Day of firsts. Reds, Spanish, dolphin fish

[nick01077]

For a while I've been trying to organise another trip out with Greg from double island point fishing charters but the weather hasn't been playing the game due to cyclones up north. So after rebooking for the 3rd time I finally get to go out on Sunday and what a day it was....

We left gympie at 4am after a 3 30am wake up. We got to the ramp at 5 and left shortly after. It looked like it was gonna be an awesome day on the water

The plan was to troll for Spanish and then do a bit of bottom bashing. Greg wasn't sure on how we'd go with the fish as know one has had a decent crack lately due to the weather. After traveling for an hour and a bit we started our troll along a reef. Two rods out wide were rigged with gar and two rods in the middle rigged with deep diving lures. There were 4 of us on board and we bagged out with 12 Spanish within an hour lol. It was an awesome hour! We had 2, 3 and even 4 way hook ups. The Mack's were that thick you could see them fight over the offerings on the surface. Haha then when you hooked up they would do flips and spins due to sharks chasing them... To someone like me who doesn't go offshore much (2-3 x year) this was unreal!

So after bagging out on Spanish and somehow managing to get Greg away from them he asks us "what do you wanna catch now?" For a while I've watched the wicked fishing DVD and have watched Greg lamprecht catch HUGE reds!

So I thought why not give it a crack today? I asked Greg if it was possible to try and target them as we drove out about 40 mile from the bar and dropped some baits. After feeling the littlest of bites I hooked a fish and had awoken the beast! I noticed Greg started to giggle as he could see me struggle getting this fish off the bottom... A few minutes later after an epic battle his grin got bigger... Had no idea why til I saw a bit of colour arising to the surface... RED! It was a red! It didn't look big coming up the water column but Jesus when it broke the surface I was speechless! My first red! Haha Greg couldn't stop laughing while my mates on board are yahooing!

After a heap of photos he went into the eski and we dropped again! On that spot we caught 4 reds all up :evil:

Me with 2 and my mates with 1 each.

After the reds went quiet we went over and checked out one of the FAD's (fish attracting device) there was mahi mahi or dolphin fish all over it! It was awesome to see these beautiful schools of fish swimming around the boat! We threw baits and slugs and plastics but just weren't biting, so we trolled a few skirts and nabbed a few :silly:

We got back to the ramp at 4:30pm with grins going war to ear! I managed to catch 3 new species that I've always dreamed of catching! (Dolphin fish, red emperor, Spanish Mack) Hahaha everyone at the boat ramp was in awe of our catch

Quickly packed the esky and left gympie later that night and made it home in brizzy at 11pm... Work the next day at 4 30am

Driving to work I think to myself Would I do it all over again? Absolutely! Pretty hard not too when you that beautiful red fish breach the surface :woohoo:

[Luvit]

Some hard core fishing there Nick with some beast's to remember.

Have you made your next booking?

[kmcrosby78]

That's an awesome day on the water mate, congrats on the firsts. That hour of spanish macks would have been fantastic and that's a bl00dy good sized red - any idea on weight?

[nick01077]

Cheers lads, Greg estimates the red is around 8 or 9 kilo. Very solid fish :evil:

Haha yeah luvit hoping to go again in late May for some more bigger Mack's. I got an invite to tag along with some old boys who go to Fraser for a week in June and take up a couple of boats and do offshore from Fraser, so I'm looking forward to that as well!

I'm hooked on offshore fishing at the moment :silly:

[-Shay-]

Nick has a terrible memory about the days events

We caught the dollies after the spanish, and the reds/reefies were the last session for the day!

/>http://1monthonfraser.wordpress.com/2014/03/28/a-day-out-with-double-island-point-charters/

Is a different version of events for anyone interested

[Angus]

BIG red man well done!

Angus