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May Brisbane Fishing Online Report of the Month Winner
Got a text message from a fishing buddy on Wednesday asking me if I was keen to join him and a few friends for an overnight trip out of Wide Bay Bar. After reshuffling some work committments I called him back with a "let's do it!".
We met at 4am and begun the long drive north. As usual I only got a few hours sleep. It must have been the excitement and anticipation, but I can never seem to get a good night's sleep before any fishing outing. After the usual fuel, ice and toilet stops we arrived at Carlo Point boat ramp at about 8am and made our way to the bar. Hardly a breath of wind but a 1.5-2m swell made things interesting. Some careful manouvering and we made it through safely. Attempting it on a runout tide would have been suicidal.
After unsuccessfully searching for livies near the bar we made our way out about 25km north-east to our first group of marks. Lacklustre shows greeted us on the sounder but we drift-fished a few patches of wire weed and rubble. The conditions were magic but fishing was very slow. A few undersize fish came aboard including pearlies, snapper and a maori cod. Caught plenty of grinners and kept a few for bait. Eventually we caught a legal snapper and a pearly (on a lucanus jig) before we decided to try a few more spots in the general area. Things weren't going our way and morale was nosediving out of control. We proceeded to crack jokes about sleeping arrangements for the night ahead. It's not easy to sleep four guys on a 6.5m half cab boat.
Three of the crew were bottom bashing and I was float-lining on my lonesome. Soon after we put the rods in holders and cracked open a few beers. My rod got absolutely smacked and after a relatively short tussle in came an 83cm snapper. Pretty sure it was a PB for me. Bait was a thrice refrozen pillie that was still covered in ice. I looked at my phone and the time was 11.30am, I can't remember having ever caught a decent snapper that late in the morning.
Soon after Jansen, the owner of the boat, brought in a double header of baby red emperor. We have been desperately trying to catch a legal one for the last year so we started hoping a few bigger ones would be around. Not long after I sent down a live pinkie (not sure of the proper name but htey are common up there and make good flesh baits - apparently taste like whiting too!). It sat there for a while before getting whalloped. After a good fight up came a sizeable mack tuna which we kept for bait. The rest of the boys weren't happy as so far I had caught the two biggest fish and we have a tradition of putting in $20 each and the winner takes all.
Things went quiet and we made our way south trying a few marks here and there. Not much happening on the sounder but we managed a few unspectacular fish in dribs and drabs, mostly small snapper, grassies and venus tuskfish.
The sun was dipping so we decided to find a decent spot close in to anchor up for the dusk session. We ended up anchoring up about 5km east of Double Island Point on a nice looking show. It didn't take long for things to fire up and for about an hour and a half the action was hot with a few small snapper but plenty of grassies around the 45cm mark coming aboard. I had an interesting moment when I felt my line twitch, I looked down with my headlamp and there was the largest sea snake I had ever seen. It had swum directly into my braid.
Mack tuna was the gun bait for the session. We also caught several small sharks. Not sure what they were but if I had to hazard a guess I would say school sharks. I also caught a nice little bronze whaler that ws about 1m long and a few wobbegongs also graced the decks of the Barcrusher.
Things had started to shut down and we were struggling to lose bait and when we were they were sharks, so we headed in behind the point and anchored up for the night. We had a decent night's sleep. A westerly of about 10-15 knots blew through the night but being in that close and sheltered by the sand dunes things remained very comfortable.
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