Hi everyone,
I write this with a little apprehension, as I'd like to share this with like minded fans of the mighty surface smashing GT, but I am not keen to have spots which have taken us quite a long time to nut out, invaded by local rednecks
So I won't mention locations. As mentioned a million times over these forum pages, the combination of structure and current seem to be key elements to our success, however bait is not always present and some of the water we are fishing is extremely shallow and infested with nasty reef. Miraculously we have only been wiped out by half a dozen or so fish out of about 30 landed since cracking the code in October 2011. Sizes have ranged from 3kg to a handful of our best fish being around 30kg, with most being 15-20kg. All fish except the first one have been taken on poppers - the GREATEST way to catch them
I'll let the photos do the talking
My first big GT, only mid-sized but very satisfying after 2 wipeouts from my first 2 hookups
fortunately we have greatly improved the landing rate from our hookups since then
I was fishing by myself as well, so I was quite pleased to be able to manhandle it into the boat without assistance.
Col picked up 2 good fish the next morning, and was stoked. He had been chasing them on and off for over year, with only a couple of hookups and bustoffs to show for it.
We tried several other similar locations with mixed results. Early in the morning or late in the afternoon seemed to work the best, but a decent run of current did help a lot. Col continued to own some big specimens as the weeks went on...
Until Mick finally broke his duck with a cracker fish from 6m of reefy monstrosity. The funny part was that we didn't check the drag on his Saltiga 5000 until after the fight. After Mick went dangerously close to being pulled overboard several times, and summarised the battle as "borderline unpleasant", we found it was set at a spritely 11kg.
I was feeling like a bit of a GT donor as everyone I took out on my boat was landing fish except lucky me. As risky as it was, I figured the only way to fix that was to do another solo mission to a new spot. After the entertainment of watching a metre long spanish mackerel smash my popper and leap fully out of the water, I was happy to head home but decided to have a few more casts in a shallower area. The popper was demolished in a big boil and it was panic stations for several minutes as I pointed the electric out of the shallow reef and prayed that the fish came with me. After a 10 min battle I was lucky enough to get a half decent pic using the 10 sec timer on the SLR...
Col took our mate Nick (from Wollongong) out and got him stretched on a good GT, and I was a bit suprised when he took me up on my offer to do it again the next day. We fished a different spot but it produced another good fish for him. Nick fought it extremely competently considering the massive difference in tackle to what he was used to.
Of course, Mick had to trump me - big time - at my new location when we returned a few days later. His popper was monstered by a big beast which missed the hooks but engulfed it 3 pops later, only 15m from the boat, much to the excitement and panic of us on board! Again we were fortunate that the fish stayed in deeper water (or maybe we are getting better)
I think that one is our heaviest set fish so far. Hard to estimate weights because of the variation in depth and girth. When it is a struggle to lift by yourself, it is a fair beast
I was keen to get one of our young engineers at work either destroyed mentally or physically by one of these denizens, and lucky for me they played the game. Unfortunately it was only a junior model, but still a good start to his GT account
Just the other day we headed south to a completely new spot where we knew there would be the potential for some monsters. After weeks of crap weather there was glamour conditions for us - probably not ideal though as we have found that a bit of light chop improves our chances of fish. Strangely we didn't see any action in the morning so we decided to leave and return at a different stage of the tide. I picked up this cobia first cast in our next spot, which was pretty cool!
When we returned to the original spot we found good numbers of very narky little pups chasing and competing for our poppers... cool to watch, especially considering they were keen on my offering and ignoring Micks
I caught 4 out of 5 hookups in about 15 mins, then a bigger brother decided to get in on the act. It was a very lean fish and very fit, taking the lead during the "GT dance" around the boat a few times
The next morning I was pretty stuffed after a few early starts and full days in the tropical sun, which is not the best physical condition to pursue these creatures. Sure enough, on the 10th cast, whammo. Let the pain begin, you crazy fool
After 15 mins or so, I managed to land my best fish to date - stoked! My deckie is another convert to the sport now, he just couldn't believe what he was seeing.
Anyway it has been a pretty good 4 months, keen to see if we can upgrade some of these big specimens this year
