We then poked our nose into the lagoon to chart a course around the coral bommies on the sounder then went wide to try for a red emperor until dark. We watched the sun go down out on the reef without a bite from a red.
I then ran back into the lagoon about 20 minutes after sunset and just before dark. I could see but not well. I got in the lagoon no problem and was still on plane at about 13-15 knots in 7m of water and there in front of me was coral. It looked very, very shallow. Because it was so dark I didn’t see it until it was RIGHT in front of the boat. I was already trimmed most of the way up but I hit the trim and puckered my um, yea and wouldn’t you know it we popped across without touching bottom or taking the leg off. I looked on the sounder afterward and it appears to be about 1m under the surface.
After a good meal and a beer or two… I tied some new rigs onto rods and noticed we had gone through about half of the hooks I had taken on the first day. I made a mental note to take more hooks next time then sat back and enjoyed the view and silence for a while before having a siesta.
Now, I use a bouy to retrieve my anchor. I left the buoy on the anchor line overnight because when I’m using the anchor it’s ALWAYS on the line. When I woke up in the morning it was gone. Idk how the pin rattled out of the shackle during the night but it must have. Because the wind had switched direction during the night I didn’t know where to look for the bouy in the pre dawn ink and with the lagoon being a few miles long and wide (full of coral bommies) I didn’t look for very long before heading out to fish. Knowing full well we were now drift fishermen and anchoring was out of the question.
Heading out
Looking back
So many boats it was a line up to exit
We went wide first and hit reefs from 10 miles east of the lagoon and heading south along the shelf for about 18 miles. No dice. Sure we caught stuff we didn’t want but couldn’t find a red.
This little fella was cool though
The oldest was still sick and I made the deal to go home that evening. I then ran back into our favourite reefs on the inside of Fitzroy to try again.
Nolan caught an undersized red as the ocean continued to glass out.
A range of non edible fish
As the conditions improved P started fishing a bit more
Sharks are always a problem but at one point we had one swim under the boat.
I then caught a red throat and was bringing it up. I looked down and all I saw was shark coming straight at the boat about 5-10 meters under the boat. He looked larger then life. I then saw the fish on my line about 2 meters ahead of the shark and started cranking in overdrive to avoid paying the tax man.
I got a video afterward but didn’t get a really clear shot of him
Threaded Mode
