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  #121  
Old 06-12-2021, 12:53 AM
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Originally Posted by 58thecat View Post
and some say how can you blow 60mil...well I would start by booking with you

awesome thread!

With 60 mil I would have one of those houses on the water and a much nicer boat.


Picked up a few new lures, skirted them and rigged them on 300lb leader, 250lb cable and a keel weighted 25mm pakula dojo “lite” hook.




The detail on this one has me intrigued










The swell looks good to head north this week.





We will load up tomorrow and Monday morning head to 1770 to drop the boat in the water.





The boat ramp and bar





Then off to the bunker group 70km offshore with are the southernmost chain of islands on the Great Barrier Reef.





Both lady musgrave and Fitzroy have sunken lagoons we can anchor up in overnight.








We went up there last aug for some reef fish. This time it’ll be two nights and three days with just me and the boys for some winter fun.










Most of the reef fish are small compared to what I like but bloody good eating and this is the time of year they’re on the chew. We might drop a spread and try for a marlin on the way out and back because they’ll be around there all winter. About three years ago they got a 1460lb black marlin there so there’s the odd big girl around too.

More to come after the trip…
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  #122  
Old 06-12-2021, 05:21 AM
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looks like a pile of fun! please keep updating this thread
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  #123  
Old 06-16-2021, 03:25 PM
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Default Skip the ice, let’s go billfishing.

We loaded up and hit the road. As we drove north it turned grey and about half an hour from seventeen seventy it started to rain. Of all the forecasts I looked at the weather wasn’t one of them. It doesn’t usually rain this time of year so that wasn’t on my radar. I looked and it said scattered showers Monday and Tuesday, clearing Wednesday. I had the clears for the boat and rain suits so we weren’t stopping for a bit of wet weather. Even being winter the rain is warm anyway.









We ran out six miles and stopped on a wreck. First drop within fifteen seconds both boys were hooked up. Pierce had a ~40 cm snapper, Nolan had a little larger snapper.







We fished a little more, caught a few smaller snapper and then kept punching east. Another 15 miles out we stopped on a reef and did a few drifts in 35 meters of water. Every drop we hooked up but didn’t land a fish. Most pulled us into bottom and broke us off, about six got sharked on the way to the boat. Unfortunately when the tax man took the fish he didn’t bite the fish in half, he took the whole rig every time. After losing around twenty fish and retying about twenty rigs I had enough, the sharks were to thick and it was time to head to the lagoon for a sleep. We drove another ten miles and entered the lagoon for the evening.

The very modest channel markers and a few boats anchored up behind.





None of this reef sticks out of the water except on dead low tide. Once inside there was protected water but a 360 degree view of open ocean. It was like anchoring in an infinity pool in the middle of the coral sea. Even in the dim overcast light I could see the anchor and every link of the chain in 10m of water. The clarity was unreal.



We had a feed, tied some new rigs and I cursed our little reels for not having enough drag to handle the larger fish. I really don’t reef fish and I didn’t think they could pull that hard. They’re small so it made sense. I’ve got 50lb braid but only got 30 lb mono topshot on them. With 20-22 lbs of drag the only way I can add more drag is thumb pressure on the spool and I tried that on one. It didn’t stop him as he raced back to bottom and cut me off. The way these fish fight is they take the bait 2-3m off bottom, then once you set the hook you can usually bring them up another 3-4m before they figure out what’s going on. So you pump and wind like mad trying to horse them to surface. If they get turned back around and are pointed down they’ll peel all the drag I’ve got and any decent one will brick you on bottom. If they stop mid water column and the grey suits are around the shark takes the lot.
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  #124  
Old 06-16-2021, 03:42 PM
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Second morning was overcast but dry, wind was up but the seas weren’t to bad yet.







I looked on the sounder and chose some ground and we took off. About ten miles out I dropped the anchor and we sent some lines down. The boys were hooked up as fast as they hit bottom.

Coral trout




Red throated emperor.







Eventually I even got to drop a line.




The action continued all day. We lost a ton of fish to the bottom but nothing to sharks. I have to assume it was the larger models that broke us off on the bottom because the little ones we landed still managed to load up the 24kg rods and pull some drag.













