queensland First Trip to Palm Beach Reef

[Miller 197]

Posting this up from a tip we did a few weeks ago but I thought it would be worth the post anyway.

Me and my mate Scott (num_301) decided to go down to the gold coast for our first try fishing for mackerel on palm beach reef. We had been watching the swell and wind for weeks beforehand and the weather was looking perfect for this day so drove down from Cleveland and took his 4m tinny down and went out through the Currumbin bar at about 5 30am. We followed another tinny out and had no troubles getting out and headed over to the massive group of boats already there. There would have been 30 boats anchored there so we just got on the outside of everyone and dropped anchor.

We rigged up our rods with a couple of unweighted pilchards and deployed them out the back. After about 15 minutes of not much happening so I grabbed my other rod which was a $30 ebay rod and reel which I keep in my thundercat with some 15lb mono and tied on a 20gram slug and threw that out into the drink. I felt the slug hit the bottom and then started winding like crazy (not really expecting much) and then BANG! :woohoo: The rod bent over, the reel was screaming and the fish was off like a bat out of hell. It took a few good runs, but nothing the ebay special could handle :silly: . Once it got close to the boat we saw that it was a really nice spotty so Scott grabbed the gaff. Once the fish got a glimpse of the gaff it started playing up like a second hand lawn mower at the boat and kept trying to get around the anchor rope. After a 3 or 4 sketchy gaff shots we finally got it on board for a few happy snaps and then it was straight into the esky. This was the biggest for the day and was just short of a meter.

After we calmed down we checked our pilchards which had been sitting on the bottom and picked clean. Not having any balloons or floats I decided to make my own floats out of an old double plugger thong that was sitting on the bottom of the boat. These worked perfect!! It didn’t take long and we had another two fish in the esky and dropped/lost about 4 more fish. One of the fish scott hooked had tangled the other line and then his baitrunner managed to birdsnest... so after some skillful handlining, managed to land it.. just. All around there was yahooing and lots of fish being caught, but this massive dolphin took a liking to our boat and would leave us alone so we pulled up anchor and moved spots. We saw a small bust so we headed over and managed to pull a small mac tuna which we kept for bait and another spotty.

After this we decided we had enough for a feed and the wind was starting to pick up so we headed in for the day. As we were about to come back through the bar there was this Hawaiian chick that had been swept out and across and was about 100m away from the rockwall and was calling for help so she jumped in the boat and came for a short boat ride back through the bar.

On the way home my ebay reel’s handle got broken off from the esky sliding into it R.I.P. None the less it was still a good day on the water and not a bad trip for our first gold coast fishing experience.

[billp]

It can be a special place on the right day, that's for sure. Congrats on picking up a feed your first time.

[max pwr]

Any pics of the Hawaiian chick?

[Miller 197]

Thanks bill! cant wait to have another go.

Haha nah I didn't manage any pics of her max pwr

[num_301]

Was an awesome day out.

Can't wait to get back down there

[Luvit]

Great to see the follow report after following advice from members.

Got to be happy with that result any time, let alone for the first time.

Looking forward to more of your reports.