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Offshore Moreton Island Sat. Mojo by Dhess

Homer4duff

By Homer4duff
in Saltwater

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Homer4duff Newbie

Homer4duff

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The time had come to finally get offshore and have a crack at some good fish so Dhess met me at 2am in the morning, both of us struggling to get any sort of sleep that night probably only getting 2 hours max. Bleery eyed but looking forward to a great day, gear was loaded into the car and a quick trip made to Shornecliffe to pick up the boat and head on up to Bribie Island and launching from the Spinnaker Sound marina boat ramp.

With a full tank of fuel and a snickers bar each to get us going we finally launched around 4am and headed out across the bay able to do an easy 28knots, the moon shimmering off the sea behind us and the North Point lighthouse winking at us across the bay beckoning us towards the cape.

As the spectacular dawn approached out of the ocean like a jaffa floating up in a coke, the wind picked up and the surface chop increased, nothing too dramatic, with the Salamander bank and the Freeman channel safely navigated and only the cape to round before the day fully welcomed us.

As we approached North Point the swell incresed but no breakers or standing sets so we rounded Cape Moreton and headed south east to the first set of marks with an empty sea free of any other boats all to ourselves.

A few drifts done with wind and current making the drifts quite hard to predict with a nice snapper going 63cm taken in the first 30mins by Dhess.

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Two or three boats arrived and drifted with drift anchors but not a lot of action seemed to be happening, the fish painting nicely on the sounder but completely shut down and not biting.

After a few more drifts across really promising ground and no hits the decision was made to head out to deeper water 80-90m and try our luck there.

Several drifts over the new spot and Dom is onto a lovely Moses Perch.

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Next I get onto a snapper going about 35cm so it was returned to the depths below.

Things go quiet for while before Dom suddenly yells "fish on!", rod bent over and line disappearing. Dom puts the brakes on and the battle commences, pump wind pump wind, Dom calling it for an Amberjack due to the sheer pulling power, crossing his fingers he doesn't get reefed. Fish off the bottom and out of danger, now Dom is winning the battle, counting himself very lucky he still has it on, having about 250m of line off the spool due to deep water and currents.

Soon a magnificient sight is seen through the clear waters as a 90cm+ AJ materialises out of the depths to sounds of jubilation on board the boat. AJ 0 us 1. Terminated! Beers drunk in celebration.

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Another 60+cm snapper is raised from the depths but is lost due to us not using the net and pulling it aboard by the line, dropping off the hook just before coming over the side. Doh.

Then the action is on again with another ripper take and I find myself fighting another AJ, the tail pumps being felt through all that line and 80m of ocean, line being lost and regained again, AJ and myself on equal terms.

"Holy hell Dom, feels like up pulling up the bottom with this bugger!" :ohmy:

Slowly slowly I gained the upper hand managing to again pull the Amberjack away from the reef to avoid a bustoff, the 50lb braid doing a great job in allowing me to put real pressure on the fish. Again elation in the boat as another AJ, bigger than the first, materialises out of the depths as I land my first ever AJ and my biggest ever fish!

Woooohooooo!! :woohoo:

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Time for another beer! :lol:

After doing a few more drifts with no hits it seemed the bite had shut down yet again so we motored back to the other spot and had another crack. Half an hour later and no hits we were pretty shagged so we thought about heading to Hutchies and trolling for Wahoo and macks but decided we had enough in the esky so called it a day.

As we came back across the bay I encountered motor issues that were suppossedly fixed 2 weeks ago, the motor starving of fuel and shutting down. Bloody hell not again!

I was spewing big time but a few squeezes on the bulb had the motor going again only to have the bulb sucked dry and the motor stopping about a minute later.

This happened about 8 times as we headed towards Bribie. We tried everything, Dom driving with me pumping the bulb, but the motor was being starved of fuel and would keep stopping again, the process repeating itself. We managed to get to the south end of Bribie before giving up, throwing the anchor out to stop us losing ground to the 3knot tide and waving down a tow.

To the guys who helped us we are extremely gratefull for your help and we would like to buy u guys drinks if we ever meet again. We looked for you at the ramp after u dropped us off but it was a car park and we couldn't find u guys. I think you must have left before we got our boat in?

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Dom and I tend to think that as the fuel level drops in the tank a small hole in the fuel pick up line inside the tank may be getting exposed to air and causing the problems. I'm investigating this week.

Fisheries inspected our catch and we were pleasantly suprised to hear we had the best esky he's seen all day by a fair bit. Here is a pic of one of the AJ's on the official brag mat :)

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We had a filleting session yesterday and found a whole snapper inside one of the AJ's. Greedy bugger to take our bait after already having a nice feed :) The other AJ had nothing in the stomach.

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Dinner was AJ Sushimi (absolutely delicious!), beer battered snapper and whole baked Moses Perch with roast potatoes and garden salad accompanied by wine, beer and Vodka.

Thanks for an awesome weekend Dom, an utter blast with highs and lows topped off by a sensational feed with great company.

Cheers mate! :lol:

aussie123 Newbie

aussie123

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Thats a great bag of fish,well done.

