queensland Swains Oct 2021 Pt 1

[Another Wazza]

Having recently returned from my 4th 7 day Swains reef fishing trip onboard the Big Cat, I thought I’d share a few highlights of the adventure. I’ll apologise in advance for the lack of photos taken by myself, but in reality, when the fishing is that hot, photos are the last thing on my mind, getting back in and trying to catch another was just too much fun.

We left Bundaberg on a Thursday night and woke up at Sykes reef to some average weather, the fishing from the 4.2 smartwave poly tenders was difficult at times with an extremely fresh northerly blowing, the drifts were quick , but we persisted, boating only 4 good Red throat for the morning session.

The afternoon session wasn’t much better, the wind increased a bit, and by now, myself and both my mates were completely drenched, it was very sloppy out there, however, I’m always amazed at how well the tenders handle it, they’re built like little tanks and politely do whatever you ask of them, we pulled the pin after 2 hours retirering to the mothership for a hot shower, and some fishing off the back, where we bagged a few trout in comfort.

Arriving at the Swains early on Saturday morning, we were greeted by what can only be described as perfect conditions, nice and sunny with a gentle breeze to keep us cool.

I hadn’t been to this reef before, and after a quick look at the charts we decided to head out a couple of miles to a small strip of reef to our north, the fishing here was some of, if not the best I have experienced. 

We got straight into some solid red throat, nice trout, tuskies, and a few other species.

 

My mate hooked up to a solid Green Jobby, only to have the tax man give it a haircut, it’s head is in the esky

We kept at it, doing drifts from around 20m to 45m, on one of the drifts I felt a few little bites, before the rod loaded up nicely with this on the end

he came in at 9.5kg, what surprised me though was I had a variegated emperor on first ( hence the little bites)  he then clobbered that little fella and sent the hook right through him, the little emperor was sliding freely up and down my leader, nice upgrade.

That day continued to produce, and between the morning & afternoon session we bought 60 fish onboard.

The next day was a little different, sunny, glassy conditions, with very little run, we still caught quality fish, but they weren’t chewing as hard as the day before.

A 5/8th jighead in 50m of water produced this little guy

I couldn’t manage to find any bigger models, but we all got toweled up by who knows what out there.

That afternoon the skipper told me of a spot out wide where if we buddied up and took my mates in another tender along, we could go out 5nm and scout out some goldband snapper, the skipper was bang on, we fished 80/90m of water and were all rewarded with solid fish.

I’ll leave part one here, 3 days in, and slightly knackered.

[ellicat]

Looks like it didn't take long to fill up that esky. Looking forward to part 2

[benno573]

I hate being left hanging....

[Another Wazza]

13 hours ago, benno573 said:

I hate being left hanging....

Sorry to leave you hanging benno, but I’ve been in therapy working on developing coping mechanisms to help me be able to fish the bay again, hahaha

[ellicat]

Haha,

Did you fish plastics 100 % ?

I noticed a nuke chook, was that a last resort or were the others working too ?

[Another Wazza]

Hey Brian, I was mixing it up almost every drift, plastics in around 20m, bait further out, It all depended on how quick the drift was, no plastic stood out above the others, apart from soft vibes, with good fish caught on massive white jerk shads, 5 inch streaks in coconut ice, and nuke chicken,, and big pink grubs, just to name s few.

I reckon I could’ve put a hook through my thong and if I could  manage to get that down it too would’ve been hammered, hahaha

[tugger]

That's sounds like a good start to the trip

[Drop Bear]

Some good looking fish there mate. Well done. Looking forward to the next episode.