Ahh, where to start?? Maybe by saying that if you are heading to shoalwater chasing GTs then go very shortly! Why you ask? Because I can only assume they must be starving about now because for the four days we were there they were on a strict hunger strike!!!
I've been trying to get my mate to come up for a spot of GT chasing for a little while now but the dates never worked out. However when he mentioned he was having a couple of weeks off over new years the cogs stirred into action and a plan was hatched! I have done a couple of Island Head Creek/Strongtide Passage trips with my usual partner in crime (Warwick, also on this site) but we had always wanted to try further afield to oft reported upon GT havens that are the islands to the north of this area. Names such as High Peak, Allandale, Marble and Duke were but a few that rang bells and were google earthed before departing. My mate, Isaac, had never been GT chasing before and in fact had never caught a fish on a lure before. I was fairly sure he could handle the rigours of hours upon hours of travelling and casting from the past experiences of fishing as kids that would see us sit for up to thirteen hours under the bridge at Noosa, soaking bait for anything that would care to pass by.
So I came up with a plan - a multi-day, many kilometre fishing adventure whose main aim was to hookup with some of the GTs the area is famous for. Throw in a dash of light tackle soft plastic bouncing, a smidgen of crabbing and finish with some island camping and the recipe for a fun few days was concocted. There should be attached around here of the trip. The vessel of choice being my 5.4m Allycraft Centre Console powered by a 115 yamaha. Into we jammed one large blue esky, 8 spare 20litre jerry cans of fuel, one 25 litre drum of water, 7 or so rods, sleeping gear, camping gear, myself, isaac and my trusty adventuring companion Poppy (or Pop-eye the sailor dog as she is now known
One of the best parts of this trip was the short time frame in which it was concieved - giving minimum time for long nights of anticipation! I think all up it was only two weeks between planning and leaving and most of that was spent watching the various weather models. At the start it looked like being horrendous but the forecast gradually improved and come Tuesday the 30th we departed at around 5am on a glassed out ocean.
By just after 7 we had covered the 100 or so kilometres and arrived at our first location, we logged on with Coastguard Thirsty Sound and commenced rigging up. By 8:30 knot tying and casting lessons performed, gloves and gimbals were donned and we were on our way to our first spot, the famous rock at Island Head Creek. We were fishing the last two hours of the run-in so things should have been ok and they proved so as on his second cast Isaac caught both first ever fish on a lure/popper and his biggest fish ever, a nice little Mac Tuna. This was extremely handy as a Tuna was high on the priority list for fresh crab pot bait and to resort to for bottom bashing should all lure fishing plans go awry. On the same drift, just a few casts later Isaac had very nice sized GT follow his lure and zoom out for a closer inspection just metres from the boat. Unfortunately however it didn't strike - it would have been great if it did as we were out in open water and he would have stood a fair chance against his first GT. No more action after that though so we moved spots.
The going was slow but I had the first GT of the trip in the boat within the next hour or so, a little specimen that took a liking to my Cubera 150. Isaac then landed another mac tuna on a popper.
After this we had no more luck on the popping so the rest of the day was spent putting the pots out, bouncing plastics, finding a campsite, chasing Queenies on the beach that were harrassing the local baitfish population and contending with anchoring and re-anchoring the boat due to the massive tides up there. The weather was stinking hot and the campsite, although a great spot, had its share of mozzies and sandflies. Not to mention that the price of a clean beach free of windblown accumulations of coral scum was no cooling breezes. Dinner of Pad Thai with baked grassy sweetlip was consumed and buggered we hit the sack - a long, sweaty night ensued!
Day two dawned to breezes of 10 knots of so from the north-east, fairly pleasent really but not glassed out like the day before. We headed for Cheviot Island and commenced popping. Once again it was slow going the only action a big strike froma jet black GT...really dissapointed it didn't connect as its a catch that is right up there on my wish list! But one chance was all I got as it couldn't be tempted into striking again.
Its at this point I might wrap up the popping reporting - all I can say is it was a major dissapointment on this trip! Besides the first few fish and the strike I just mentioned we had just one other capture, a GT of maybe 2 kgs
. Basically no more GT strikes or sightings for the next two and a half days. We popped the incoming and outgoing tides, fished all the right points with currents and eddies, had bait showering as we were retrieving our lures, poppers and stickbaits in all colours were tried - nothing, nada, zip. I was later pleased to hear it was just us that was struggling with one other bloke reporting no luck either, at least it wasn't just us... I put it down to maybe two factors - the whole time we were up there a low pressure system of between 1002-1008 hpa was sitting over us, plus each time I checked the water temp on the sounder reading it said 30 degrees. So could either of those things be to blame? Would love to hear other theories. Of note is once leaving Island Head we didn't see any other pelagic action at all, nothing, not a single tuna feeding or a single bird actively feeding.
So with that done I might wrap up the rest of the trip in short time. After Cheviot we checked out a few more islands and headed to High Peak Island. We were still unsure of whether we would stay there that night or head towards Marble. We decided to stay and I tried my hand at trolling and jigging while isaac had a nanna nap on the deck. No luck. After this we commenced the plastics fishing again with some better results, one drift saw us bring in a red throat sweetlip, followed by a red emporer, followed by a coral trout
All released however as we were only keeping enough for a feed each night.
