It all started back in Jan this year when I responded to an add posted by Jim Squibb, looking for a couple of extra bodies for a Charter destined for Kenn/Wreck reef for 10 days.
My long time fishing mate Gavin and I signed up, not really knowing what to expect. It was our first trip targetting GT's, so we packed way too much gear!
As it turned out, we were really lucky to be on board with a great bunch of blokes to fish with, a great crew and the boat... the Eastern Voyager... was fantastic mother ship.
We left Gladstone on the 16th of May steaming overnight to our first stop-over. It was Tiawan reef.
We started casting in the lagoon at the bombies at around 10am and in under an hour I came up solid on my first GT of around 15kg on a home made "Jim Special" popper... I soon found out why GT's have such a cult following... this little fish pulled harder than a 14 year old! My expensive tackle collection addiction had just paid for itself... I was wrapped!
Jim had also popped his GT cherry fishing the surf break, so after lunch, we headed out and fished along side him... I lost a better fish close to the boat and Jim/Nafe landed 2 more... including one really good fish!
We steamed again that night to Samerance(spelling) reef, We were in the dorys and casting by aound 9am in mild chop. My 4th cast and I boated my 2nd GT of around 20kg which ate a ConoCono... "hey, how easy is this Popping business" I said to Gav... boy were we in for a rude awakening! The rest of that morning, we missed about 6-7 "swpies", at our lures for no result. The wind blew up after lunch and we couldn't launch the dorys, so we moved to a quieter part of the reef... but it lacked current and bait fish, so we cast our butts off for no result. The next morning, the wind was still blowing, so we were stuck at the "quiet end" of the reef for the day, but at least Gav got his first fish of the trip... a Jobfish of around 4kg.
Luckily, the wind had dropped off that night and we motored to the quiet end Fredrick reef near the lighthouse. After a heavy down pour of rain, I managed a cod that was equal in size to my stickbait, a rat GT of around 5kg and a Bronzie of around 4.5 ft which took a liking to my Cubera and tried to reef me. Gav missed a couple of hits from GT's and nearly lost his new Patriot Extreeme 80/Saltiga combo while casting with wet gloves... the lot ended up in the drink on one of his casts, but his lightening fast reflexes just got a grip on the butt of the rod as it was sinking!
That afternoon, we fished the other end of Fredrick... naturally, me and Gav decided to head in the "wrong" direction looking for GT's and found a desert! Luckily, Jim found us and pointed us in the "right" direction to where all the bombies/current/channels were and Gav soon came up solid on a good GT... only to have the hooks pull again! I managed 2 small Bluefin Trevally and a good sized Coral Trout of about 12kg on a ConoCono.
With a pretty average weather forecast predicted in 3 days time and time running out to make it to Kenn/Wreck reef, we decided to stay at Fredrick another day. We were pretty damn confident that we would kick some GT butt that next day! We had all the right conditions, we cast all day at all the typical fish holding spots... but except for a few half hearted hits, we came away with a big fat zero! That was day 5 and my poor mate Gav still hadn't popped his cherry on a GT.
The next day, we headed out to a Sea-Mount not far from Fredrick reef for a spot of Jigging. The bait brigade pulled up shark after shark... then Gav hooked up on a knife jig... once again he had wet gloves and half way through the fight, the rod slipped free of his hands and we watched his Nirai/Expedition Combo pointed straight at the ocean floor with no-one attached to it... in an incredible stroke of luck, the face of the spool somehow caught on the handrail, giving us all a split second to pounce on the rod! Considering the braid was "piano string" tight during the fight, the only possible way this could have happened was the bail arm roller must have been closest to the reel seat giving the spool enough surface area to catch the handrail... anyway, Gav's got the job of filling out my Tatts tickets from now on!!
Everyone got sick of catching sharks pretty quickly, so we all decided to have a troll around the edges of the mount and ended up catching a heap of Wahoo... the best one went to Jim's dad Charlie @ 37kg.
Our next stop was Turner reef. The mood in the Dory was pretty somber as we were now entering day 7 and poor Gav was still a GT virgin. After sussing out the reef situation, things finally went our way... we boated 7 fish that morning and 1 Long-Tom, and Gav got 4 of them all around 15-20kg! By this stage, we had certainly learnt a lot on how to read the water and how to find good GT lies... and boy, what a diference that makes! What made it both challenging and exciting at the same time, was that everytime we figured a reef system out and started catching fish, it was time to move on to the next reef.
That day, we were also treated to a school of pet GT's to 40kg hanging around the back of the mothership.
We gave it another go that afternoon, but the tide had eased and the bite had definately slowed down.
Our last destination was Surprise reef. It was much harder to find the fish, but when we did... they were holding in good numbers with both me and Gav missing quite a few hits. I eventually managed one of just over 20kg and soon after the wind really kicked in and we called it a day.
We woke up on our last day with the wind still blowing hard. We decided to pack our casting rods away and let the rest of the boys work their magic with bait as it was our last morning's fishing before we had to head home.
Special comments...
All in all we had a fantastic trip. Everyone got along great and we all had heaps of beer and laughs(yes, in that order!). The crew from Tura Charters, treated us all like royalty.
Out of the 80 odd poppers/stickbaits me and Gav had between us, we only lost 1 to the Bronzie while we were trying to get the hooks out. Admittedly, we only got a handful of smaller fish and never really encountered any monsters to test us out.
I went into this trip the fittest I've ever been, but no amount of training/exercise was enough for the constant casting! I even had to pop a few Panadols to get me through the odd casting session! Next trip I will prepare differently... sure a healthy amount of exercise helps, but next time I will also spend a few days "practise casting" leading up to the trip. Also, I did find towards the end of the trip the casts became fewer, but smarter.
Me and Gav are not both certified GT junkies... we found the rods/reels and poppers we were using more than adequate... but hey, that doesn't mean we wont be buying any more!
Cant wait for the next trip...
