fishmaniac

Groper, as long as it is in a nice way, it's all good

Some nice reds there mate and good conditions too!

Nice fish mate, well done! Particularly on the lighter tackle. They pack some punch once they get 125cm + in shallow water. It looks to be around the 20-25kg

We spent just under 4 weeks in total between port douglas and the whitsundays. 6 days were also spent driving! Cargo05 - yes the boat is a 450 Topender powered by a 60hp Yamaha. I have not had any issues towing although i made sure everything was in good order before leaving. The trailer is from boeing (not quintrex). The boat handles well, I have always been very happy with the hull. There isn't any swell inside the reef but when the wind is up it can whip up some fairly nasty chop which you do need to be wary of when driving. I do a lot of offshore work in this boat along the cliffs and out to the shelf back home and for it's size it performs well.

Farvos, yes, I am based in Sydney. We drove to the whitsundays in 2 days. But they were long days on the road - 14hrs and 12 hrs (which included 2 breaks of about 0.5hrs each). The drive from the whitsundays to port douglas was 9hrs with one 0.5hr break. I also re-did the trailer bearings and replaced the springs and brake pads on the trailer prior to the trip. Luckyfil, we were aware of ciguatera and from what we understood some species are likely to carry the toxin and very large specimens of predatory species could be carriers. So we did not eat the big coral trout pictured or my mate's large spanish. The spanish around 130cm and trout which we captured up to 65cm were all ok to eat. The bluefin we caught were also ok to eat, considering they grow to over 20kg the 3-5kg fish we caught were only juveniles. There are also known carriers of the ciguatera toxin such as the red bass and chinaman fish. They are 'no take' species due to the likelihood of them carrying the toxin, even if they are smaller specimens.

It has been a long time since posting but here is a quick recap of my recent trip to north Queensland.... I have always wanted to tow the boat up to the northern parts of Australia to explore some of our northern fishing hotspots. It has been hard to get it together due to uni, work, mates not having the time etc. But with my brother and a few mates also heading up and the predicted el nino (weaker trade winds) I took the plunge to tow the boat up and fish with the boys and (after they left) flew the newly wed wife up to continue the expedition. We spent our time between port douglas and the whitsunday islands, targeting all fish that would pull hard. We spun up long tail and mack tuna that were busting up, micro-jigged the reef for coral trout and other reefs, jigged for red bass, GT and job fish and used stick baits amongst the shallows for GT. We also got suck into some spanish mackerel and cobia. Armed with only a set of charts we covered a lot of ground to figure out and find where the fish were holding. I covered in excess of 2000km in my 4.5m boat over the several weeks we were up there. And on the days it was too windy to head out we chased barra in the rivers and lakes or did a bit of sight seeing. We had a great time, and although the fishing was great, it certainly was not a given! We had many days where not too much happened but that is all part of the learning curve of fishing having not gone on any charters. Some of the most notable catches included 30+kg GT, 20-25kg cobia, 130cm spanish mackerel, big coral trout, job fish, red bass, big Barra. One of my brothers mate's also landed a cracker mackerel at 177cm which was extremely lucky given he was targeting other fish and had no wire trace! We went through a lot of terminals as everything up there has bloody nasty teeth!!!!! Also, it pays to have spares for everything (including a starter key for the engine - mine snapped while on the water!) There are sharks everywhere and although it is tempting to target fish such as cobia on the lighter gear it is probably not the wisest option as it will soon be sharked. I had a 4-5m tiger launch completely out of the water and took a 120cm spanish whole. We also caught several small bronzies for a bit of fun. Below are the photos of some of the fish:

I think you will find it had more to do with less boats than the tide. We kept moving away from the main pack and found a couple of schools that had tightened up and we hooked-up straight away. Then 10 boats surrounded us and the school thinned out and the bite turned off. Later when there was only 3 of us there it was non stop action for about an hour and a bit with the fish around 75-85cm

It went hard after you left mate, we ended up with around 25-30 fish. Got smashed by hail on the way in though which wasn't fun

Nice fish taken off the rocks mate. A mate who dives says he saw a small pod last week off Sydney so it looks like a few may be around!

Congrats on landing your first marlin mate!

Irrespective of political preference, marine parks should not apply to recreational fisherman until a few other critical issues are sorted by our so called leaders. 1) The most common fish that are targeted are migratory (snapper, kingfish, tuna, marlin, mahi mahi and even bream). Restricting a recreational fisherman from targeting say, kingfish which may inhabit a sanctuary zone for several weeks, only to be slaughtered like lambs by a commercial drop liner when they move on is kind of pointless. Perhaps we should look at closed seasons during breeding like they do in South Australia. Bream are such an example - which congregate at river openings at certain times of year to spawn. At this time the population is concentrated and full of eggs and very vulnerable to exploitation. 2) The current bag limits and size limits are not regulated. Now, obviously there are laws but I fish at least once a week and in the past 8 years I have been checked 2 times!!!! More needs to be done to enforce current regulations as at the moment the fishery is really 'self regulated' 3) What the hell is the point of having marine parks when our government (both labor and liberal) would allow a foreign owned super trawler to operate in Australian waters if not for mass public outcry. I suppose the right economic figure will always outweigh the need to conserve our environment We need to employ conservation techniques which have science related to specific species of fish (not just the little colourful wrass which stay on the same reef their entire life that the greenies like to look at when diving). We need to enforce current regulations and not have double standards for commercial operations the minute a few dollars are on the table!

So here we go again...... 2 years ago we faced the same issue. The government giving approval without public consultation to allow the operation of factory vessel to fish the baitfish from Southern Australian waters. Once it was well known, it faced fierce opposition and the public managed to turn this vessel around. Now they are back with a smaller vessel to skirt the laws imposed at the time. Nonetheless with a quota of 16,500 tonnes a year!!!!! Targeting red bait and mackerel - the stable food source for our tuna and billfish. Just imagine if this vessel pulled up at the carpark off port stephens and decimated the bait schools which sustain the marlin fishery. Meanwhile the average Australian tax payer has to put up with ever increasing restrictions on fishing practices. I would doubt all of the recreational fleet combined would take 10% of what this vessel will take. But lets destroy OUR stocks to send Overseas because they have destroyed their own fishery - just to make a quick buck. Last government was Labor, this is Liberal. It doesn't matter which party is in government, the only thing that seems to talk to these guys is $$$$$$$ and back room deals. Spread the word and if we are lucky we may be able to turn this boat around too! http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2015/s4184830.htm

Congrats on your first mate. A day for the memory bank!

Unreal!!! Nice work on a what turned out to be a great day

We got a fish on the troll and got them taking cubes at the back of the boat today. They are still there, just not as crazy as Monday by the general sounds of things