Bligh Reef Lagoon Explorer 17 Oct 2011:
Nick:- Had the iFish crew on today and we were after GTs today. The first point we stopped at there was bait everywhere, first casts saw the popper get smashed time and time again with GTs, barracuda, mackerel, blue fin and a maori wrasse getting involved in the mix. Unable to convert most of the fish we still had plenty of action all around us. We pressed on and kept looking for GTs and managed to pick a few more off during the lead up to lunch. After lunch we decided to have a go at some light tackle on the flats but we found that the fish had shut down in our area and we battled to find fish. The highlight of the day would have to be the 40 kilo maori wrasse that ate Paul's popper right next to the boat but the hooks failed to stick what an awesome fish that was!
Damon:-One of the best days on the water I've ever had, and it all came down to one fish, but more on that shortly. The day started slowly with an hour of trolling for no results. We then had a wander around on a beautiful sand cay and caught a few small GTs. It was then on to some light tackle mayhem in the shallows, where we would have easily caught 30 fish in about 2hrs. Lots of red bass, coral trout between 4-7kg, and small GTs made for an exciting session. We then moved a few miles north and stopped on a beautiful sand flat in 1.5m of water turned the engine off and started eating lunch. Lunch was however interrupted by a seriously large GT that swam across the back of the boat and caused everyone to get very excited. I picked up the closest GT rod and passed it to Andy and told him to cast, but he looked at me like I was crazy and told me to do it. A quick check of Cristy and Lynda produced the same result and they were all yelling at me to cast, so I put the popper about 15m in front of the big GT and sure enough he came and had a look. The big fish came and swiped at the popper and missed, and then a few little twitches of the lure got him very excited and he turned around and got head and shoulders out of the water and inhaled the lure within 10m of the back of the boat. All onboard witnessed this, and seeing a fish nudging 50kg in 1.5m of water eat a popper at the back of the boat is something special. The ensuing fight was utter chaos in the shallow waters and trying to avoid bommies and give advice to Andy on boat driving was very interesting. The end result was that we got the big fish boatside and landed, and fortunately the film crew was only 200m away and came over to get some footage. The GT would have been very close to 50kg and was my personal best by a long way. The rest of the day saw us catching lots of light tackle fish, but everything other than the big GT is a bit of a blur. The memory of seeing that giant GT eat the lure is something that all onboard will never forget, a quite special day!!
Peter: We started off the day looking for a Doggie. The first stop was on a ledge that has produced many for us in the past. It wasn't long before we had our opportunity on what was a very large dogtooth on the troll. Unfortunately we pulled the hooks on the fish 10 mins into the fight. We then tried to hunt down some GTs with the incoming tide and managed to catch 5 all around the 10kg mark. As things started to slow down we went into the shallows to give the light tackle a go. The fishing was hit and miss finding good numbers of reefies on the corners of the reef which was good fun. The end of the day finished up with a troll and managed to catch 3 nice size spanish and the biggest green job fish I had ever seen we weighed it and it went 12 and a half kgs what a good effort.
