Peter: We woke up this morning to a light 2 knot sea breeze. All that was breaking the surface were fusiliers for as far as the eye could see. With the guys keen to catch a bit of everything today we started of the day by hunting down some GTs. It wasn't long before we had them crawling all over our lures. We managed to capture 12 good size GTs up until 10 O'clock. We then decided it was time to give the arms a rest so we went for a troll and caught some nice size Spanish, sharkey mackerel and tuna. As we were trolling a shoal caught my eye that had big doggie written all over it. We pulled the lines in to see if we could raise 1 on a popper. Sure enough we had 8-12 Doggies all between the 40kg-65kg trying to destroy our poppers. In the heat of the moment jigs were deployed as well and unfortunately we could not manage to stop any of them. It was quite frustrating to see them around and under the boat and not be able to land any of them. As the tide was turning we dropped some plastics and got stuck into the reefies. Catching monster red bass, jobbies, trout, GTs, cod and lippers. With 2 hours remaining in the day conditions looked unbelievable out wide for a marlin, with tuna, scad, Queenies and birds flying high. Unfortunately we didn't see a marlin but anticipation was very high. Today was definitely one of the days you never forget as a guide. I just hope all the guys from all the boats today fully appreciate what they got to experience out there on the water and realise what a special day today really was. Let's hope tomorrow is the same I can't wait to get out there!!!
Clint: To wake up in a new area that has not been fished before is always exciting and you just feel it in the air that it's going to be game time. Me and Pete were that pumped for the day we actually started pumping weights before the day started. Things were so frantic from the word go it was out of this world every point we hit the bait was packed so tight they were jumping over each other and you just knew under them there were big predators. I would need a thousand words to explain all that happened today but in short we would of seen over 50+ GTs all willing to eat. In between all of the GT action we got a heap of Spanish, big coral trout n red bass, everything caught on poppers. The highlight was seeing a 30+ GT come out of the water vertical with most of its body out of the water like a whale breaching. It pushed the popper in the air engulfing it on the way down. Something I have never seen before and the mental picture will stay with me for a long time.
Its funny that us as guides apriciate days like today I just hope that all the guys fully lapped it up the same way because days like this don't come around often. A very special day on the water!!
Nick:- heading out today was pretty eery with the milk pond conditions which made navigation extremely tricky in the wee hours this morning. Even standing on my perch on the contender reading the water was intense. We steamed south of our anchorage and on our first stop, like most of the boys, we had fish all over we would have easily seen over 50 Gts today and the conditions were just like a true fishing story that will be told in the near future but you had to be here to see what was going on around you. Spanish mackerel up to 30 kilos mauling stickbaits and poppers after they have chopped them off, black marlin free jumping, job fish and red bass fighting over stick baits, GTs and sharks competing for our poppers were just some of the headlines that could have been used to sum up today. We did lose a few fish to sharks today which at times was frustrating but seeing the power and voraciousness of them is unreal. It must be tough out there living on the reef unless you're a 500 kilo whaler I think you would make sure you were a clown fish safe in your anemone.
John Dory:- There was a feeling in the air today as we drove away from the mother ship, the anticipation of fishing somewhere new in absolute perfect weather had the whole boat excited, as the tide started pumping out the fusiliers showed their faces and wow was there some GT hanging around, in the morning we had easily 50 or more GTs raised to the boat and they come to play with fish charging poppers down all the way to the boat and bringing 6 friends each time, everywhere we fished that looked fishy had fish on it, we briefly came tight on a GT that would have given 50kg a nudge and lost a couple of poppers to fish in the shallows that I would not be comfortable putting a size to, we had double hook ups and fish following the boat around like the pied piper, I am finding it hard to describe today but the best way
for me to put it is my best day fishing !!! What more can I say