After lunch we drove over to another island about ten miles away to look at some coral. We didn’t see as much as we wanted because of the wind. We saw a few sea snakes and turtles then headed back out to a different reef for some more fishing.



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  #125  
Old 06-16-2021, 03:59 PM
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The action was much the same for the rest of the day. Plenty of fish to go around, some landed in the kill tank, most went back to the reef for another time.


Sweetlip





The Chinaman fish. These are a no take species because they’re known carriers of ciguatera. Hard fighting though.















Back for dinner and a siesta in one of the quietest “campgrounds” I’ve ever experienced.




There was a cloud bank to the east that I could see lightning in but there wasn’t enough time to run back to land and I was hoping it would push south through the night.







To the west though, it was a beauty evening.









The stars were amazing and with a good nights sleep and we were ready for the last morning before the drive home.




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  #126  
Old 06-16-2021, 04:10 PM
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We pulled out for the last attempt to find some very calm conditions







Heading west for the last kick at the cat.






Always watching the sounder for a bit of ground, a rock or small reef that isn’t on the charts.





First drift and within seconds they were both hooked up again. The new moon must of had these fish on the chew






















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  #127  
Old 06-16-2021, 04:27 PM
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Default Skip the ice, let’s go billfishing.

We then packed the gear and kept trucking west for the boat ramp.




Busted head first and the town of 1770. This is where captain cook came to land when he discovered this country. If you can’t guess what year that was or how the town got its name I guess you’ll have to google it.













Back safe and sound










And the few fish that are now vac sealed in my freezer







On the drive home I told the boys we will need to upgrade the gear. The Avet reels will get replaced with talica 12’s. That will give us 41” of line retrieval per crank and 40lbs of drag.






We found the best bait was the tuna Nolan caught last break. Cut into strips it was great… until we ran out. Mullet worked well, hussar strip baits when we caught a hussar or the standby pilchard in a squid





All of them were hooked on a double hook rig, usually J hooks but a few stingers were circle hooks. I took about 80-100 J hooks and ran out between the sharks, snags and being bricked we lost a lot of weights and hooks. We also ran out of bait which is when we pulled the pin and headed home.




That place is addictive. I’m no reef fisherman yet but it could happen. If the weather cooperates next break I’ll be heading back up there. At a minimum I want to make another trip or two this winter.

Last edited by Coiloil37; 06-16-2021 at 04:34 PM.
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  #128  
Old 06-16-2021, 05:31 PM
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speachless...ya right! Awesome and the one boys face says it all when dad says we are heading in.....

adopt me

This is bar none the best fishing thread....ahhh youtube might be your next calling
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  #129  
Old 06-16-2021, 11:23 PM
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Originally Posted by 58thecat View Post
speachless...ya right! Awesome and the one boys face says it all when dad says we are heading in.....

adopt me

This is bar none the best fishing thread....ahhh youtube might be your next calling



The youngest was in his element until I told him we were leaving. He was upset from the time we ran out of bait until we got back to the truck then spent five hours discussing the next trip with me. It would of helped our cause if he hadn’t told mom we needed another $1800 worth of reels shortly after we got home.

Nolans version of happiness is being covered up in fish.





I’m old enough to never say never but I can’t see YouTube in my future. I’m flat out controlling the boat and kids never mind trying to film and edit it. Maybe one day though.
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  #130  
Old 07-05-2021, 08:26 PM
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Swell looks good from Sunday through the week at lady musgrave.




One of the local fishing stores had a sale last week so I picked up a pair of new reels for under $200 a piece.




The little speedmaster boasts 40lbs of drag, two speeds, 104 cm retrieval per crank in high range and is spooled up with 700m of 50lb braid and a short 50lb mono topshot





I put it on a 10kg trolling rod so I could use it for light game trolling as well and gives me the “necessity” to buy another 15 or 24kg trolling rod for the tyrnos I took off that rod. Those little 10kg sticks are awesome on meat fish but hurt when tied onto anything over 100kg.


The torium is more for the boys given it’s a star drag. They only have to flick the lever up and will have up to 25lbs of drag, 114cm of retrieval per crank. It too is spooled up with 50lb braid and a short 50lb topshot






It’s on a faithful 24kg Shimano Tcurve jigging rod.





