queensland 1770 Turned It On, (report Add And Photos)

[Luvit]

@Luke Landrunner and I headed to 1770 leaving 4am Sunday morning. As usual the hours of driving were filled with all different ideas and things we could try to hopefully snag some Red Emperor.

When we pulled up at the ramp I could see another Grady White boat following us. When we pulled up at the ramp they pulled up next to us and it was the BATS crew. If you know these guys they do very well on Red Emperor and have a number of youtube videos worth watching.

While Luke started preparing the boat (thanks Luke) I had a chat with Peter and he was happy to give us some tips on where to target RE's. After looking at their boat it is remarkable difference an extra 2 feet makes a boat, so much bigger. They had 4 people in their boat where as on trips like this, 2 people is comfortable in mine with 2 eskies and sleeping arrangements. My boat looks small next to theirs.

After picking Luke up on the way and stocking up with ice and fuel we launched around 11am. The wind direction was in out favour making the trip out quite good.

About 40km out we saw some flock of birds and thought it would be great to pick up a few tuna for fresh strip baits. The feeding pattern didn't look very aggressive and after throwing Gobbler 4.75" jerk shads in Pink, we had no hits after a number of attempts.

We then noticed a large school of fish under the boat and we identified them as trevellay of some sort. I tried a large popper but no interest shown. I changed to a Gobbler 3.75" jerk shad in gin clear color with a lighter jig head and a lighter leader.

Good choice as it turned out, with 5 Buldger Trevally becoming our fresh bait for the trip.

These things pull hard.

I cast under a bird looking into the water and had a hook up as it sank, a nice Cobia was netted, photographed and released quickly.

It was time to stop having fun and get out to Sykes reef. There was still a few hours of light left so we went East of Sykes to see what we could find.

The normal Lipper, (Red Throat Emperor) etc were coming over the side thick. Luke then used an Iodine bream as bait and hooked a good fish. We called it for a Red and to both of our delight it was!  and this one had a tail.

We were both ecstatic over having this fish hit the deck within hours of launching. The sun dipping below the horizon gave the fish and extra Red appearance.

 

 

We could not have asked for a better start to the trip. There were plenty of boats anchor at up Sunday night probably because of the good Monday forecast.

With conditions so good on Monday we fished in approximately 70m all day. We must have easily thrown back 30-40 good size Lipper and tuskfish and kept some Cod that don't release well.

Luke scored a PB Maori Cod a nice Coral trout and I got a nice Coronation trout as well.

I don't why the colour is so saturated on this photo.

We were sharked a number of time really taking it out of us from 70 meters down and heavy drag settings. When I had another big fish on I though initially it could be another shark but thought you never can tell and played it up.

It was a welcome surprise to see my PB Amber jack appear in the crystal clear water.

 

Besides a couple of under size RE coming to the boat there were no legals on Monday. We came back in after a massive day of fishing the deep water we were pretty spent. I even gained a couple of blisters from holding the rod and fighting fish.

We came in late afternoon and did a little popping to give us a break from sinkers. I had a few strikes from long tom and landed one.

Just before we dark we anchored in shallow to get as much protection from the reef we could.

Luke was having fun with some Spanglies on the Gobblers.

The forecast was for wind up to 20kts overnight on Monday and there were only 2 other boats we could see in the distance Monday night. It was crap night being tossed around and there was very little sleep had.

Tuesday morning we started to make our way back and see what we could find. I set the depth sounder to show just the last 5 meters of the depth and increased the scroll speed to 2x so the fish show bigger when you go over them at speed. Not far from Sykes we saw a show of fish on the sounder while running at 35kmph, we turned around located them and first drift Luke snags a PB snapper.

A few more drifts and we headed off again. Shortly after we found another school and first drift I scored a undersize RE and thought we are in the right area.

A few more drifts we picked up Hussar which I filletted and put back down. I love Hussar to eat but so do RE's and it was a not wasted. I finally got past the pickers and was hooked up solid to a nice fish which I was hoping was our quarry. 

There were two very happy anglers on board when we netted this fella.

While admiring this Red, Luke's Rod bend over and another Red came to the net but just undersize at 53cm it was swiftly released.

I have a fuel capacity of 300 litres and do 1km/ litre average. We did 250kms for this trip and had an extra 90 litres of fuel in jerry cans just incase conditions turned bad.

We didn't need them but better to have it than not.

Red Emperor is such a nice firm white flesh fish and I was able to get 3 feeds from the one fish.

It was a pity we didn't catch up with Anglen on the water but i'm sure we will get to a trip in the future together.

I would say this was our most successful trip with a few PB reached and finally catching more than one Red Emperor.

We caught 5 in total 3 under size and the 2 legal that were 70cm and 69cm.

I want to fish this place as often as can afford and weather allows.

 

[Old Scaley]

Love the teaser report . Looks like another epic @Luvit adventure.

[benno573]

how dare you post this while i am at work... no consideration whatsoever...

