

With the adrenaline pumping we reset again, sure enough after about 10 mins, I'm on again to another nice jewie. However by now, a couple of old blokes fishing near by had seeen the action we'd been getting into and decided it would be a good idea to come and anchor right on our drift line..... (there bait of choice, frozen prawns... FAIL...) We try another few drifts with Thomas being able to manovoure us around the anchored boat using the lecky's, but I think the big clunk from them dropping the pick had spooked the fish....

So Thomas decides to move to another spot. We do a few drifts with no action, so I decide to take break and grab a drink. Thomas persists and sure enough, within minutes he's hooked up. After a few big runs, up pops a nice GT. So with me all interested again, Thomas repositions the boat and we start our drift again. A couple of drifts later, my rod loads a little and then nothing, however around 10 seconds later, BANG!!!. Line starts screaming. After a few minutes I see colour and its another nice GT, she comes boatside and then screams off for another run. I play with her for another while and we finally land her.

After this we decide to head to wavebreak and grab a bite to eat while we wait for the tide to change.

After lunch we continue to fish for the jew's and trev's. The final tally for the day to take home being 2 nice jewies and 2 GT's. We released around another 4 jewies and GT's.

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All in all another awesome day calm water fishing down the coast.

I can't say this enough, but if you are ever down the Gold Coast, give Thomas from Coastal Sportfishing a call (0412 691 929), tell him Cam sent you and I can guarantee you will have a fantastic day. Over the past 10 years, I never come home disappointed, as he always tries his best for you and puts you on the fish. He has quality Daiwa and G.Loomis gear, however you can also bring your own. Being on the Broadwater means that you do not have to deal with the old green monster if you dreed heading out offshore + I know you will have a better time than jumping on some of the "cattle movers" and catching under sized squire.

On other trips I have been fortunate to catch flathead with 98cm being my record on a livie and 85 cm on plastics, estuary cod, queenies, bream and whiting.

Thanks for reading

Cam

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dhess Newbie

dhess

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Fantastic fish and report. I would be really keen to go on an estuary charter sometime as I am a complete novice when it comes to estaury fishing.

Really surprised at what the jewie had done to the gamma octopus circle hook as I have Hooked and caught several big kingies, amberjack and sharks using the same hooks with heavy drag settings and prolonged fights. The only one that did similar damage was a 30+ kg AJ and it didn't open it up quite as much.

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cameronh Newbie

cameronh

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thanks for the replies guys, it was a great day, I was extremely surprised with the opened hook as well, I use them offshore on sambo's, AJ's and Kingies all the time and never had that happen, but hey still got the fish at the end of the day. But just in case now, I've gone to tackle warehouse and picked up some big game circles now. If they open up, the fish wasn't meant to be caught haha :P

I'm already planning another trip out with Thomas.

P.S sorry about the failed first report. I pressed submit and it lost all I had written, so I had to rewrite it.

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cameronh Newbie

cameronh

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With regards to Thomas, he does half days and full days out of his 7m custom built centre console, his half days are $85, generally its from around 630 till 11ish and full days are $170, everything is provided.

Generally, Thomas sets out to gather some livies first, then heads to his spots to fish. The prices may seem a bit expensive compared to some of the cattle movers that go offshore, but he is well worth it and he never overloads his boat, generally theres 4 ppl max on the boat, but some days you might get lucky and have 2 or 3 ppl. Lunch is provided on full days and a basic morning tea on half days. You will also learn a whole heap on techniques etc.

Hope that helps, but if in doubt, just give Thomas a call and he'll glady help you out his numbers 0412 691 929.

Cam

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Angus Rookie

Angus

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Fantastic fish and report. I would be really keen to go on an estuary charter sometime as I am a complete novice when it comes to estaury fishing.

Really surprised at what the jewie had done to the gamma octopus circle hook as I have Hooked and caught several big kingies, amberjack and sharks using the same hooks with heavy drag settings and prolonged fights. The only one that did similar damage was a 30+ kg AJ and it didn't open it up quite as much.

Lets do it :)

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cameronh Newbie

cameronh

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Yoyo, we only fished livies all day, I had a quick flick trying to christen my certate on a little boil, but they were very frighty with the boats around.

However on other trips I have got plenty of them on plastics, mainly powerbaits and early morning before the jet ski's and powerboats go crazy.

here are some pics of my little bro and me on some other trips with Thomas.

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a 95cm flatty

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little bro with his best flatty on a 5" gulp, she went 87cm and he was over the moon to christen his new luvias combo with her.

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a nice cod on a 6" paddletail

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