Glanville: What an unreal day on the water....we left Portland Roads early this morning and pounded our way out to the reef the guests opted for the cruisey drive out in Odyssey, once they arrived we set out fishing, we set out some troll gear hoping for maybe a couple of mackerel to start and a lucky doggie...we were not at all prepared for what was about to unfold, Dogtooth mayhem! We managed to boat 5 fish the smallest of them being 20kg and the biggest would have been 55kg, it was double hook up on every pass of this point, we had an absolute behemoth come and eat the stick bait while it was being wound in, it looked like a dolphin breaching and would have been no short of 90kg. After getting bashed around in the rough water the guys were keen to get into the calmer water, so we headed for some light tackle flats fishing and the game was on, every cast produced a bite from some sort of critter, everything you can think of and some others, trout, redbass, emperors, cod, all sorts were getting in on the action, we also were lucky enough to boat a 12kg trout, awesome effort on the reef. Can't wait for tomorrow doggies beware!!!!!
Peter: This morning we left Lockhart River on the way to Bligh reef! With the late start to the day the guys were keen to get amongst the action. We went straight into the one of many reef lagoons that Bligh has to offer. It wasn't long before we found ourselves onto some nice shallow water action.
We were boating all sorts of species from GTs, coral trout, cod, wrasse, sharkey mackerel and many other reef specimens. After the shallows we decided to give trolling a go but couldn't manage to escape away from the sharkey mackerel. All in all a great way to start of the first trip of Bligh reef yeeooow!!!!!!
Alex-It was good to be back in the north, about to start another day of shallow water action and not knowing what critter would jump on the lure next. We had some nice red bass action then a double hookup with a big red bass and a monster Maori Wrasse that smashed a popper. I was over the moon when we got this thing to the boat I have been watching guys get blown away by these things in the shallows for the last few years, but this one made up for it I would have said around 40-45kg. They really are an umbelievable creature and to think this blubber lipper, blue faced thing smashes poppers in shallow water is unreal. After that unreal capture we had some nice GTs on the light gear and some usual bass and trout mania. Only about 10 bust offs today so an average lure loss but some spectacular fish caught.
Clint: Bligh reef is such a awesome place to be, with endless flats to cruise loaded with reef fish and on the drop offs huge predators cruise the edges the options are endless. It was our first day out here and we were stoked to get amongst it. We started off casting in the shallows hooking some nice coral trout and getting blown away by some bigger ones. In the distance there were some birds diving and I couldn't resist trolling the ledge it just looked fishy. On the first pass the reel was screaming and then just kept screaming it had to be a doggie. Alejandro fought the fish hard and in the process snapped his rod near the bottom section but kept at it and was rewarded with a monster doggie of 150 pound. The ledge just started going off and we had Spanish on tap jumping all over our lures. Amongst all this Hasmish hooked a doggie which took 30min to land it must have been Alejandro's twin brother and we boated another 150 pounder. What a session with plenty more lost doggies and big reef fish what a way to start the week the boys were over the moon to land some fish of a lifetime.