 

looks like an awesome trip mate, how's the conditions in a few of those shots.  Love to see the red fish featuring!  Did you really use all those jerry cans?? 

[ellicat]

Looks like a good one, fellas.

[tugger]

Yeah love the weather shots fish are good to good times boys

[Luvit]

6 hours ago, benno573 said:

how dare you post this while i am at work... no consideration whatsoever...

 

looks like an awesome trip mate, how's the conditions in a few of those shots.  Love to see the red fish featuring!  Did you really use all those jerry cans?? 

Monday was a beautiful day.

No, we didn’t use any of it.

We have come in before with very little left, so best to have it just in case. 

[jon]

 Niiice work mate good to see some nice reds. I’m five mins out from home on the seven hour trip up there as we speak. Can’t wait!!

[Andrew_P]

Great pics from a great trip! All fish caught on plastics? 

I think I might have a problem - I can’t stop admiring the beauty of Luv-it’s undercarriage in that boat ramp shot!

[Drop Bear]

Awesome mate. Glad you had such a great trip. 

[Luvit]

Reported added.

 

[ellicat]

Good read, mate.

Congrats to you both on the PB's. Good to see the tails. haha

 

[John]

great adventure, thanks for the report 

[Old Scaley]

Good read and great photos as usual @luvit.

[natang]

Beautiful fish and some amazing looking conditions! Glad you got onto some otherwise long and way and lots of $$$ if a donut! 

[Luvit]

Be very hard to donut up there. We could have easily bagged out on reefies but, chose to only take 16 fish in total home. Means we have to go back more often 

[jon]

Oh yeah well done boys! So good. Sounds like you mite have the 1770 bug lol. It’s quite contagious. I’ve done a bunch of trips in unison with the bats boys. Thier Grady is definitely a weapon. Good lads too. Did you spend much time chasing trout. We went a fair way north of you guys and struggled on the trout front, but seen plenty of red

[jon]

3 hours ago, natang said:

Beautiful fish and some amazing looking conditions! Glad you got onto some otherwise long and way and lots of $$$ if a donut! 

If you donut up there sell your rods

[Luvit]

4 minutes ago, jon said:

Oh yeah well done boys! So good. Sounds like you mite have the 1770 bug lol. It’s quite contagious. I’ve done a bunch of trips in unison with the bats boys. Thier Grady is definitely a weapon. Good lads too. Did you spend much time chasing trout. We went a fair way north of you guys and struggled on the trout front, but seen plenty of red

No time chasing trout. They were basically by catch. We may go further Nirth next time. There is just so much ground out there. It hard to know where ti start. Slowly we are building some marks. 

Your trip looked great but, at over 400 kms travelled l wouldn’t want the fuel bill to split only 2 ways. 

[kmcrosby78]

Great trip there Wayne and Luke, well done, another top report!

[jon]

1 hour ago, Luvit said:

No time chasing trout. They were basically by catch. We may go further Nirth next time. There is just so much ground out there. It hard to know where ti start. Slowly we are building some marks. 

Your trip looked great but, at over 400 kms travelled l wouldn’t want the fuel bill to split only 2 ways. 

Yeah that’s for sure, we’ve been going up there for a few years now and have never been north of broomsfield. The amount of good ground from Fitzroy and above is unbelievable.I just wanted to try something new this time. But definitely did burn some fuel

[Jimmyjack]

great photos, great report, well done.

[Anglen]

Excellent wrap up there Luv-it. 

Some ripper fish too.

Cheers

[Luke Landrunner]

Another great 1770 trip, thanks again Wayne. 

This being our seventh trip out there the fine tuning of all the planning, searching for ground and boat set-up bore fruit.

There is nothing like the hit and fight of your intended goal- the Red Emperor !!!! ( mine was 71cm.....)

To bookend with a Red each was very a satisfying result for all the hard work we put in.

Cannot wait for the next one. 

[Luvit]

We have plenty of room for improvement even on 71cm

Our biggest asset is the sounders reading correctly.

[Anglen]

Hell yeah. We find we improve our knowledge every trip for sure.

What is your electronics pkg presently onboard out of interest?

[Luvit]

A Furuno 588 with P66 and a HDS 12 Gen 3.

I find the Furuno is so easy read compared to the HDS at speed.

I see posts about people saying how Furuno is like tetris blocks and no target separation. If I see fish I stop to fish, l don't need to know there are 3 fish sitting on top of each other. The only one that counts is the one that bites.

Personally I found the Furno a lot easier to adjust with dials while underway and buttons compared to the touch screen menus on the HDS.  For the same price I could have gone the Simrad S2009 with a 1 kw transducer but I'm happy with my choice. 

[Drop Bear]

On 13/03/2019 at 1:36 PM, Luvit said:

I want to fish this place as often as can afford and weather allows.

Awesome mate. I only just read the report part. Cracking trip. Thanks for such a good report too. 

[Drop Bear]

On 18/03/2019 at 8:51 AM, Luke Landrunner said:

Cannot wait for the next one. 

Nice one Luke. Glad you got a cracker.