Hello all,
I had been planning a trip locally off the central Queensland coast for a while and decided to head out from the Whitsundays to try the outer reefs and shoals for Gt's.
We left the Gold Coast Saturday afternoon and headed north, arriving at Airlie Beach Sunday morning. The weather forecast for the following week was very good with light winds so we fueled up the boats tank and carried another 240L of fuel on deck which will last 3 days with 100L in reserve.
Day 1:
We launched the boat at midday Sunday and headed out past the islands to Block reef. We arrived to the reef and were greeted by a nice pressure edge lined with fusis along the reef. A couple of casts later the first GT was in the boat however it was only in the 10-15kg range.
Several minutes later Ness had a pack of GT's attack her lure and almost pulled her over board as the fish continued down and managed to get to the bottom. After that things slowed down so we carried on and started to look for somewhere to anchor for the night but as we entered the lagoon some Fusis started to school up and without hesitation Luke cast his stickbait behind the school and it was engulfed by another nice 15kg GT which was quickly subdued. Several more casts were made around entrance to the lagoon but had no luck so we called it a night and anchored up for dinner and sone sleep.
Day 2:
After a rather average nights sleep because of gusty northerly Ness, Luke and i had a quick breakfast and headed east of the lagoon to try our luck on dome small isolated bommies. On the approach to almost every pressure edge, bommie and face of exposed reef were hundreds of fusiliers showering. The first cast into each resulted in either a solid hookup or the lure getting knocked out of the water in a explosion of white water. By the end of the day we had landed 16 nice GT's on the surface, witnessed a massive 50-60kg sailfish follow a stickbait to the boat and also had a large 6-7kg mackerel mauled by a pack of hungry GT's boatside.
Day 3:
On Tuesday we woke to 15-20 knot southesterly winds which makes fishing from a 6m center console a little bit harder outside of the protection of the reef so we decided to fish the run off of the reef flats and the shoals just outside the anchorage. Luke started with a healthy 20kg on his first cast with a popper 50m from where we had spent the night. Ness was next up had the first cast at the next bommie and sure enough had a fired up gt smash her popper and give her a workout. For the next couple of hours we had a great time chucking lures into schools of bait fish and watching packs of hungry GT's fighting to eat the lures first. At around lunch time the tide and slowed and the wind did not look like it was letting up so we nade the call to head back to Airlie Beach for a hot shower and a kingsize bed.
Day 4:
With the wind forecast to drop off tomorrow we refuelled, re-rigged and loaded the boat for an early morning Thursday.
Day 5:
We woke very early Thursday and were on the water well before sunrise heading 130km North East of Airlie Beach to try some promising looking ground. We arrived to our first fishing spot just after 7:30 and were greeted by hundreds of birds and the sounder showing some large fish 20m down in 80m of water. Luke and Ness chucked on a couple of smaller profile stickbaits and the mackerel strikes soon followed. Before long they had landed some nice mackerel and Luke also pulled in a nice yellow fin.
While we were chasing the mackerel around we found a nice looking bump in some deeper water so we dropped the jigs down. The first drop i hooked a nice coral trout on the drop. Second drop i was on again to something much bigger which was giving me a hard time until the fight changed and the sharks moved in. We had a few more attempts to get the fish past the sharks but we were not quick enough.
With the mackerel shut down and the sharks taking our gear we made the call to try some of the shoals around Ellen reef for dome GT's. As we arrived to the eastern side of the shoals you could see dozens of schools of fusiliers being harassed. Ness had the first cast and before she coukd get a turn on her reel she was onto a healthy GT which gave her trouble for the next 10 minutes in the strong current before the fish was boat side. Ness,luke and i pulled another pair of fish each from the shoals before some heavy rain and gusty wind forced us to head back the anchorage.
Day 6:
Friday started off with some popping over the deeper shoals 10km north of Knuckle reef. For what ever reason the fish seemed to be less committed to engulfing our lures and were very clumsily swipping at the lures. Of the 20 or so fish raised only 4 resulted in hook ups. Because of the lack of enthusiasm the GT's were showing we decided to get the light tackle setups out and fish some reef flats which was very preductive. Small GT's, bludger trevally and coral trout took a liking to the smaller FCL and nomad stickbaits we were using and kept us entertained all afternoon until we decided to call it a day.
Day 7:
On Saturday we woke to the Southeasterly picking up we decided to make our way back to Airlie Beach and fish a few deep shosls and reef edges on the way home. Ness, Luke and i landed 10 GT's between us for the morning with the majority coming from cutouts in the reef edges.
Overall we handed over 50 GT's for the trip between 10-30kg.
Lost 2 lures. 1x FCL 190 ebipop which was ripped apart and 1x FCL stickbait.
Rods Used - FCL 8'5 stickbait rod 7000H Dogfight
- 2x Zenaq 80-5 trevally 14000xwg Stella
- Zenaq 80-10 trevally 6500 Saltiga
