queensland Whitraindays sailing 24/06-2/07

[sehrguht]

Went out on a 12metre catamaran for a week from the 24th of june, plan was to cruise around and look at the reefs/snorkel and fish. Ended up raining every day for most of the day on top of S/SE winds of 25knots+ . Total sunlight was about 6 hours for the week.

Still managed to get a bit of fishing in with rain jackets on and wet bums.

Trolled everywhere for naught but two hits from the catamaran, one big hit near mid molle island on a 190mm crazy deep halco that spun drga for 5seconds and then the pressure was too much and busted the line and one that didnt connect with whatever hit it.

First night we stayed in Cid Harbour near Sawmill bay fishwise it was fairly slow, had a couple baits out, i think we got one or two baby crimson snapper and then i pulled a small shark off a whole pilchard

The next day we moved the boat right up into the deepest part of the Sawmill bay that was still sheltered from the wind and went out for a fish in the tender pulling up a few small cod, sweetlip and other babies, nothing bigger than 25cm though and no pictures of those because it was constantly raining.

That night we have livies out on balloons and i must have messed up somehow because i busted two decent sized somethings off on 40lb wire and about 8kg mono without being ridulous with the drag.

A mate of mine caught a solid ray with some pretty patterns on it.

We decided to move to Stonehaven for a bit deeper water and a change of scenery. An easy cruise north with the wind and tide behind us saw the boat doing up to 15kts at times just with the motors.

Moored the boat up to one of the anchorages there and there is a massive amount of reef less than a metre under the surface at low tide, looked pretty fishy, I busted the popping rod out for a while but i only got one strike that didnt hit the 150g popper hard enough i guess.

Fishing from the catamaran in the afternoon a little coral trout and a little cod took half a pilchard on a paternoster rig and then i got busted off by something big that took me straight into a hole.

I rerigged and set up another rig for a mate to use and 5mins later after a brief tussle a 60+cm coral trout pops up and is on deck, a solid dinner was had that night. The colours of this fish amazed me even though i had seen them many times in pictures.

The next morning we went to a deep ledge near the anchorage and fished around for a bit, some more bust offs on the rocks and reef and then i caught a small red emporer around 40cm amongst other small fish, beautiful fish and a decent amount of fight in it! Unfortunately no pic because it was raining heaps.

That night i ended up with a short run on a livie and then it stopped, wound it in to see the damage and then the rod erupts briefly and a small barracuda pops up(still waiting on some photos will update soon.)

Went for a bit of a cruise the next day and had a look around the point near hayman island etc and then anchored up for the night near stonehaven till the next day, a bit more fishing around that big ledge saw us jig some fusiliers up and drop the back down on 80lb leader and 40lb braid, it wasnt enough:( Mine got destroyed even on a decent drag setting on a 6500 baitrunner leader scraped past something sharp and popped. I would really like to see what did that to me.

Not much fishing on the next day made a long run from stonehaven to Gulnare inlet through some rough seas, fighting the tide through 1.5 metre of swell is uncomfortable in a big cat but it handled it pretty well. The inlet was super shallow but it was also very well sheltered so we were calm for a night which was good, tryed trolling from the tender a bit with sx40's and damiki mu-sp's and had one small hit but no love otherwise. Quiet night went to bed early for a change. No love on bait here either.

Sunlight!

The next day we stopped in for some contact with land and visited hamilton island, topped up water and supplies and abused a real toilet.

Spent a couple hours at hamilton, the local parrots are friendly and there are some horrible sculptures for ridiculous prices if you are into wasting money.

One of the nicer sculptures.

This one was priced at $14000

Went back to Cid harbour for the next couple nights and caught a few small fish here and there, got busted up a heap more on livies with 40lb wire trace breaking through cleanly under a fair amount of drag, not sure what i did wrong there, presuming big sharks or rays took off with them as i got down to my backing on the baiturnner which should have around 200m of the 40lb silly string before i decided to tighten up the drag a bit and put some muscle into it.

Overall amazing place, i'll book in again soon but i might go with a bit earlier in the year or a bit later so its a tad bit warmer, the water temp hovered around 21degrees which was more than the outside air temperature for most if not all of the trip.

Random pics etc:

[crazywalrus]

Great report mate. Thanks. My mouth is watering over that great coral trout.

[Keen-as-fisho]

Sounds like a cool trip, got a boat pic? I reckon that statue would look good in my front entry

[etran]

solid coral trout. well done . great report :cheer:

[sehrguht]

http://www.ccy.com.au/charter/picture.asp?image=/elite12/images/bestlarge.jpg

No pics in the set of photos i have but thats the one we took out, had 7 on board and that was probably my limit though it is rated to sleep 10.

[Malcolm]

[attachment=36603]IMG_4687.JPG[/attachment]

hahaha gold

[Manni79]

NIce report mate, a few nice fish... now i'm hungry !!

[fishing_teen]

nice trout mate, well done on the good trip

[eg_vtec]

nice trip! great report as well

[ellicat]

That's a finely built statue, but I'm not into the whole exploitation of amputees thing.

The trip would have been a great experience even with the weather and fishing wasn't all that it could have been. You must have been damned happy with that trout ! :woohoo:

[sehrguht]

Very happy with the trout, it was one of three i wanted to tick off my list up there, the others were a decent GT and a spanish mackeral.

[dan25]

Nice report, good stuff