Then we had our first mishap of the trip... We left finding a camp until the last minute, continuing with our plastics bouncing. It was low light and there was a couple of small white caps around, the tide was low. We made our way to the western side of High Peak Island where there was a wide bay with nice beach that we had passed at high tide. We were still a fair way out from the beach, 400m or so, in 3 metres of water when CRUNCH, SCRAPE, BANG...hull and motor contacted coral and rock.
The low light and white caps had masked the area and it wasn't until we wre inside the area that could we look back and see the waves breaking over the barely exposed reef. All around us was coral bommies sitting just below the surface, it was still 350m to the beach, which was now not an option as the reef continued all the way to it, the sun was down, we weren't sure of the damage to the boat and we were 80 kilometres from sure - good times! Long story short, we donned shoes and both got out of the boat, pushing it through the maze. We got out but were faced with an 80 km night trip to Marble or sleep in the boat...the boat it was...at least i'll remeber where I spent my New Years this time around
The next day dawned and isaac arose proclaiming how well he slept, I could have slapped him
We were here to fish however and we commenced our island hopping - you all know how the GT popping went though. Tired we found ourselves a nice beach at Shields Island and had a long lunch, swim and explore. Was a good break after a depressing GT chase. I shouldn't say depressing, the weather was great, the scenery great and I do still enjoy the fishing even though we weren't catching anything -very frustrating though when everything looks so perfect!
That night we spend at Marble Island and I caught what I think was my favourite fish of the trip - a nice coral trout caught casting metal slugs off the beach. The fight lasted ten minutes or so on light gear and she had me well and truely bricked on two occasions, I had to flick the bail arm and walk 30m or so up the beach to try different angles, eventually though I had some luck and landed what I think was a good catch! This night Isaac slept on the boat, because he found it so comfortable and it was reassuring to have someone on board with the big tides,Poppy and I were land bound. Slightly disconcerting being alone on a dark island when you hine the torch into the bushes and see two reflective eyes staring back you...the local goats I convinced myself.
At this stage I should share the sleeping set up I had - a mozzie net, a small inflatable mattress and a sleeping bag laid out on a tarp. No fly, tent or overhead tarp set-up although we had all those things with us. So when it started to rain things got interesting ;)And rain this night it did! Poured. Poppy and I with one half of the tarp beneath us and the other over the top survived the night only slightly damp and sandy, ahh good times
It continued to pour the next day and the winds were up - we decided to depart for our next destination - Stanage Bay to refuel and restock our supplies. Well we wanted to anyway - the motor didn't want a bar of it. It was in the up position, out of the water and not budging. Long story short, shipwreck number two was averted when we released the screw cap on the hydraulic ram reservoir. Pressure released and it resumed working. Handy trick to remember that one. So we battled our way Stanage in 2 - 2.5m side on swell and refilled. Great little town but it really is no good for anchoring or landing and going ashore. We made do however, swimming our way to the shore and the crocodile warning signs and found a friendly Coastguard who helped us ferry the fuel and water containersto the shop. Thank god he did, the walk was long enough with a 7 kilo bag of ice, let alone 20 litres of fuel in each hand! We filled up and departed full of trepidation as the 30 kilometre trip from
Marble was basically hell and were now aiming for camp at Island Head creek, 80 kilomtres away. The tailing swell however made life reasonable and we made good time to the very fishy looking Cannibal group. Persist we did with the popping to now avail - great success in getting some reasonable Queensfish to inspect the lures but nothing we did could entice them. We continued to IHC through Shoalwater Bay - for anyone doing this trip note that this is some treachorous boating country! Tides are huge and there are endless supplies of rocks sticking up in the middle of nowehere. We were on the lookout as the chartplotter showed shallow areas near the western side of Strongtide passage and we were lucky to do so, barely ten centimtres of rock sticking out of the surface with a lone bird sitting on top is all the warning you get - and that was with flat seas at this point. With some chop and whitecaps they would be invisible, dangerous. Strongtide dealt us our next warning shot with a full foot of water coming over the bow after a close set of standing waves caught us out..like I said, no place for the faint hearted. With the tide roaring out to sea at around 6 knots and the closest coast guard 70 kilomtres away you are in serious trouble if anything goes awry out here.
Anyway we tried popping at IHC for nil, continued to Pearl Bay for Nil and then down to Port Clinton where we saw a solid storm building. The plan was to camp at IHC however a strong SE change was being predicted for the next day so we figured we would make as much southerly headway as we could. And then the storm hit. Rain, poured and we no longer cared...the trip had caught up with us and we simply sat in the rain and ate sandwiches
Every cloud has its silver linging however and we were rewarded with spectacular waterfalls of freshwater coming fown the headlands and islands, a great site. At this point we decided to take advantage of the calm weather behind the storm front and make for home. It was still 65km away and light was fading fast but we went for it. We arrived at 8pm, soaked to the core - rough weather night boating is not for me. We made it however, a big day of just over 200 kilmtres for the final day, bed was very welcome!
It was certainly an adventure, hard going at times but enormous fun and great to be able to get out and explore this country of ours, it certainly is a beautiful place up there. The areas GTs are tough to crack, we'll get there though. I'll be back up there for sure - but not for a little bit...400+km and my back needs a break - almost lucky I didn't hook any big GTs I reckon!
Ohh, I just remebered - when we got off the boat and to bed Isaac had the normal sea legs and wavey feeling when he lay down - I didn't. My vision however was messed up! When I sat outside and looked at the grass it looked like rippling water! I've never had this before - anyone else experienced it?
PS I just re-read this, sorry about the spelling and grammar mistakes, its a bit late and i'm too tired to fix them