Drags are set and the rigs are tied. I restocked with a couple hundred more mustad 8/0 hooks and picked up another 5kg of #7 ball sinkers.




I also picked up a solar blanket and MPPT regulator. Should keep the house bank topped up while the outboard isn’t running which will offset the fridge pulling the battery down while it’s keeping my beer cold.


This time, the plan is to head for deeper water and target some legal red emperor and largemouth nannygai which are these two species







Should find them out in 60-100m along with some pearl perch and tuskies. We may strike out and go back to shallower water for the usual suspects but it’s good to have a plan.

Now we just need to catch some mullet with the cast net and buy some squid and a few kg’s of pilchards.

Going to head for lady musgrave this time and probably take a buddy as well as the boys. He’s going to bring a swag and I’ll kick him out on the island to sleep.

Last edited by Coiloil37; 07-05-2021 at 08:32 PM.
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  #131  
Old 07-06-2021, 09:28 AM
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Awesome! Thanks for sharing.
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  #132  
Old 07-06-2021, 09:44 AM
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looking forward to see how the new rigs hold up.....bigger fish
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  #133  
Old 07-15-2021, 03:28 AM
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Well the weather didn’t cooperate. Every day the swell grew, wind increased and the window of fair weather shrunk. I pushed back one day and hummed and hawed about not going. Pierce dropped out because he didn’t want to be sick. The forecast wasn’t to bad, 1.2m swell and 20-25km/h wind.



I cross referenced three wind apps and they all said 20-30 km/h depending on which one I looked at. We took off and hit the boat ramp by 11:30. Boats coming in said I was snotty and to reconsider going out. I didn’t drive 5 hours to turn around and go home so we took off. I remember the old saying; “there are old captains and there are bold captains but there are no old, bold captains”.


















Ocean wasn’t to bad for trolling but not so good for anchoring up to jig. We went to lady musgrave and when we got there tucked into the sheltered side and went to see if we could get ashore to look around.







I couldn’t see a way past the coral so I told Nolan we would go catch supper then head into the lagoon to see if we could get on land. We snuck out past the island to 50m of water and dropped a line. I made a point to remind Nolan it was his first drop with his new reel. He hit bottom and hooked up. A few minutes later he had a red emperor which was the plan for the trip




It just made legal and put supper in the fridge. He dropped again while I was still getting my first line down and a second later yelled for help. I put my rod in the holder and took his. Idk what he hooked but it was big. Maybe a shark but the whole fight involved the fish trying to swim straight down and usually sharks swim away from me. Anyway, Nolan got one poor photo indicating what kind of load I had on that 24kg rod.






Well those in the know can see I’m high sticking. I’ve read about it, even seen it on YouTube but never broke a rod from doing it before. I broke that one. Sounded like a .22 going off beside my head. We can call it a high sticking penalty. Then I was down to a reel and the first two guides. I told Nolan to give me the gloves and I planned on hand lining it. I got the gloves on and pulled him up about 10m before the line broke. I cranked it up and it snapped off a foot above the hook. The 50lb line was severely abraded like the fish had been rubbing against it. It wasn’t reef. So now I need to run 80-100lb leader in the future.

Anyway, Nolan wanted to get on the island so we went into the lagoon to see if it was possible.







Along the shore was all coral and I want going to pull the boat up on it. There was also a sign that we weren’t allowed to anchor so we aborted that plan and anchored up further out in the lagoon for the night.





Through the night the wind picked up. It was bad enough it was whistling and the surf breaking on the coral reef didn’t look good. I wanted to head wide for reds but suspected we needed to tuck on the inside of the island to find less swell and wind chop. Either way, we ate and took off



Not before a friend dropped by for a pilchard





We went wide and found it far to rough to anchor so we tucked inside and tried to find reefs on the leeward side of the islands that were out of the green zone. We had to get nearly to Fitzroy before we found one which was a 40 km ride. We anchored up and caught two quick then it died off







After about ten minutes without a bite I pulled the anchor and we took off for the reef we caught them on last trip. I knew it would be exposed and rough as it was 15 miles from the islands but I also didn’t plan on staying another night. The wind was still picking up and we had a good meter plus wind chop on top of a 1-1.5m swell. The reef was on the way back to land and we would have about two hours to fish before we had to run back to get across the bar before low tide. At that point my phone camera died. The whole trip it had been shaking and taking blurry pics but then it failed completely and I didn’t get anymore pics.

