Small boat GT fishing in Mackay

[Mark Harris]

Excellent stuff Andrew again. Really enjoy reading DIY reports.

Shark problems are a real bugger and you are so right about getting the fish in as quickly as possible.

[Angus Hulme]

Awesome stuff Andrew, thanks for sharing. Gotta say I laughed at your mate saying he "was about to p!ss himself on camera" 

Out of interest, which general area or island group are you fishing? I completely understand you don't want to give away exact locations.

Regarding that boat of yours....geez you've done a beautiful job with it. I saw on another forum the thread showing the custom refurbishment, and I take my hat off to you for the precision work you put in.

Cheers
Angus

[Jay Burgess]

That shot looking down at your boat in the water is amazing.. the water looks beautiful and crystal clear 

[Kamalu Charlot]

Enjoying the reports and videos.  Keep posting any observations you make and the lure/color etc would be fun to 'ride along' vicariously as you explore and experiment.  For me at least the season is still a few months off.

[Andrew Susani]

Thanks guys... it is a lot of fun doing it ourselves, I am not really that interested in spending money on a trip when we have a very consistent GT fishery literally on our doorstep.  Raising 4 fish a couple of days ago in tough conditions and getting annihilated by a good one, makes it a very challenging way to fish.

Angus, I am not too keen to give away any location information    The "60km off Mackay" information in the vids should be enough for anyone with local knowledge to sniff them out    The best spot was given to me by a mate so I have to respect that, but the first spot has got to be one of the fishiest locations I have ever been to, with lots of bait, rippling fusiliers, current, rocks and great underwater structure... 

[craig breadsell]

Well done guys.

There is some awesome fishing in close and its great to see  you getting out there and finding nice fish.

[James Yerbury]

There are some awesome fish in there  thanks for sharing the pictures and video, i had a look at the 485sf last boat show here in Brisbane, nice boat with good options from the factory, its a shame as i am trying to get an alloy boat.  how does the f70 preform on the back?

[Jay Burgess]

I am keen to improve my hook arrangement too, to minimise collateral damage to the fish.  I have read a lot about the pros and cons of trebles v singles on this forum and will make some adjustments to my lures to see if things improve.

I have been thinking about this a bit after speaking to Rudy from LPB during my last trip to NC. Rudy said, ".... if we really cared about the wellfare of GT's then we wouldn't fish for them at all..". It's interesting to note that these guys don't use barbless trebles. When I was fishing with Nomad the GT's were quite agressive to the point where they were completely inhaling the lures and often the rear single would become embedded in the fish's throat or gills causing profuse bleeding. Apart from the injury to the fish it was harder to remove the hooks therefore the fish was out of the water for a considerably longer time. Oviously this can also happen with trebles but most of the damage we are intending to avoid by using singles is mainly superficial wounds and I doubt whether this would cause serious long term harm to the fish. Then there's the question of barbs or barbless? A good angler can maintain the pressure on a GT most of the time but there are times when I've seen the fish swim towards the angler causing slack line which has sometimes resulted in a lost fish.. would the barbs have prevented such a loss?

[Andrew Susani]

James, the F70 goes pretty well but I still have an alloy prop on it.  I will get a stainless prop soon and that should make a fair bit of difference.  I think it is a good match for the hull though, with very good fuel economy.  The factory fitout for the 485SF is pretty good but I didn't like the rod storage option, hence me embarking down the torturous, 5 month road of DIY boat interiors... 

Jay, we are still using trebles mainly, but all are barbless.  I have pulled hooks on a fair few fish lately so having barbs might have helped a bit there, but the power in the jaws of these things can do crazy things to terminals so if the initial hookset is not good then I don't reckon barbs would help much.

I don't use trebles on any metal lures - singles beat them hands down - but shifting that confidence to singles dangling off big poppers and stickbaits will take a bit longer... 

[gordon irving]

how you going iv just moved from bris to moranbah as i miss going off straddie with my mates and cracking them gts but seeing your report for up here was really good i dont have a boat but if your looking for someone to come out with you to hit them gts i would be more than up for it

[Andrew Susani]

ha ha ha g'day Gordon!  My list of wannabe deckhands is long... very long... 

[ColGray]

Have been fishing for GT's for with Andrew in this area for the same amount of time so thought I would just add to his thread.

Went out this morning for an inshore pop.  A thousand casts netted zero results, not even a follow.  Time to swim one of the new Orions recieved last week to see the swimming action.
First cast with the bigfoot 140 was a bit wayward of the mark but the next cast was right in the money.
After i put about 1m of line back on the spool I came up tight to what felt like a decent treva.  Had to freespool for a bit mid way to avoid line line being rubbed through on the rocks. But after a bit of handy boat,  I was surprised that i was still solidly connected. A few more minutes and the fish was boatside.

[Andrew Susani]

Tank!  We had long suspected that sinking stickbaits were the answer if we had short strikes or pulled hooks, good to see it has not taken long to prove themselves.  Suprisingly dirty water too, from the big tidal movement at the moment.  I wonder if they will be around here all year?

[ColGray]

I think that they will be Andrew.  There is that winter run of baitfish that keeps the tea-leafs and bludgers around.  Can't see these GT's being to much different, maybe a little less aggresive but still around.
Surprised to raise them out of the dirty water too.  It was mainly coral spawn but, I had the leader almost at the tip of the rod and could still not see colour. Visability was three foot at the most.

[Mark Harris]

Bigfoots have to be the ultimate "when all else fails" lure.