queensland Sunny coast offshore - 22/09/2013

[benno573]

I dragged myself out of bed at 2:50am on Sunday morning, jumped in the car and headed for Mooloolaba with Viper83 along for the ride. My new BT50 made towing the boat look like a game on its first longer run, very happy with that result. Launched the boat and crossed the non-existent bar at about 4:45am.

The light S/SW made for an easy run to the first spot where we rigged up some plastics and started our drift. On the second cast, I was smashed on the drop and quickly lost 50m of line under a fair drag pressure. This was a goon-un for sure. After a 5 minute tussle, Matty slid the net under the first snapper of the day, a cracker at 68cm. I bled the fish quickly and flicked another damiki 5†armor shad out. Shortly thereafter, a 46cm model joined the big fella in the bucket. Matty followed shortly after with a mid-40’s of his own. I landed another one at about 40 but he was released to fight again another day. After a school of dolphins and a bit of boat traffic, the bite shut down.

We moved onto the second spot, avoiding numerous whales along the way. We would have seen at least 10 pods throughout the day, some coming within 30m of us while we were anchored. Lots of mother/calf groups too. Upon anchoring at the second spot, we found that we were stuck in the nursery. We then started catching a few big yakkas which were kept for flesh baits / crab bait at a later date. A small move to another spot close by yielded no better result so we upped anchor and moved back to near where we had caught the snapper earlier.

Fishing lightly weighted squid strips, I accounted for a bar faced spinecheek, a just legal grassy and a stripy. I then had something pull a little harder and was delighted to land a blue tuskfish of around 40cm. Awesome looking fish, taste even better. I then flicked out half a pillie on the lightly weight rig, only to have the rod just about pulled out of my hands. This fish peeled about 80m of line in quick time. I called it for a shark initially, however, as the fight wore on I was less sure, and very hopeful to see a flash of red. A few tense moments later, Matty slid the net under a beauty – 74cm. This fish was caught in less than 50ft of water at almost exactly midday. Guess it was lost!

After this, the ENE kicked up to around 15kn so we decided to head back in before it got too ugly out there.

Thanks to Matty for the deckie work and for again letting me catch more fish than him.

The Catch:

Snap snap!

Perhaps should have flossed more regularly?

Cheers,

Benno

[Aggro101]

Looks like an great morning! I've been really happy with the BT50 as well. You hardly even know the boat is on the back, makes towing so easy even on our trips to Somerset up the big hills. Much better than the Triton I had before.

There have been a few mother/calf pods coming very close to me at anchor near Curtain as well, very cool to watch, such an awesome animal.

I've been wanting to head out of the bay as the snapper have disappeared from inside Moreton now. Any chance you could share a mark or 2? I haven't been out wide in my boat yet, so I don't have any marks outside the bay.

Cheers for the report.

[batman]

Onya Benno!

Good to see your still smashing them!!

I should have a new boat soon so ill be getting into them soon enough.

Hope your well mate

Bryan

[benno573]

aggro - sorry mate, not going to post up GPS marks. They took me far too long to find! This is how I started out offshore fishing:

1) look at your charts for any obvious area that might hold structure/fish. These include shoals, sudden depth changes, exposed rocks, artificial reefs, wrecks etc. You can also find some generic GPS marks by googling, these may not be in exactly the right spot but they are generally in the vicinity.

2) start your searching around these areas of interest. A great example is brennans shoals off cape moreton or boat rock or the sevens reef off Point lookout. obvious on any chart, some cracker spots out there if you put the time in and find them.

3) sound around the area getting a good idea of where the structure is, where any drop offs are, any bait schools etc.

4) give it a crack. try different baits/lures, different rigs, methods etc. Don't be afraid to fish light. Both snapper in this report were taken on 20lb braid with 20lb leader which isn't "light", but definitely isn't what you'd class as heavy tackle.

5) if you have no luck, move on. when in transit, keep a close eye on your sounder, investigate anything that looks interesting. I found a random spot about 1/2 nm from one of my regular spots yesterday, an isolated rock in the middle of no-where. didn't catch anything that time but could definitely be worth a look-see another day.

My first few trips offshore were hopeless. I had little idea of where to go, but eventually started cracking a few nice fish. I went on a few charters around the place to work out what to look for on the sounder, what rigs / methods to use and all that. In the interest of saving a few $ on charters, you could always put a post up for a decky on here - many guys (myself included) would be happy to head out with you and offer a few tips.

[planetfonz]

thats a great effort man. we went out to the inner gneerings yesterday morn but apart from whales, there was little action.

did you see any surface action at all?

[ellicat]

:woohoo: Nice work Mr Benno. Viper must have been feeling a little unsafe in your company after landing the first cracker Top day.

Welcome to the MWU (Men With Utes).

I've heard the whale numbers this year are 15 - 17 thousand. Might have to ring my Japanese mate for safety's sake. :whistle:

[grantbudd74]

did a quick blast over to sunshine reef today and on the return saw a few whales and the calf was boosting right out of the water! such a great sight to see.

[Aggro101]

aggro - sorry mate, not going to post up GPS marks. They took me far too long to find!

No worries mate, I understand you not wanting to share your spot x. I was just hoping for a general mark or 2. Thanks for the advice, I'll study the GPS map and go from there. :cheer:

[benno573]

thats a great effort man. we went out to the inner gneerings yesterday morn but apart from whales, there was little action.

did you see any surface action at all?

Two surface hits near us, no birds working or anything. Plenty of scattered bait around though.

Ecat - funny, I work for a Japanese company these days... :whistle: we'll have to catch up and compare utes soon. And catch some more sandies for the boss.