queensland Hervey Bay 31Dec-3Jan

[samsteele115]

Well I was expecting this trip report to be full of fish photos and fishy tales, unfortunately it wasn't to be!

We were lucky enough to borrow Sam's (the bearded fellow) dads 4.5m polycraft for what was planned to be an awesome pelagic-hunting trip to Hervey Bay.

We took along another friend of ours Liam who is also a very keen angler.

We arrived at Urangan at lunch time on NYE, put the boat in for a couple of hours until a storm sent us back to the ramp without even wetting a line. Poor planning.

I'll put the next two days simply: We drove up to near Rooneys point and back driving close and wide along Fraser Island without seeing a single sign of tuna or mackerel, not even diving birds! It was very disappointing as my expectations were high of at least seeing some bust-up action.

Small highlights along the way were chasing some decent Giant Trevally on the flats for a while with no luck, seeing a late season marlin on the flats just south of Rooneys point, along with plenty of sharks and turtles to have a look at.

The final day we changed tactics and decided to launch from River Heads after a sleep in to target some estuary fish in the afternoon. The wind forecast was 20-25 for the bay.

After somehow being stuck on a sand bank for the first 3 hours until the tide rose in the least fishiest place we could find, we eventually headed south and started drifting along a mangrove edge with an hour and a half of light left.

It didn't take too long before Liam boated a nice 55cm flathead. I have never being so stoked to see a flathead!

The next cast of Liam's resulted in another 45cm model.

We all hooked up to decent fish at least once before dropping or being bricked by the fish.

Sam boated his first tarpon at 45cm which put up a nice fight and smile on our faces.

Soon after, Liam hooked up to a decent fish behind a snag and it showed itself by launching high in the air. It was about 80cm of barra!! :woohoo: The suicide cast obviously resulted in a lost fish, but it was cool to see one none the less.

Anyway, bloody ordinary fishing trip but it was an absolute blast with a couple of awesome top-shelf blokes!!

[Luvit]

Sometimes you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, sounds like the fish were on holidays over the break,

At least you saw some beautiful coast and the Barra & marlin would have been exciting sights,

Don't know who gave you the idea that Hervey bay was a good place to go fishing

[alaskanaturally]

Would be quite boring if the fishing was always great.

[samsteele115]

Would be quite boring if the fishing was always great.

That is so true! Lower expectations for next time= more excitement if I catch some fish

[ellicat]

That's a shame, Sam. I reckon every one of us have those trips where the fish we catch in our imagination before the trip has an effect on what's left when we get there