The fickle winter weather conditions continued to frustrate with weeks of trade wind chop separated by perfect weather days and big fish numbers. The usual trade winds at this time of year have often been quite nasty blowing up to 30 kts forcing anglers to fish the lee side of the Great Astrolabe barrier reef. This hasn't stopped us releasing some very nice fish though and the lee side of the reef does hold a lot of bluefin trevally, Spanish mackerel and red bass for extra variety. On the occasional really windy day we continue to fish the inner lagoons and coral bommies holding GTs to about 20kg but the really large GTs are mostly on the exposed South East 'wild side' of the barrier reef and getting to them has been difficult over the past few months. The up side is that the GTs just love those crashing barrier reef breakers and the calm breaks in between trade winds have allowed us to get right in close with heavy tackle and make the most of the excellent winter bite.
From November onwards, the trades should fade out and the calm summer weather should return allowing unlimited access to all barrier reef areas. Later this year we have some adventure popper specialists booked in and will be making longer runs out to some of the most remote areas. Looking forward to testing some new unexplored grounds.
