Damon:- a windy day today and it was light tackle in the shallows, with chaos aplenty. We started the day with 3 big coral trout between 8-12kg landed on poppers, and then the red bass mayhem started for an hour solid.
Prior to lunch the action continued with bluefin, GTs, red bass, trout, emperor, jobfish triggerfish and many others willing to take out lures. We caught a couple of huge triggerfish today, and they are a spectacular creature. A GT session after lunch on the outside of the reef was quiet, but the shallow reefs provided a huge amount of action to end the day with a species smorgasboard. We would have landed over 60 fish today, and seen countless fish chasing and swiping at lures. A spectacular day, looking forward to what tomorrow brings.
Saltaire- I started out today by getting soaked, but that did not dampen our spirits. We cast some poppers around the reef edges to start off with and while the fish were not everywhere they were a decent size. We ended up with
6 GTs and a few reefies by lunch, but three of those GTs were over 25 and one about 35. We then found another mobile bommie and the fun began. GT regular Scott was nearly wetting himself with excitement and then proceeded to get smashed into the covering boards as a nice GT nailed his popper. This happened to the other three lures as soon as they landed as well and we had some ballet going on in open ocean seas with 25 knot winds, great entertainment from my perspective. This kept up for another hour and quite a few fish were landed. Damien managed to have a cast from the tower and I got a nice fish as well in a quiet moment. The bommie started wizening up to our tactics and the lures only got nailed when the cast was right on the money. A couple of very interesting striking techniques (Scotty) lost heaps of fish but we had a ball. Unfortunately when we put the baits out this afternoon Marilyn still did not show, I'm starting to get madness from watching baits skip with no fireworks.
John: Today the wind was howling when we departed the mother for our day's expedition, when the guys saw the waves breaking on the outside of the reef they decided staying in the lagoon would be an excellent idea and they were spot on with this decision. After a steady start dropping plastics on some bombies we managed to pick up a few nice trout and got destroyed by some large critters, with a few more drifts and a nice feed of trout for dinner we had a little troll after seeing some free jumping Spaniards and picked up one nice one around 15kg. The guys wanted to have a quick cast for a GT and were rewarded with one jet black GT and saw a few more. After lunch we embarked on a mission in the shallows that lasted until the end of day's fishing, the catch consisted of Red Bass to 6kg, a dozen long nose emperor all in the 3 to 5kg range, Coral trout to 5kg, wrasse to 8kg, cod, Jobfish, bluefin trevally and a beautiful Maori Sea Perch, not to mention the 4 GT we caught on the light tackle between 10 and 18kg which tested the gear and the guys to the maximum of their ability. What an amazing place Jewell is the fishing here just has to be seen to be believed !!!!