You may have a blocked breather,a primer bulb that has shat itself or most likely the fuel line has delaminated inside causing blockages.

The delamination can also throw particles into the fuel filter and cause a blockage in there.

The primer bulb compressing is a good sign for a blocked breather or restricted fuel line.

Homer4duff Newbie

Homer4duff

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Yep I agree. The fuel breather is clear, I pulled the hose off a few weeks ago and checked it. I also got a splash of fuel out of it as we were filling up so I'm sure that's ok.

We also unscrewed the fuel cap to see if the pressure equalising would fix the problem, alas it didn't. I'm sure the fuel line has issues that only shows itself one the fuel falls below a certain level.

Eug Newbie

Eug

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solid fish boys. just wait until the undersize brigade gets onto that snapper from the stomach j/k.

still having your ice-cream ritual dom?

Do$tylz Newbie

Do$tylz

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cracking AJ's. And a realy nice pronounced yellow line on that 2nd one.

Crazy that the whole snapper had been swallowed. I wonder if you could have been done for posession of undersized fish? hahaha

Homer4duff Newbie

Homer4duff

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Is there a bar on north side of the island ? Cheers

No. The waves can bend around the point and sometimes break when the conditions are right. I've put the chart up so u can see where the wave symbols are.

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dhess Newbie

dhess

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solid fish boys. just wait until the undersize brigade gets onto that snapper from the stomach j/k.

still having your ice-cream ritual dom?

Yep had my my almond magnum at 3am. Awesome for boosting fishing mojo.

Thanks again Travis. Was great fun and good to have you guys over. Had to work very hard for very few bites but it made it feel all the more rewarding.

The ride of the haines was awesome. We could comfortably do 50kph in chop that would be uncomfortable in my boat at less than 30kph.

Its funny I have been barely able to walk because of a back injury for the past 6 weeks. Today I am the best I have been since it happened. It must have been that AJ that knocked something back into place.

We should have taken the partly digested snapper to Moses's fish market buyer. It would have probably been the freshest thing there.

Keen-as-fisho Newbie

Keen-as-fisho

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Great trip guys, hows that little squire in the AJ :lol: Were the fisheries/DPI just measuring and recording what fish were caught, we saw them on sunday at Fishos taking some information on what had been caught/kept for the day.

Homer4duff Newbie

Homer4duff

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.

We should have taken the partly digested snapper to Moses's fish market buyer. It would have probably been the freshest thing there.

LOL Dom it WAS pretty fresh for stomach catch :silly:

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jeff f Newbie

jeff f

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i had the same problem with fuel on my boat, replaced everything tank, lines, bulb, filters, the lot. didnt fix it.

ended up finding a tiny crack in the litle block that has a filter on it and splits the fuel up for the 3 carbys.

replaced that and problem solved

Homer4duff Newbie

Homer4duff

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Does any one know how far moreton is from port of brisbsne

About 50km one way give or take to Cape Moreton, depending on which way u go. Depends if u go Rous channel or freeman channel at the north end.

dhess Newbie

dhess

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I was thinking of heading north through the river and to the tip of moreton ?

Have fished tempest launching port of brisbane. Its a fair hike. Over 60kms. You want to pick a really smooth day or have a boat that can really eat the chop up. Otherwise way easier to tow up to Bribie.

Manni79 Newbie

Manni79

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What type of motor do you have Prawnhead? I had a similar issue with my etec and was a build up of carbon in the injector.

Was effectively starved of fuel as it was not injecting properly, took 'em a little while to work it out but, but easily fixed once they new the issue

Symptoms, was either not starting for multiple attempts or running/idling very low and inconsistent due to lack of fuel intake

Homer4duff Newbie

Homer4duff

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Manni it's an Etec 200 HO which was serviced less than 2 weeks ago. If the problem was at the injector end I'm sure the fuel primer bulb would stay hard and not collapse as the engine starved for fuel so I'm still thinking the issue is a fuel line/feed problem in the tank.

Manni79 Newbie

Manni79

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Manni it's an Etec 200 HO which was serviced less than 2 weeks ago. If the problem was at the injector end I'm sure the fuel primer bulb would stay hard and not collapse as the engine starved for fuel so I'm still thinking the issue is a fuel line/feed problem in the tank.

Fair enough, i had the same experience with the bulb, even when they ran diagnostics they didn't find it in the report straight up, they actually needed to pull the engine apart to investigate further.

Fuel is still getting to the motor but the spray pattern is affected and etecs are quite sensitive when it comes to how the fuel is injected, small build up of carbon can shut you down

Anyway i'm no expert lol and just sharing a similar experience, hope you get it running again soon mate

Homer4duff Newbie

Homer4duff

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Thanks Josh.

Manni thanks mate for your input, appreciate it. I'll raise the question with the mech tomorrow and see what he reckons. The problem seems to raise its head about the same distance the two times it's happened , i.e. issues crop up when the fuel level drops below a certain level.

nads the round trip from Bribie would be about 75km to Cape Moreton as the crow flies so allow extra for trolling, repositioning at different spots etc

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