queensland A Morning of Highs and Lows

[ONTHECHEW]

Decided to to give offshore a crack even though the forcast was not great, woke up to rain and that is always never a good start. Had to go as was really getting the shakes from not being offshore for about a month. BOM had the wind picking up at about 10am and "chance of showers"

Met the boys, Plasticfantastic, Jewy (Matty) and Lanks at the ramp at 4am, So off into the darkness we head, got around the top of peel and almost hit some dickhead who had no lights on, only saw him just in the nick of time, saw his shadow from another boats lights. When will people learn at the end of the day they are doing wrong but if I hit them and killed one of them I could never forgive myself.

Enough of my rant, got to just inside the bar and heard this unusual noise it was like glass breaking, instantly killed the motor and looked down to see Matty had a lure hooked in his sneakers, and then saw the carnage, Marks world famous Heartland was no longer. This rod has landed everything from bream, longtails, kingfish, snapper, cobia and GT's even once hooked a marlin on it. Bit of a downer, but at least Matty was wearing sneakers, kept on heading out in good conditions.

Decided to let mark use my plastic combo as the heartland was the only combo he usually takes out, this left me to pop for most of the trip. We where expecting a decent surface bite from our previous trips, but the tides where all wrong and the water was very discoloured so hopes diminished quickly and the other boys all changed over to plastics after not long.

Can't really remember what order everyone caught their fish in but we managed four cobia up to about 10kg, this was a bit of a surprise as we had not caught too many there before. After a while Lanks decided to have a quick pop so I grabbed his plastic rod and in quick succession landed a yellowfin tuna and a good size mack tuna. It wasn't too much longer and the wind started to pick up as forecasted and the rain clouds where getting closer.

We decided to try one more spot, by this time Mark was a bit over it, (lost his mojo, it was the rod all along ), so I grabbed my combo back off him and on the second drift was onto a good fish, after a decent fight popped up a nice 86cm snapper and he was chunky to. A few quick photos and she left to swim another day, next drift Lanks hooks up on his Lucanis jig, this fish had a bit of weight but was called very early for a cod. She was a big old girl, but even with trying to swim her for about 20 mins the fight had been her undoing, which was a bit of a downer. By this time the rain was starting and we decided to call it a morning and head in and try and beat the rain before it crossed the bay.

It looked like about 6 other boats all had the same idea and it was a race through the bar and down the rainbow channel, but by the time we got to peel you could not see straddie and we got totally drenched. Back to the boat ramp all looking like drowned rats, but considering the weather conditions and the loss of Mark's only rod we still caught some decent fish.

Andrew

PS. Mark, I managed to catch fish with other peoples rods, what is the old say "A Bad Workman Blames His Tools" :whistle: or was all of your mojo in that rod.

No photos of the cobia as they have a face only their mother could love.

[Funfisher]

RIP heartland my condolences Mark. On another note that snapper and cod are crackers!! Love ya work.

[ellicat]

Why do they call him Lanks ? :side:

Sounds like some of the crew made the most of the day :whistle:

I'd be happy to catch that lot over a year or more

[rosstralia46]

Awesome session as per usual you guys and that's shit mark feel for ya mate

[Shane69]

Well done Andrew

Sounds like a awesome trip you guys had.

I nearly hit some one friday morning too next to the artificals at peel. No anchor light nothing. Than he tries having a go at us when we told him to turn his light on before someone hits him.

I went out friday too. It was okay trip tried the few spots you told me for not even a touch. I think i was doing something wrong.

Ended up using bait n got few decent snapper spangled emperor n moses pearch n tuna.Missed few good fish due to getting reefed n a few big spanish mackerel.

Was there alot of surface activity om saturday. Nothing on friday. I think it was too calm n northly winds.

Let us know when you go out next mate. Il tag along iin my boat if its not a problem. I really want to see how you guys catch such big fish. I never catch like that when i go out.

Shane

[ryanyoung]

Sorry to hear about the Heartland Mark, but an average-looking day well rewarded by the quality fish.

Ryan.

[Angus]

Epic. Well done guys as usual.

There are not many people that can't be bothered with Cobia or Tuna pictures

Angus

[sunnydays]

Nice snapper!

