Bugatti Reef Lagoon Explorer 16 July 2011:
Peter: We woke up this morning to some pretty gnarly looking weather the wind was howling and the horizon was black with rain. But the spirits were still high. The mothership was moving to a new anchorage today so we fished our way down south. The 1st spot we stopped at we managed to see a couple of nice GTs and unfortunately lost 1 good 1 to the reef. With the weather improving I decided to get the run over with and drove down 6 mile to an awesome ledge in the hunt for a GT, there were plenty of fish to be seen there but only 2 were brought on board. The rest of the day was a mix up between popping for GTs and light tackle. In the end we managed to boat 5 GTs for the day 4 nice Spanish mackerel and a tonne of fish on the light tackle including a 12kg GT. As we were coming back to the boat this afternoon we heard reports on the radio that there were GTs swimming under the mothership. So we decided to have a few casts with the poppers towards Odyssey and sure enough first cast we hooked and boated a 50kg GT after a gruelling 45minute fight. When you see a GT that huge in real life, fish that size truly are in a separate league of their own, wow what an amazing solid powerful looking fish!!!
Nick:- Wind still persisting today we were headed south and were in for a bumpy ride. As we made ground things weren't as bad as we thought they would be and eventually the squalls cleared up and the sun came out! The rest of the day was an absoloute cracker. Even from the word go this morning Matt Lattimore had a Gt in the boat with his first cast! The action never seemed to stop all day with quiet periods only happening when there were no lines in the water. We had the Sharkie mackerel Queen onboard today Leah who managed to catch an entire shoal of them throughout the day amongst boating a longtail, mac tuna and a couple of GTs which managed to bust her off on the light gear. Our aim for Matt today was to get him a spanish as he had never caught one before so the last hour we managed to get him a nice 12 kilo specimen which was the highlight of the day for sure. GTs, spanish, rainbow runners, long tom, barracuda, sharkies and long tail made up today's catch. A great day and awesome company!
Glanville:- We untied from the mothership this morning and it was bucketing down with rain we persisted through the bad weather and were rewarded with great weather conditions and plenty of fish to catch, the best excitement we had all day was with a spansih mackerel that launched right over the top over Aiden's head and completely over the boat and as it hit the water the hook fell out, but the very next cast we got him or what looked like the same fish a solid Spaniard of around 15kg. There was no shortage of fish today and I was quite surprised at the amount of sharkies and goldspots that were around every spot you stopped at there would be plagues of them and some of the goldspots were of solid size worthy of cacthing on GT gear.
We managed to boat 4 nice GTs including one of which we got on the light gear. We ended off the day with some unbelievable action off the back of the mothership seemed that every GT in a 2nm radius was getting in on the action under the boat. An awesome day on the water lets just hope the weather plays the game for tomorrow.
Clint: As the sun started to shine after early morning drizzle the flats came alive with tuna and trevally. Matt and Alan had a ball on these fish as they were thick as thieves on the shallows balled up so tide it was a awesome sight. After that session we hit the Gts though things were pretty slow we managed to get two nice fish. One fish that got away actually tail slapped the lure only to snap the line. It was a funny sight. Alan a newcomer to the world of flyfsihng was keen to get his second saltwater species on fly. I found a school of good size mac tuna and after a lot of casting and persistence he managed too hook one and boy was he stoked. To see the sight on his face filled with excitiment as line screamed off his reel was a awesome sight. And that's what it is really about the excitement of being out in the coral sea and having a ball.
