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Travis Heaps

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CQ Trip 08/12/09
December 10, 2009, 09:56:24 AM
Hi all, myself and Warwick managed to get out for a trip the other day.  Met at the marina at 4, made it to our first spot with a bit over an hour of run out to fish.

First few casts were a good warm up, I was running a Skipjack 150 and Warwick a homemade stickbait, no action though.  Then we both fired out a cast at roughly the same time - our lures splashed down within a couple of seconds of each other and about 50cm apart...2 seconds later, and pretty much before either of us had starting working our lures we were both hooked up solid!  We must have landed right on top of them!  And then it all happened (Mick will be saying "I told you so" about now).  My GT Special had always been a tight fit at the join and it had a fair bit of the top half sticking out at the join.  It had been so long since I had it apart that I had really forgotten how much was actually inside the join, Mick pointed it out on a previous trip but it wasn't really a concern as I had gone my whole Nomad trip catching fish with it together like that.  Anyway I lent back solid on the hookup and BANG...rod in two pieces.  Tried fighting the fish off the reel but no dice.  In the ensuing confusion Warwick also dropped his fish - argh.  Turned out my rod hadn't snapped as suspected but rather the butt join had become deformed and split a bit causing the top half to fly out.  This was fixed by shaving it down with a knife and lubing it up with some 2 stroke oil followed by banging it back together on the deck...completely ghetto but it got me fishing again.  So i'm in the market for a new rod and now have myself a loaner outfit  :)  Turns out there was less than an inch of the top half inserted into the butt  :o :-\

Anyway we kept fishing, it was all happening.  I was first to hookup with a follow and strike right at the boat.  Warwick then had a pack of about 7 fish chase and his lure all the way back to the boat and was unlucky not to hook up.  Let that spot rest for a while and then fished it from the other side, same pack of 7 or more fish and then Warwick came up solid.  One fish all.  We had a few more follows but no more hookups.  I also had a crazy mackeral strike - this thing was a beast, easily 20+kg i'd say, it took my skipjack and launched about 3m into the air about 15 metres away from the boat.  I missed the hookup and semi stunned started winding the lure back to the boat - BAM same strike about 5 metres from the boat, it must have turned on the spot and came back to find it's missed chance at a feed...missed the hookup again but far out it was nearly the highlight of the day.

They was various other goings on throughout the day, plenty of follows (we would have seen 20+ GT's for the day), many of them following at a distance though.  We ended up with 2 more GTs in the boat but they were babies.  So much bait around, we managed a couple of dart, a mack tuna another sort of tuna, stripies, some crazy long tom strikes and bust offs on what would have been some nice reefies on SP's, we were fishing too light though.  Interesting on the GT front is how we always fished one stickbait and one popper between us. Warwicks last two fish were raised and missed on the popper by me but hooked up within the next 15 seconds on his stickbait.

We then headed for home and stopped off at a new mark on the way back to do some jigging.  Before the fishing though i've got a gripe...we were in the middle of nowhere, had seen maybe 3 other boats all day and we pull up on this mark - 10 minutes later this boat comes from nowhere, goes past us, circles back and pulls up maybe 30-40m away and then leaves.  The only explanation being that he had punched the mark into his GPS and then carried on his way WTF!  Does this happen a lot?  Damn rude if you ask me and nothing you can really do about it?  Anyway we sounded some bait and hooked up from the first drop!  I was having some trouble getting the fish to the boat argh but Warwick snagged a nice mack for dinner and then we had some fun on some trevally, not exactly sure what type they are but they put up a good fight and it was a fun way to end the trip. 

Bout time we got into some fish - good day out, no big Gt's but some fun action.

Angus Hulme

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Re: CQ Trip 08/12/09
December 10, 2009, 11:38:42 AM
Super work Trav/Woz.

Loved the report and images, plenty of action be had there! Those pics certainly capture the excitement too.  :)

I agree with your suggestion that one angler use a stick and one use a popper at any given time. I now try to make sure we do that, and it seems to me the fish don't get too bored or focussed on one type of lure.

Top work mate!

Angus

Luke Wyrsta

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Re: CQ Trip 08/12/09
December 10, 2009, 03:09:45 PM
Nice work guys. Looks like a fantastic place!

Love the coloration on that tea-leaf/gold spot?

Jay Burgess

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Re: CQ Trip 08/12/09
December 10, 2009, 03:22:54 PM
Nice work guys. Looks like a fantastic place!

Love the coloration on that tea-leaf/gold spot?

pretty sure it's a gold spot.

Travis Heaps

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Re: CQ Trip 08/12/09
December 10, 2009, 05:38:29 PM
Loved the report and images, plenty of action be had there! Those pics certainly capture the excitement too.  :)

there was plenty of action out and about Angus - the bait and Tuna were just thick.  One school of tuna from a distance had just turned the ocean to froth - it looked like a continual white cap about 30 metres around. 


