St Bees Day Trip

[Cmaltby]

made the trip to Mackay last night to head out to st bees early this morning... Early didn't happen my dad and his mate  stuff about and a 4 am start turned into a 6am start by the time he was ready. We were at the island and fishing by 730. Things started slow in he channel between st bees and Keswick so we moved around the back to espatria and things picked up we landed a few tusk fish, sweet lip and a red throat emporer. Also scored an undersized red emporer but none bigger. No coral trout but so again we moved to the front of st bees, stopped and seen some tuna busting up threw some slugs but no luck. So we anchored up got a few more sweetlip some stripey and a couple more tusk fish. Two undersized trout and we made the move to the front face of st bees where we were finally onto the coral trout, ended up with 3 keepers the biggest going 70cm. And we decided to pack up and head home. Ended the day with. 

 

10 Venus tusk 

5 stripey 

5 grassy sweetlip 

3 coral trout 

along with many undersized and little cod. All in all top day on the water with plenty of wildlife, Ray's jumping turtles everywhere and an eagle who would come down from his perch to collect undersized fish we through back. 

 

dads now busy processing the fish while I clean the boat and write this report 

 

 

*would just like to add i tried micro jigs again today and I think it's time to settle that I'm a bottom bashing bait fisherman, Pelagics aside, I have no luck with lures 

[kmcrosby78]

Very solid trout and nice bag of fish for a day trip mate, well done! Used to go out to St Bees and Keswick as a teenager with Dad and my brothers and loved it - was our first offshore fishing. Those stripies make great livies for Spaniards - we hooked a bl00dy good one out there on the northern side of the channel/islands where the current runs hard but were rookies and didn't have wire - got it to the boat but it turned sideways and think it cut us off on it's gill plates. Closest I've been to spontaneously jumping in after a fish .......

[Cmaltby]

We used to camp in the north eastern side of the island on the beach as kids, was some of the best times of my childhood, one time we spent the night on the beach watching a turtle lay it's eggs. Nearly all those fish were caught on either stripeys for bait or a parrot fish that the tax man had taken his share of. 

[ellicat]

Great day.

Some good eating in that lot.

Planned the next outing already ? haha

[Cmaltby]

No next outing planned yet @ellicat still waiting for these winds to die off so I can get my boat out around the keppels as I have a few places I want to explore.dads boats 6m and fibreglass so had no problem with the wind or waves. As hard as it is to say too he was the one who caught the biggest trout... 

Was really fun flicking into the tuna and between them and the mackerel they were everywhere, unfortunately I was a decky and the others had no interest in anything bar coral trout but I'll definitely be wanting to spend a day chasing them soon as it clears up 

[Angus]

Great trout mate! Cannay complain with that! 

[benno573]

Nice haul. Personally I'd struggle to use a stripey as bait, they taste awesome. We used to use a bludger trevally or a Mac tuna. Whiptails are good as well. But hey, whatever works!

[Cmaltby]

Stripey and parrot/tusk fish were abundant so using them for baits no problem. Was also plenty of fusiliers for livies too 

[samsteele115]

Nice mixed back! Well done

[Cmaltby]

Even treated my cat to some coral trout. 

[ellicat]

Ho ho ho, That's just showing off now.