Hi all, recently returned from a 5 day trip up to the Percy Island group off Central Queenland. It was myself and a mate, Isaac (the GT curse), who made the trip from Yeppoon to Stanage and then left in my Allycraft 540 CC/115 yammie loaded to the hilt - swags, food, 10 jerries of spare fuel, 7 outfits, 2 eskies, a kayak and other associated paraphenalia...in fact everything but a can opener
The day we left it was forecast to be blowing 15-20knots with a patch of 25's coming through later. We left and it wouldn't have been even 15 and the going was ok, and we both made that remark - out loud
The weather gods obviously heard us and turned it on - from then on (about half way to Marble) it blew a solid 20 with patches of 25, against a new moon size tide running out and swells of 2m+ rolling through...all in all it was a nightmare trip to South Percy. We eventually arrived - I beached the boat at the first beach we came across, stumbled up to the first shady casuarina and fell asleep on the sand - it was a bit of a mission really and I felt pretty crook by the end, not from sea sickness but I genuinely think it was from the amount of seawater I swallowed just from copping the spray over the gunwhales straight into the face. Isaac did the same but we eventually came good, set up camp and rigged up.
We had a quick land based session that evening for no luck and returned to camp to wait till around 10pm so we could re-float and anchor the boat. For the remainder of the trip we used the kayak for anchoring duties and found it invaluable up here with the big tides...if you don't have it it's either beach and re-float at often awful times or have long distance swims to and from the boat - erk, not for me in these waters.
Before getting into the fishing some background - I usually have no worries getting new comers onto a GT but Isaac had been out chasing them with me for 6 days before this trip and still had not caught one. This hadn't stopped him heading to FishHead and stocking up a full outfit and all the trimmings though so there some pressure to get him onto a fish this trip!
The next few days we snagged some good weather but struggled to get solid hook-ups. I would say we saw/had follows from 8-10 GT's per day at least but all up managed just 6 solid hook-ups in 3 days popping. Of these 6 we dropped the hooks on 2, landed 3 and got absolutely positively destroyed on the other
. Isaacs curse breaker was just a baby at maybe 5kg or so and was landed within the first few casts of the trip, at least it took some pressure off! The next fish landed was a 22-23kg model landed by me and the last landed fish a 15kg or so model by Isaac again - curse properly broken! The fish that did me was pretty solid - i'd say high 30's but it was hooked in treachorous ground and just powered straight to the bottom...I was never even close to being in the fight
It's actually the first time i've been dusted and lost a lure like that - dammit
The rest of the trip we spent flicking metal slugs and some SP's around. We had a bunch of fun doing this catching mackeral, tuna, trout and a bunch of ooglies
The other highlights were the scenery and our lush camp food, baked trout and thai peanut rice, self saucing chocoate pudding and custard, cheesecake, baked sweetlip and pad thai, pancakes...we certainly didn't go hungry
All in all it was a great trip and i'll be doing it again for sure. This is the second time we've fished this area on these particular tides (coincidence) and we'll try a different phase next time I think, try and find the GT's when they are a bit more aggressive. Lures that caught GT's were a Cubera and Ebipops. Best part though - Isaac is no longer The Curse and we should get amongst them from now on in!
