queensland Hervey Bay holiday, Measured mile and the 4 beacons

[rathabfishin2]

Well its a little late but have been super busy since coming back from holiday. Firstly I would like to send a huge thanks to Ray and Wayne for lending me some gear to help keep costs down! Much appreciated gentlemen!

Unfortunatley Hbay was blown out for most of the time. Day 1-3 had wicked 30knot northerlies and a quick drive to the ramp near Point Vernon showed swell that would have been impossible to launch in. Headed to River heads and although it was sheltered, my son struggled to stop the boat banging too much against the rocky shore. We managed plenty of sandcrabs over two days. Enough to feed us and several very appreciative grey nomads. We flicked lures around the susan river, tried every thing, added trolling to the list and all we could come up with was on sea toad!

Anyway the wind dropped on the day of my sons birthday so the call was made to head to Fairway. Only one other boat was there to start the day and the day started well with a screaming run on a livie, which unfortunately found its way across the only anchor out apart from mine. I simply could not stop it despite having 50lb braid, 15 kg rod. Same thing happened again 10 mins later but this one was lost on the beacon...and one more was lost to a swivel fail...80 lb swivel failed before the 50lb so go figure.

It was hard going with the birds diving deep to steal our live bait so we moved a little further away. Off goes one rod and it was on. Felt like a great fish...kicking...running. By this time there were quite a few boats and one guy yels out "I hope you have plenty of line!". So I got my son to up the anchor and fought it while on the drift. 30 mins into the fight and it changes....starts holding down and begins to dis[play the tell tale signs of a ray....

After another 15 mins up it comes and I have managed to hook a massive ray...well over a metre wide in the tail :pinch:

So after that I decided to head to the northern part of the bay for the first time in a boat and have a crack for some schoolies. Once at the measured mile my friend hooks up to a nice school but being a novice did not drop the rod into the water as he ran under the boat and was snapped off quickly. We tried livies, pillies, burley both human :sick: and pillies (he got a little seasick which was a good laugh) to no avail.

I recognized another 420 renegade owner from here casting away (Tunafreak), before seeing him disappear. After a look I could see what he was chasing were birds smashing bait in the distance. Anyway Tunafreak, myself and another 420 renegade owner were chasing these around. Me being a novice at this realized that my 2 stroke probably wasn't helping so after 10 mins of this we headed to the four beacons.

To sum it up...my friend hooked a huge shovel nose on my 2-5kg rig...fought it valiantly but lost it next to the boat. After an hour there we had one last crack at the measured mile and another shovel nose this time to me.

Packed it in and headed home.

Although it was a little disappointing it was great to spend some dad and son time together and was good to hit a part of the bay I have never tried before. I enjoyed a chat with Tunafreak at the four beacons after he caught a few mack tuna from the bait school i left them with, and got a good bit of info at the same time (cheers for that).

Hopefully my next mission to that part of the bay will be more fruitful and I plan on hitting it as much as I can and chasing the macks as the weather warms up.

Photos to come

Cheers Andrew

[rosstralia46]

Nice work Andrew I'm sure you will get into em shortly now iv upgraded boats will have to tee up a sesh I'm keen to try for some mackeral out at the measured mile and beyond by any chance how much fuel did you use whilst you were out there trying to get a rough gauge for mine

[rathabfishin2]

Congrats on the new boat! To tell you the truth I didn't check after coming back. It was a bit choppy in the morning that day so the trip to both the measured mle and the beacons was about 2/3 of the speed I would normally do and a little on and off the throttle to cater for that and my seasick friend. What I can tell u though is I didn't have to change tanks so used less than 20L but I will have a look for you tomorrow and let u know with a little more accuracy. What boat did you buy?

[rathabfishin2]

Sorry that was meant to be less than 25L

[rosstralia46]

Sweet as thanks for that mate

[tunafreak]

Hey Andrew,

Was a tough day out there that's for sure, I only ended up with a couple of schoolies as well as the mack toons.

Had to work hard for the schoolies though, hit many beacons and had a thousand casts before coming up tight, dropped a couple also..

Like I said when I was having a chat to you, the water was a bit stirred up and dirty which can put the schoolies off at times and I wasn't expecting too many fish..

Don't let your lack of results on the day turn you away from future trips as there is plenty of fun to be had out there..

Hope you get into a few soon..

Cheers,

Al