GTPopping.com - Giant Trevally, GTPopping, Topwater & GT Fly-Fishing Resource
Topwater Caranx Ignobilis: Giant Trevally (GT) => Reports & Expeditions => Topic started by: Graham Stevenson on October 02, 2009, 01:27:06 PM
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Just got back to NZ after Nomad trip to Bligh reef over the last week of September . Flew to Cairns then onto Lockhart River ( 1 and a half hours north) and then by road (1/2 an hour or a bit longer if you're not the local driver !) by Road to Portland Roads.
Then onto Mother ship which was anchored off shore and after lunch into the 6 metre boats for a fish on the way out to the reef . Didn't get past the first point before we had a session on the longtails and then onto the reef itself for the usual pop till you drop. took the mother ship about 3 hours to get to the anchorage whilst we popper fished away the afternoon.
Unfortunately I don't have the technology nor expertise to upload photos from the Nomad disc for the week , so will have to give a generalised description . My abiding memory of the week was the variety of species we caught. In no particular order and my own catchs only the following species were accounted for - Longtail , Tuna, GT, Blue fin Trevally , Tea Leaf Trevally , Big Eye Trevally, Coral trout (all colours and sizes ), red bass , Various Cods , Jobfish (2 colours) , Spanish mackerel, Shark Mackerel, Scad , rainbow runner , maori Wrasse , various Emperors. also had a number of Dogtooth encounters (a couple were landed by other anglers) and a brief black marlin hook up whilst we were having a lazy troll between reef entrances.
As far as popping goes we caught plenty of Gt's up to probably 30 Kg's and dropped a few larger ones mainly in the shallows .Alos caught a lot of Blue Fin trevally up to about 8 Kg. Most of the fish were caught on 100 to 125 gm Poppers and Stick Baits. Some of the Coral trout were huge and Red bass were prolific - we had a number of floating bommies of these. One highlight for me was catching a 25 kg plus Maori wrasse on a popper - had never caught one before and caught 3 in total.
Weather conditions were generally favourable -about 15 to 20 Knots and made a couple of the reef passes accessible for jigging where we found a number of dogtooth, most of which took my jigs for souvenirs !
We really only covered a small part of the reef and I'm looking at how to get there again next year. Usual top class service from Nomad and the South african connection ! some unusual culinary experiences - Kangaroo and Crocodile !
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Hi Graham,
Sounds like an awesome trip mate, congrats!!
Here is a pretty easy step by step on how to post pics I did on our local forum if you're interested:
http://www.sealine.co.za/view_topic.php?id=10684&forum_id=17&jump_to=140741#p140741 (http://www.sealine.co.za/view_topic.php?id=10684&forum_id=17&jump_to=140741#p140741)
Admin please remove this if its not cool to post a link to another forum, I can't just copy and paste the topic as the edit function won't let me view the codes, so I'd have to reload all the images...
Thanks
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Andre - if you don't mind, I am going to put a sticky up with this link.
Is that all right?
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No worries Brandon, with pleasure mate.