Saturday morning at Wellington Point boat ramp, I saw two boats launch without any lights at all within 20min!

[tugger]

Nice work again Andrew you put the boys on to good fish out there

[Keen-as-fisho]

Good stuff guys, well done especially in the conditions :woohoo: Shame about the Cod, I take it you guys generally don't keep any of the fish you catch?

[Bagless]

Great session in spite of the lost rod, awesome snapper and cod, would have liked to have seen a pic of the unworthy 10kg cobia . Didn't quite get how the rod was broken, was it lying on the floor and someone stood on it and got the lure hooked to their trainers in the process, or was the lure loose and having hooked the trainers it snapped the rod when he fell over? Or more likely something even more random. Either way not a nice way to start the session .

[Eug]

You guys are consistent!

[JarrydA]

Some nice fish there fellas. I love the look of those cod, such an awesome fish!

[Manni79]

Well done boys, looks like you had to work hard for these fish with crap conditions but came up trumps!!

[Seiran]

Great report. Well done with getting out there for a great session before the weather set in.

[ONTHECHEW]

Ellicat - Yah think it is pretty obvious why we call him lanks :whistle:

Shane69 - Surface bite was the worst we have experienced in ages, no surface activity at all. But in saying that it made us fish plastics which we don't do very often so it opened up a much larger variety of species. The amount of surface fishing we do really limits the species that you can catch.

Angus - A lot of the time now the boys don't want photos just get back into the water to get more fish. Some times I have to talk them into it just to get some proof for reports etc.

Keen-as-fisho - Yah we don't keep a lot of fish, probably would have knocked off easily 50kg of fish in the morning but none of us are real fans of filleting, even though I get into trouble every week from the missus for not keeping any.

Bagless - Basically I have rodholders that run along the inside of the side of the boat which some times the guys leave their lures on the rods. Marks lure got caught on Matty's shoe and before he knew it he had snapped the tip off the rod.

Andrew

[tikki169]

Nice work. I think I saw you guys landing a cobia.

I think I need to apologise. I was in the boat with the 2 speao's and I was jigging and my mate nearly ran over the top of your popper. I told him you would be popping and your casts would be about 60m to the side of your boat but I think he was preoccupied with the loss of his wahoo (spear pulled after about 30 seconds). So yeah sorry for that.

[PlasticFantastic]

For those interested there will be a service held on the weekend for my Heartland rod which was taken from me too early in it's well lived and punished life. Besides that it was still a good day even though I struggled using Andrews gear I did manage a last minute Yellowfin to avoid the donut and as for the rod accidents happen and rods can always be replaced.

Cheers

Mark

[ONTHECHEW]

Tikki169- saw you guys out there, what did your guys see down there would be interesting to know. It is funny seeing some peoples faces when they see me chucking 150g pieces of wood around and how far you actually chuck them.

Mark - you can replace the rod but can you replace the mojo

Andrew

[tikki169]

A very interesting question actually. I was jigging like mad because my mate came back on the boat and said he saw a school of about 100+ GT all around the 15-20 kilo mark but they must have moved on very quickly cause after the first pass they never saw them again. Other than that just the Wahoo and a Cobia they could see. The water was very green so vis was down to about 12m.

I would have thought he had an idea how far you would have the popper out cause I do alot of popping and stickbaiting off the boat and he's seen me get a good 70m from some of my lures. I think he was soooo blinded from rage with losing yet another wahoo Think it was tail hit so managed to pull the flopper through and carried on.

We ended up going wide for a couple other species and then the wind hit so a rough trip back wasn' enjoyed by all in a 5.5 bowrider!!!!

[Seiran]

Forgot to ask last night. Is that a flowery cod? Is it the same species as the little guys that some people pull up around mud?

I've still not caught one and would like to know exactly what species I'm pulling up when I do finally get one.

[Snaggers]

Some awesome fish there guys well done, pitty you didnt take photo's of the tuna and cobia I love seeing photo's of all fish (Although it makes me envious). Your right though, Cobia arent the most attractive fish in the sea.

Condolences on the rod mate nothing worse than losing a piece of gear that your having success and comfy with.