queensland Report - Curtain Artificial Reef 6/7/13

[Aggro101]

Well after offering up the deckie spot on here with my only condition being that they bring some squid, 1st guy to take the spot said he couldn't guarantee he would bring any, so I offered it up again. Second fella pulled out late at night as he was having a blinder of a session in the Brissy River. It ended up just being myself and my brother in law heading out.

Left Scarborough harbour at first light, too my surprise it was virtually empty of boats on the ramp.

The run across was quite smooth with only the lightest of breezes. About half way across, we came in to the fog which was heavy and thick reducing visability down to about 20 metres. Flicked the nav and anchor lights on and proceeded cautiously at about 30kph. We could hear other boats blasting through at full speed which was concerning in the low visability.

The fog lifted after we arrived at curtain and we could hear the fog horns of the freighters in the channel and they slowy moved through. From what we heard on the marine radio, 1 boat came close to one until he heard the fog horn and 'went hard to starboard just in time'. Seriously people, if you can't see, slow down!

We sounded out a few spots with good shows on the screen and decided on one that was out a couple of hundred metres from the several boats that were already there. Dropped anchor and started a burley trail 5m off the bottom. Using pillie chunks and squid on paternonsta rigs we had double hookups on our first drop, both everage snapper around 40cm! This continued for a while with some trevally, spangled emperor and other reef species thrown in for good measure.

We could tell we would easily hit our bag limit of snapper, but as we only wanted to keep what we would eat in a week, we let everything go after we had 3 each.

I had 2 unstoppables at this spot, had the head shakes of a fish, but even my TLD30A with 50lb braid couldn't stop the runs and I was reefed by both in only 5 minutes.

The action slowed on the change of tide and we moved closer to shore on the drop off from 10 to 25m. Heaps of average legal snapper and just undersized spangled emperor here. My brother in law pulled a really nice parrot from this spot that tested his 20lb gear out.

As the current picked up, the fish went off the chew a bit and we headed for Tangalooma for lunch and a beer. $19 for a burger and $7 for a beer! It was nice though...

We spent the next hour sounding out likely spots for next week before heading home. It was a perfect run across the bay, dead flat and no wind getting us back in under 30 minutes including a stop to watch a pod of dolphins cruise by.

All in all, it was a perfect day for being anywhere on the water.

[tekung]

how scary was that fog, i almost had a near t bone accident with another boat. apparently their skipper thought it would be good to flat stick around the bay =/ luckily i was only going 30kms as well.

we bagged out at tangalooma on snappers, had a few unstoppables too but it was hard because my fishfinder didnt work, had to play the guessing game to find ground.

awesome day out tho

[Aggro101]

how scary was that fog, i almost had a near t bone accident with another boat. apparently their skipper thought it would be good to flat stick around the bay =/ luckily i was only going 30kms as well.

we bagged out at tangalooma on snappers, had a few unstoppables too but it was hard because my fishfinder didnt work, had to play the guessing game to find ground.

awesome day out tho

Sucks about the sounder tekung. What brand sounder is it? I have a spare monocrome humminbird unit you can borrow if it has the same mount as yours.

[tekung]

navman tracker 5500, looking at getting a new sounder by next week though

I saw your post on the deckie spot, was going to give you a buzz and take it up but a few mates wanted to head out as well, looks like we got the last good session of the weather, shes blowing up for the next week

[ellicat]

Sounds like some kingies might have found your baits.

Nice parrot.