Nice pics Nathan, good to have an insight into the Hawaiian species on offer for the light gear. In Australia we have a vast amount of species to chase, particularly in the tropics. There are many more predators to target, but the fishing is not easy until you get used to understanding the big tides (4m-6m of variation between high and low in Mackay!!)
A few highlights from this year - note that a lot of time was spent chasing GTs!!! Almost everything is released, particularly slow growing fish like the fingermark - even though they are delicious!
Small bar cheeked coral trout from a very close reef, right near the boat ramp
Small Grassy Sweetlip from a close reef
A visiting mate with a 15kg black jewfish only 20 mins after putting the boat in
Nice queenfish on a 7" soft plastic
Flathead from a shallow mudflat drain - they lay semi buried in the sand/mud, and ambush fish as they swim past.
Longtom on one of my GT stickbaits, about 65km offshore - these are common inshore as well.
20kg spanish mackerel taken trolling a Rapala xrap about 25km off Mackay - there are lots of mackerel around here, mostly between June - Sept each year.
Longtail tuna taken on a 7" soft plastic - normally we catch these from busting schools on the surface, with either 15-30g metal lures or 10 weight fly outfits.
Amy with a 92cm barramundi taken on a Transam in the late afternoon in one of our local stocked impoundments. The dams here have a lot of barra and sooty grunter in them and are great fun to catch. The barra grown really quickly in the dams due to the huge amount of food in there, and fish over a metre are common. Usually they get quite deep bodied and obese once they get over a metre.
Small bronze whalers and black tip reef sharks are pretty common here but you don't get them on lures very often. Sometimes we have bigger whalers or tigers steal fish, normally in the cooler months.
Small blue salmon (similar to your Moi) caught near the Townsville casino a couple of days ago on a small soft plastic.
Amy with a nice mangrove jack taken on a small soft plastic in a busy port this week - a lot of people overlook the fishing in close but it can be really good if you know where to look.
I caught this small fingermark from the same place - good fun on light gear, and quite a sought after species.
