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Batmans Hamilton Island Adventure

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By batman
in Saltwater

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A very good friend who I haven’t seen in nine years came over to visit from the UK, so after heading down to Melbourne, we hit Philip Island for a track day on motorbikes, the great ocean road for site seeing and then up to Hamilton Island for four days it’s been a great holiday to remember.

The hour forty five flight from Brisbane to Hamilton Island went really quickly, luckily I scored the window seat and flying over the islands I started to get really excited at the prospect of fishing in these deep blue waters. The landing into Hamilton was pretty hairy and I must say that they definitely need a longer runway!!! Anyway the lovely Larisa picked us up at the airport and after checking into our Villa I was on the buggy charging down to the marina to check out the best places to fish. The only problem that I had was my mate from the UK is as interested in fishing as John Howard going on Rove, plus my missus gets sea sick floating in the bath tub but I persuaded her to hire one of the tinny’s with me and go and explore for the day.

We left my pasty white Pommy mate to chase backpackers in the pub all day and launched at 8am, there was a 20-25 knot South Easterly blowing and what was supposed to be a nice cruisey chug along in the tinny turned out to be a scene from the “Perfect Storm. My missus was not to impressed when there where waves crashing over the bow and her new sun dress was drenched with yours truly Capt Batty ….aaaaarrreeegghh’ing like Capt Long John Silver, lucky she took those sea sickness tablets because they don’t exactly equip those tinny’s with any power!!!. Never the less she is a trooper and we snuck into a little cove to hide from the wind. The tide was going out and I found a stretch of Mangrove in this little bay, I anchored up and after my missus regaining her colour back we both started to flick shallow diving poppers into the mangroves. We didn’t score any hits but I got this idea to chop up some pillies and construct a berley bag out of a plastic bag, tie it to some mono and hang it off the back of the tinny…in the hope to attract some fish. What turned up was amazing in the crystal clear water, mini black tip reef sharks started to buzz around us but any fish that where there hit the road for deeper water. After anchoring up and wading onto the beach we had lunch watching the amazing bird life, huuuge turtles and a schools of fish nearly lap the sand. After lunch we headed back to next to the airport where we anchored up in a huge tidal rip and I flicked everything from Squidgy soft plastics, gulps, deep diving hard bodies we didn’t score a damn thing….I was so frustrated especially when the American tourists next to us where pulling up the odd decent snapper/sweet lip, decent size to!

After an hour I was pissed off and my missus was getting over the whole bopping up and down like a cork in the ocean thing so we stated to head home. We were about a km from home when I thought we would anchor up one last time and use pilchards to see how we go…..Rig up….drop it to the bottom….two turns BANG….1 parrot fish, drop to the bottom two turns bang 2nd parrot fish……same again and again. I must have caught 10 fish in twenty minutes with pillies! Even my missus scored a few parrots and one nice little cod. I just couldn’t believe that I hadn’t had any luck with lures all day and in forty five minutes hooked a dozen fish!!! We cruised into the harbour chuckling to ourselves ….that’s fishing.

The next tow days where spent doing the tourist things and just chilling out but I did sneak down to the marina on our last night to flick some hard bodies off pier 8 next to the super yachts and see what I could get. I got a bite and a hook up on something pretty sizey but got busted off half way through the fight. The guy that was fishing near me said that there was a resident Barracuda and on my 10kg leader he was going to go through that like butter. Just as he said that he pulled in a Queen fish (on pillies) that must have been a good 70cm long….just to add insult to my lack of lure technique.

So our last morning and with a serious hang over I was up at the crack of dawn grabbed my gear, headed down to the Marina and hired another tinny for half a day (we flew out at 2:45pm). I gassed the tinny out of the Marina and headed about 20 min cruising to one of the narrow passes that have huuuge tidal surges through them. I was cruising through the pass only to see what I thought looked like a big Queeny chasing bait fish on the surface. I anchored up attached a B-52 and a gold bomber and started flicking them near where I saw the queeny going nuts. I flicked and flicked and flicked but nothing…….my lure curse continued …I tried Squidy soft plastic shallow swimming lures but nothing. So….like before I swapped over to boring old pillies first cast out on my Baitruner rig…Bang..this was a better fish…got it to the boat, landed it but couldn’t decide if it was a Spangled Snapper or a very large Bream (any thoughts?), really nice fish and if I was staying another night I would have kept him. The next few hours I hooked and released Parrot fish by the half dozen, a cute little estuary cod and another small Queeny.

All in all it was a great holiday, if I do it again I might go on one of the charter boat fishing trips to get the expert fishing advice but for me, I am the type of guy that likes the unknown…getting away from the crowds, exploring alone and fishing by luck… for me it’s the path less travelled. Saying that though I am perplexed why dem fish didn’t like my lure presentations and just loved good old pillies…fussy buggers!

Till next time….

Batman

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