Flanno

After ticking off Taupo Sea Mount, there is a slim list of places I wanted to fish and Cato Island, equally as far at 200nm east of Bundaberg was at the top of the list. Steaming out at 8kt the trip was 24hr, with the troll out seeing us raise a large Dolphinfish a 20kg Wahoo and a striped mackerel. Arriving at Cato early, we continued the game fishing and my God it was constant action. Trolling divers and stickbaits, we raised fish after fish with Wahoo averaging 15-20kg to bigger 35kg fish and good sized yellowfin to hundreds of jellybeans. Next up was light jigging along the extensive shallow reef system, pulling in some incredible fish such as Coronation Trout, Robinson Sea Bream, Purple Cod, Red Bass, GT, and many others using a range of lures and dead bait. Staying a total of 7 days out in the reef, we mixed it up with as much as we could. We deep dropped with electrics and heavy knife jigs and managed to pull several monster Barcod out from depths ranging 150-400m, Flametail Snapper, Ruby Snapper, 40kg Dogtooth Tuna and many other fish. Have to say the deep drop rigs from https://precision-tackle.com/ held up nicely to some monster fish. This was easily one of the best fishing trips I've ever been on, with constant action on any style of fishing with new species constantly coming up. The place is truly a pristine water wonderland and I'm lucky to have sat foot on such a remote island.

I didn't see a lot of comments about offshore so I'll try to add some insight from what I know.. * Would not recommend to travel at more than 12 knots, unless you have FLIR or a death wish. At night your visibility is seriously limited, floating/submerged debris becomes impossible to see and hitting something at 8-12 kt will be better for your boat than if you were to hit it at 12 kt * I recently installed a LED bar for 4x4s on my rocket launcher (pic). Worth its weight in gold to have lighting at night, especially offshore. Coming home from Broughton Island and being able to fish sunset 🌇 is awesome, the added lights give confidence. If you do want to fish sunset and come home dark whilst offshore, don't even think twice about adding more lights. Also, no more early morning crossing bars in the pitch black! * Turn down the brightness on your sounders! This, combined with not stating at them well help your night vision settle in 😀 * Snapper fish pretty well on a full moon! Surprised the heck out of me too 3/4 times ive targeted snapper at night past sunset and been offshore was 3 times where I was lucky to get one or two fish, and the time it was a full moon resulted in a lot of fish being pulled in. My theory is that the moonlight provides enough light for snapper to hunt, but I could have just been lucky that night. Unfortunately I don't have much more species related tips, still trying to figure the whole fishing thing out myself 😉 From diving at night I can confirm some fish definitely do shut down.. Mulloway, sharks and rays don't seem to mind though. As everyone has said, stay safe! The ocean is dangerous enough as it is so take extra care at night

tuna are off iluka atm. Im on my way to rock fish off 1770 and will be back in Sydney soon. Hit me up id be keen to organise a trip with ya mate

@Scratchie The man, the myth, the legend. This guy can fish hard and doesn't give up. I'll never forget what you taught me mate - don't give up and just keep casting that lure!

Yeww thanks everyone and especially Scratchie for coming out. Stoked we got onto some great Snapper.. Hands down my PB snapper. Scratchie was so happy with his Snapper he forgot to mention the Kingfish we landed! 😮 They were rats though anyway 😂 If anyone wants to come for a fish in Port Stephens hit me up, I'm always keen

Hey raiders I've lurked here for ages and decided to join. Started taking fishing seriously in Dec last year. Since then I have spent my life savings on it. I'm based in the central coast but fish everywhere in between there and port Stephen's. I'm aboard purple haze, feel free to holla or join me for fishing