Topwater Caranx Ignobilis: Giant Trevally (GT) > Reports & Expeditions

Exploring Bowen

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John Campbell:

Hey guys

Weather gods were being friendly yesterday and with Scott visiting family in townsville
for a few days it was decided we had to sneak out for a fish. with my big boat out of action
atm we decided to grab the tinny and head down to Bowen and do some exploring around some islands
as well as checking out the Abbott point jetty with which i garaunteed Scott he would hook a decent
GT ( big mistake making promises you cant keep )

After launching the boat and having to play dumb while Scott was pointing out all the schools of
mack tuna busting up we headed to some rocky points in the hope of getting on the board early,
this was nt to be the case but we did manage to hook and get next to the boat a mangrove jack of about
3kg before it fell off just as we were going to lift it in the boat, we were both pretty impressed to
see a fish of that size attack a 150gm cubera with the big hooks that go with it !!

after that we shot over to the jetty with high anticipation only to be shattered by not even seeing a fish
except for a couple of little gt following well behind the popper, this was my fifth trip to the jetty and on
all previous occassions you would nt go more than 3 or 4 casts without raising a strike, but today there was nothing  :(

our next move was to drive out some 16 mile to a couple of islands that looked great on the map with deep
water close to shallow coral flats and rocky outcrops around the back of the island, it looked even better once we got there with good current clean water tuna busting up everywhere and fusiliers milling around everywhere
once again things were slow with Scott hooking up on a solid fish before pulling the hooks and having the occasional follow but all in all things were quiet.

around the other side of the island we found a nice outcrop of rocks with some mad current pushing past and
after an extremely accurate cast to the rocks scott hooked up solid to a GT which had a spirited fight but succumed to scotts power play tactics ;)  the fish was about 14 or 15 kg.  this was to be the only GT caught for the day so we for the rest of the afternoon we threw slugs at the busting tuna and kept popping the
fusiliers and rocky points for no action except for some nice mack tuna.

some interesting happenings for the day was when scott bet me that he could throw his popper in between these 2 rocks and i said no chance, well he may have won the bet, but i feel as though i had the last laugh when we werent
able to retrieve his lure  ;D  also when scott decided that he did nt want to wait for me to make sandwhiches for
lunch and decided to take sashimi to a whole new level  (following pics will make these comments easier to follow)

All in all we had a good day except for the fishing being a little slow  >:(  and was good to catch up
with Scott with whom i met on a Nomad trip earlier this year, cheers Scott


John

John Campbell:
more pic














This was not from this trip but thought i would also include  was caught using 20lb braid
40lb leader and a little halco rooster popper, he chewed the popper to pieces and somehow
never managed to touch the leader

Tom Grubb:
thats fishing, gota love it.. :-) whats wrong with your big boat john? i recently went on a trip to haypoint coal jetty(mackay) as i have heard reports of GT's larger than the 1.5m wide pillers swimming around!! sign states you cant be within 50m of the jetty, we were 50-70m off only to be reported by security and asked to leave.. 4 hour drive for 20min fishing.. sounds like you had a ball with the mack tuna.. they are thick this year i reakon. any cast that accurate deserves a fish, if only it was in water :-)

Travis Heaps:
Nice one, love a good exploratory trip! Island sounds fishy, lack of gts at usual jetty haunt suggests it might have just been one of those days-good excuse to go back and try again! Shame about the Jack, would have made an interesting catch. Tom, 50m restricted zone shouldnt be an issue with an ok cast ;)

John Campbell:


Hi Tom  i am getting a new gps chartplotter put in and my dash is one big open area with wires everywhere, apparently i didnt spend enough for the dealer to install it in 2 weeks !!! >:(
yeah i have heard some impressive stories about hay point, not sure how long ago you went there
but since green peace carried on like pork chops and protested there a few months ago they have been really strict on recreational vessels, the tuna were going nuts, even just out from the last
marker at the marina they were busting up, i could nt believe the popper fit in there if it was 2 cm either way it would have bounced off

hey travis we were pretty amazed about seeing the jack but then again they are called a cubera snapper in panama i believe ? and we were using a nomad 150 cubera  :) will definately be going there again and those islands will be worth another look

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