Had a good day out on the water yesterday. With texts flying everywhere it was finally decided that I would leave my boat at home and myself and Mick would jump on one of Grahams charter boats for a day out chasing GT's.
We met just before 4:30 and we soon underway. Graham usually reef fishes with the occasional GT pop thrown in and was keen to have a full day targeting GT's - the blokes chasing reefies rarely have the patience for such things but Mick and I were keen to cast all day and have a look around.
Early prospecting was slow and the change of tides saw us dropping some SPs on some of the skippers secrets spots and coming up tight on some decent Red Jew - unfortunately! I say unfortunately as they all had to be released due to the coral reef fin fish closures that started at midnight the night before. We didn't persist too long as they weren't releasing very well (barotrauma) and to keep fishing was a waste. We had one final drop at a new sounder show on our way to the next GT spot and Mick hooked up solid on what turned out to be a solid greasy cod. Ask Graham about his heavy lead and Jig supply after the rigmarole of releasing this beasty
We then started to get into the popping part of the day as the tide was starting to run. Mick came up tight first on maybe his 3rd cast - resulting in his braid snapping on the strike at the leader knot - very unfortunate as the fish was a real goer, it must have had 4 goes at the lure and just wasn't taking no for an answer. With a change of gear to the 130lb spool Mick was soon underway again with Graham and I adding nothing to the tally during his absence besides a missed strike that came maybe 30cm off the edge of the rocks - I was still flipping the bail arm and wondering if I had snagged the edge of the rocks with my cast! Needless to say I missed it. We then returned to that spot and Mick hooked up - landing the first GT of the day.
We then moved spots and had a few casts at a spot on the way to our main destination. Mick had just fired one in over and behind a bommie and as I was thinking "you're screwed if you hook up now" a GT materialised behind the lure - fortunately/unfortunately it missed and despite another 15 minutes or so casting the area it didn't come back to play.
On to the main destination and we had almost instant success. Well we could at least see plenty of fish - they were following late and at a distance, only appearing as you removed the lure from the water a lot of the time. It was also clear that unless you got your lure right in tight to the stucture you weren't going to get any love. We had a mix of ebipops, cuberas and big heads (fish heads?) on and although we continued to get plenty of follows (and one baby that knew no better landed that went maybe 5kgs) the big ones avoided us. Cue switch to stickbaits and the first cast that landed in the strikezone saw two fish fighting over the ulua 120 out into open water before finally hooking up. I was lucky enough to be the one connected and after 3 months of no GTs my back is still whingeing from the workout the strong fish gave me. After that we saw some queenies and missed a few more strikes but landed no more. After the 430am start we arrived home around the 430pm mark, before sundown for a change
Thanks for the great day out Graham and Mick, am keen for a further overnight foray north sometime.