Nice work guys. Looks like a fantastic place!

Love the coloration on that tea-leaf/gold spot?

It's a good spot when it's firing up here Luke, not quite New Cal though  ;)

Those Trevs did have a wicked colour sheen to them - really not sure exactly what species they were, they bloody pulled though  :D

Stan Konstantaras

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Re: CQ Trip 08/12/09
December 10, 2009, 06:02:27 PM
Hi Travis,
Nice report, I liked the bush repairs out on the water.
Cheers
stan

Graham Scott

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Re: CQ Trip 08/12/09
December 11, 2009, 08:02:26 AM
Hi Travis,
Great report.I think I was up that way the next day. Did a quick GT fish after chasing reds. The fish were definitely about.
3rd cast knitted around a bommie,, 2 casts later with lighter rig...same result. Then found a big ebipop still connect to your twisted leader. 2 casts later managed to drag one out....then headed home.
Lots of bait and activity all along the coast at present.

Travis Heaps

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Re: CQ Trip 08/12/09
December 11, 2009, 08:15:22 AM
Nice one Graham - you fishing where we did on the trip with Mick?  That's where our first two came from (and the majority of the action).  You'll have to let me know next time you get a good haul of reds and i'll come down and restock you with twisties in exchange for coupla nannys ;) :)

Graham Scott

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Re: CQ Trip 08/12/09
December 11, 2009, 09:51:56 PM
Hey Travis,
The nannies are a bit light on at present, but I'm going for another charter tomorrow,I'll try for a few nannies then have a go at the GT's. I think I was at the little spot a few miles north of where you were. Tomorrow I'll try another 10miles north. The "white cap" fish were all little yakkas. I coudn't figure out what the hell it was until we were right in anongst them. I have theory that the reefies will also be on the go under the bait along the coast. We had 1 boat out about 60km today for not much, so hopefully my hunch is right, otherwise I'll look like a bit of a mug.

Travis Heaps

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Re: CQ Trip 08/12/09
December 11, 2009, 11:51:25 PM
Hey Travis,
The nannies are a bit light on at present, but I'm going for another charter tomorrow,I'll try for a few nannies then have a go at the GT's. I think I was at the little spot a few miles north of where you were. Tomorrow I'll try another 10miles north. The "white cap" fish were all little yakkas. I coudn't figure out what the hell it was until we were right in anongst them. I have theory that the reefies will also be on the go under the bait along the coast. We had 1 boat out about 60km today for not much, so hopefully my hunch is right, otherwise I'll look like a bit of a mug.

Hey Graham - the white cap fish actually ended up being Mack Tuna, we saw a STACK of schools of smaller bait like you said busting the surface and this was the only school of macks we saw all day.  Good luck tomorrow - I was a flip of a coin away from heading up to the usual grounds but decided against it with BOM predicting a little patch of 15-20s coming in a bit early on.  From what i've heard there's plenty of GT's around up towards where we caught Micks fish.

Mick Cunningham

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Re: CQ Trip 08/12/09
December 12, 2009, 03:46:51 PM
it,s great to see travis / gragham back in action ..
i can,t wait to go back for another try ..

oh travis .. ( yea i knew one day that will happen  ::))
anyway i notice your looking for another rod
hey why not you grab a carpenter rod  ;)

we will have to work out another trip soon .
so will talk to you two soon .
it would be nice to meet warwick ..

Travis Heaps

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Re: CQ Trip 08/12/09
December 12, 2009, 06:57:15 PM
it,s great to see travis / gragham back in action ..
i can,t wait to go back for another try ..

oh travis .. ( yea i knew one day that will happen  ::))
anyway i notice your looking for another rod
hey why not you grab a carpenter rod  ;)

we will have to work out another trip soon .
so will talk to you two soon .
it would be nice to meet warwick ..

Yeah for sure Mick, will be good to do another trip - just need the good weather. 

Graham how did you go today?  Can't believe we didn't head out - kicking ourselves so bad...I feel it in my bones that it would have been a good GT day.  Drove up onto the esplanade at 730ish to see smooth seas with patches of glass  :'( :'(  My consolation prize was a 40cm whiting on SP down at Fishing Ck and a terrible round of golf at Rydges  :D

Nathan Cefai

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Re: CQ Trip 08/12/09
December 13, 2009, 10:45:01 AM
Nice work boys.. :D

Graham Scott

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Re: CQ Trip 08/12/09
December 13, 2009, 11:56:37 AM
Hi Travis,
It was a good day yesterday weather wise. Trip was reverse of last week. Found a really nice patch of nannies, spent about 30 mins chucking poppers and only 1 missed strike from a small model GT. I was at a different spot to last week so not sure whether it was the location or not?
Highlight of the day was getting white anted by a pair of young blokes in a hydrofield, obviously couldn't find any spots themselves.....looove that!!