queensland SQCS Charter - 19 March 2011

[novrain]

Hi all

delayed report cos I couldn't get the pics out of the camera. SD card was jammed. anyway, mum and dad flew into town to visit the new grandkid. I've been saying i would take them out fishing ages ago and finally decided to come through on this in the end.

rang Smithy up during the week and managed to get a Friday slot in. hooray! was my rostered day off too and we were all really looking forward to it. wanted to get mum and dad onto some good fish. thought about going with other charters but just decided to go with smithy after some good recommendations from this site.

went to bed pretty late on thursday night cos baby couldn't settle. finally got some sleep and before we knew it, it was time to go. arranged to meet smithy at around 7am at the kawana waters hotel but i was secretly hoping to get there earlier. left home at about 430 and drove straight down. too tired to drive all the way so got dad to take over mid-way. bad decision. i didn't tell him where to turn off and when i woke up, we were at nambour!

made the u-turn and got to the hotel at 7am on the dot. loaded up and set up.

pretty much my first time on a charter here in aust and wasn't sure what to expect. Rod (smithy's mate) was on-board as well. turns out he knows the guy i'm working for, kerry boustead.

anyway, went straight to get some livies. smithy tied on some sabiki jigs and dropped them straight to the bottom. first drop, dad dropped a jig to the bottom and got smashed by something big. lost the entire rig. i was thinking to myself 'oh man, this is going to be a long day' we were pulling up some good numbers when the grinners set in. getting probably 2 livies per pull up and a grinner at the end. didn't fare too well in the end with livies and set up with about a dozen or so in the live well.

went to second spot and smithy put us right onto the fish from the sounder. dad pulled up a good size maori cod but was just 2 cm under legal so back in the water he went. then couple minutes later, his line went off... the drag was tightened all the way and the rod was bending in half. could see he was struggling with the fight. went on for a good few minutes and we were all calling it for a kingie when a cobia surfaced! was keen to get it in the boat as i had never had cobia before and apparently they are tasty! and yes it was.

next drop for mum and her line went off again. she was struggling with the tackle as well as they're not used to heavy stuff. good runs here and there and we were again calling it for a kingie or an amberjack when she pulled in a trev. can't remember exactly which species it was.

things went a little quiet after that and we were running out of livies. smithy decided to move us to another spot. really good thing is that he keeps us right on the fish, if we drift off course, we pull up and manoeuvre back onto them again. went about 20 miles off and headed off to the barwon banks.

was a fair ride out there but boy was it worth it. first drop down and dad pulls up a good size parrot. this went on for probably 45 mins or so with a fish every drop. if it wasn't parrot , it was a hussar. then we got hit with a couple of big ones. mum was just day dreaming when bang... her line just went nuts....it was going this way and that and couple of minutes later, she pulled in a very good sized sweetlip or morwoong or whatever else its called. apparently there was a school down there and we pulled up at least 8 awesome sized sweetlip. not the prettiest to look at but they fight hard!

called it a day not long after and it was time to go home. pulled in at the harbour with about 30+ fish on board. mum and dad were tired but happy and the smiles on their faces was well worth the trip for me.

have to say smithy was absolutely spot on with the fish and very professional and easy to talk to as well. highly recommended

[novrain]

more pics

[eg_vtec]

awsome trip! sounded like they look after you well. great stufff

[ryanyoung]

Top notch mate, sounds awesome. I might start getting my kids to take notes ha ha ha!!!

Cheers,

Ryan.

[fisherjack1394]

great haul there mate. sounds like a good trip

[Keen-as-fisho]

Sounds like you and your family had a cracka day out mate, good stuff

[rosstralia46]

awesome stuff mate great report