queensland Tuesday

[Smithy]

Matt's words and pics off one of the fishing forums.

"After trying to organise a trip with Smithy for a while now, I finally managed to align good weather and a day off with Smithy's schedule. We had three crew, Peter (Gunna), Myself and Ross.

After departing the Kawana Waters Hotel whalf just after 6am, We headed through the canals to the bar, full of anticipation for the day ahead. Smithy gave us the safety brief, and the plan for the day - Livies first, then snapper/Pearly spots, then Kingy/Ambo spots then onto other Snapper/Pearly spots on the way home.

It took about 45 minutes to an hour to get to the livie spots, the first couple didn't produce, but the at the third we filled the tank with Yakkas in no time.

Off to a snapper mark, where we dropped baits and plastics for a while with no success. We tried a few marks in the area, with no luck at all. So after an hour Smithy decides to take us to his first Kingy/Ambo spot.

By now we are a long way out. It was blowing about 10 - 12knots, but we were very comfortable and not getting wet or knocked around.

The big gear (80lb braid outfits, rigged with 80lb leader) rigged up with livies and 12 Oz leads, get sent to the bottom. I think Ross was the first on, and it was something substantial! But he lost it after nealy getting it up. Next drop, I'm on and this thing has some power! It was touch and go for a while just to get it away from the bottom, and it fought all the way up. Finally a nice Kingy makes it to the boat, went 101cm and 8kg. Pretty happy with that - a PB for me.

Next drop, I'm in again lots more headshaking this time, not quite as brutal a fight. Up comes a good Ambo around 6kg, another PB. We had a few more drops here, but they wouldn't bite again, so off to the second spot.

This time Peter hooks up first, closely followed by Ross, double hookup on good fish. They both get them in, both good ambos around 5-6kg.

We stay on this spot for a while, miss a few bites, but we all managed another ambo each, and Ross got a cracking Pearly on a livie that went around 60cm.

We eventually ran out of livies here. So dropped baits and plastics, I got a pearly on a prototype jig. But it was pretty slow, so Smithy took us back in to some snapper marks.

Things were pretty quite on the snapper front though, we got a few little pearlies and Peter got a couple of pigfish on squid. Smithy tried hard to put us onto snapper, working lots of his marks that had produced recently, but they didn't want to play. Eventually he had to call lines in for the last time and head for home. I don't know how far out we were, but it was a long steam home, fortunately it calmed off a little from earlier in the day. I spent most of the trip home sleeping in Smithys bean bag chair, bloody comfortable way to travel offshore.

Back to the whalf around 4pm. It was a top day out, with great company, and we all ended up with a good feed to take home. Smithy worked hard all day to put us on to fish. It was on his forth day straight on the water, since two weeks off for his wedding and honeymoon. No rest for the wicked, he's back out there today with the Creek to Coast crew.

His new boat goes well, plenty of room, and he has good quality gear to do the job. It was great fun fighting the kingy and ambos on the 80lb braid outfits. I did a different charter last year where we did similar fishing with 50lb mono, on chunky overhead outfits, and it was not much fun at all. So thumbs up for the quality of the charter. It makes a difference only having a small crew too. Fewer tangles, and everyone gets to fish every drop. Well worth the extra dollars for a quality charter.

I'm hoping to get out with him again later this month, for a afternoon/evening session for snapper.

Cheers,

Matt

[eg_vtec]

nice trip! well done

[madmullet]

good stuff getting into those blade seperating fish.. well done

[BassTracker]

ce work guys, that looks like a great set up

[plugga]

looks like a good trip

Jordan

[jnewy]

nice fish great post thanks guys

[kamarshark]

Stella trip!! well done guys.

[dan25]

Great report mate. Looks like a cracker day out.

[ericlin]

wow looks like a great day mate. Congratulations

[Guest]

Nice work boys enjoyed the report & pictures

Cheers

Darren