Flora Reef - Cairns FNQ

[steve wallin]

Just found this forum.

Thought this would be a good intro!

had a bash yesterday at flora reef, about 35km from a river mouth just south of Cairns

dropped two trout on the take then this caranx made a good showing of itself.

My PB on a home made chugger too.

The weather is finally coming good so plenty more trips to come!

S

[lonhro]

First of all Welcome to the Forum Mate    ,
What a fine intro that is too.

What a great catch.

hope to see plenty more reports and pics of some more great Fish.

Any chances of a close up of this Chugger ??

Cheers Randy

[Greg Burt]

Randy, I hope this works!!

[steve wallin]

I can certainly take a close up...
I must confess, Im too busy on days / mornings off going out so instead I have my old man down in Sydney churning out the timber.

We have several designs, using hardwood turned to shape.  316 SS wire through the guts, drilled out the tail for a ball sinker and big rattle.

We get the wire for nothing, sinkers are cheap, rattles not even necessary... they end up being made for the cost of split rings and hooks plus time.

Im certain home-madies dont last as long as $30 poppers but for the price Im not complaining too loudly when they get "retired hurt"

After reading some location and habitat ideas on this forum I have been pouring over the marine charts and now have 3 new potential GT possies to check out...Im hoping when a marine chart says "tide rips" and rises from 45m to dry at low tide there may be a few moster caranx cruising!

Thanks all for the hints more photos to follow!!!

Quick question... what style of popper works best for trout??? Is the hook up rate on smallish fish always bad.  Still yet to get a trout to the boat, have dropped heaps on the take or early in the fight?

S

[Luke Wyrsta]

Welcome to the forum Steve.

Great fish and nice popper 

After reading some location and habitat ideas on this forum I have been pouring over the marine charts and now have 3 new potential GT possies to check out...Im hoping when a marine chart says "tide rips" and rises from 45m to dry at low tide there may be a few moster caranx cruising!

Mate, that sounds like gold do let us know if you have success becuase i am always looking to find new grounds up there.

As for trout, slow worked bloopers are a preference for me but stickbaits also work well. Just concentrate on keeping the tension as soon as you hook-up. For me, 3-5 aggressive strikes (count it out loud) helps drive the hooks home.

Another question is what type/size hooks are you using?

[steve wallin]

As you may have guessed Im not really into the "bling" side of fishing.  I can certainly understand the use of top shelf reels (8000 twinpower seems to work well for me) and that Jigman braid casts much better IMO than cheaper stuff.  Hooks, bloody big trebles, 7 or 8/0 from memory VMC.  I will grind the barbs off before the next outing (wednesday) after reading posts here.  Rings are halco triple rings.  Too be honest I havent had a hook failure or ring failure to date... have bent hooks and deformed rings but not broken any... maybe Im catching small fish or not going hard enough but Im happy for now. 

Im using about 2m of twisted 80lb mono with 150lb clips from singapore that also are yet to fail on me.

Ill try the multiple strike technique next time???

regards
S

[Brandon Khoo]

Depending on the size of the trout, the bugger will come flying out of the water if you hit it hard that many times!!   

You start to run into trouble with your terminals when you are fishing really heavy braid on locked up drags or if the GT is able to get the hook or ring into a bad position and is able to exert direct pressure onto the hook or ring.

I've found that trout seem to react well to smaller poppers but I am no expert on them - they're just a by-catch. Some of the GT poppers we use are probably a bit scary to an average sized trout. As Luke pointed out, they love stickbaits worked slowly. If you have a smaller sized stickbait like a wahoo 80 or one of the big Shimano or Daiwa stickbaits, they are a good size. You may find for trout you're better off with 3/0 sized Owner trebles. Don't forget that if the hook is too big that you will have trouble hooking the fish.