We got to the spot, dropped the anchor and started putting fish in the kill tank. We threw back a few undersized and a couple that were within a few cm of legal. After about two hours I told Nolan we had enough that we should start moving because we still had 60 km of wide open ocean to get across before the bar and we had to get across the bar on at least the top half of the tide.

It was disappointing to cut the trip short but in the future I’m not going unless the weather is going to cooperate and while it would of been easy trolling in those conditions it wasn’t very good sitting at anchor trying to jig. Learned a little more, reels performed well and now I can buy another jigging stick.

Anyway, what we killed

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  #134  
Old 07-15-2021, 09:58 AM
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Too bad the weather didn't cooperate, nice looking fish!
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  #135  
Old 07-15-2021, 10:59 AM
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no two trips are the same eh, always an adventure...thx for sharing.
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  #136  
Old 07-19-2021, 04:06 AM
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Went out today for a look around. Wind forecast was good but expectations were low. Hit the banks and dropped some lines. Picked up a pearl perch and a few tomato cod. Took off trolling out to the 1000m mark then south for about 15 miles. Then we trolled back in and tried a deep drop for swordfish. I had only brought two big rocks for sinkers. First drop we sent a 18” squid down stitched onto a 30mm Pakula dojo hook. While we were trolling we found a cliff where it went from 320m to 265m pretty much instantly so we set up the drift on the deep side and sent it.




The hook was on bottom for about 30 seconds when we had a strike. We failed to hook up so brought it in and rebaited. Second drop was pretty much the same thing. Quick strike, bait got robbed and the hook came back bare. Prob not a sword but it piqued our interest for some more deep drops in the future.

We then trolled back toward the banks and then tried a little bottom bashing. Porter got a little snapper






I got some type of cod and a golden trevally. Both went back as the cod was to small and I hate eating trevally. Also picked up a fusilier that I had never seen before.





All up a slow day but beauty weather and it was better then hanging out at home. Can’t catch what isn’t here and being the middle of winter the billfish are somewhere between scarce and non existent.
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  #137  
Old 07-19-2021, 10:10 AM
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This is my all time favorite thread on AO. Thanks for sharing the adventures with us, please keep updating the thread!
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  #138  
Old 07-27-2021, 04:52 PM
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Last week I saw a bait ball right off the beach. Didn’t see any predatory fish but the birds were enjoying themselves. Of course I didn’t have my cast net with me.








Then a three days ago I took the youngest two out to find out where we can catch live bait out front here. I’ve messed around with it a little bit but never cracked the code. By some stroke of luck we stumble into a place and were soon catching yakkas. We only had to travel about 500m from the boat ramp and it’s directly in line with where we usually fish out wide so if they’re consistently there we will have some live bait in the future.




We put sixty of these in the freezer for future trips





Yesterday porter and I decided to head wide for another try at a deep drop. After loading up the boat with big rocks we shot out to the yakka hole to see if we could catch some. I brought some burly and we smashed them. We put 30-35 of them in the bait tank within 5-10 minutes before dawn and took off to the banks thinking we could catch some decent fish with our livies.

We hit the banks and messed around in a half a doz places for over 2.5 hours with only one bite. We tried live bait, pilchards and squid and struck out so we have some work to do finding ground out there. We then decided we could catch nothing trolling so we took off toward the ledge out wide.

We had the spread in and I passed a couple marks that looked like billfish






I cut a couple laps and saw a streak of something on the sounder. Looked like big baitfish and they were heading for surface from about 50m but it was just starting to show on the sounder. I mentioned it to porter and he was poking his head over for a look when clickers started howling. Three went down, all skipping yakkas on circle hooks. Two got dropped immediately, porters rod seemed like a winner. He set the drag and it went loose. He freespooled it back and it got picked up again and he managed to hook up. In hindsight I should of been firing a live yakka into the water but regardless he brought us something we actually wanted.












We did circles of the area looking for the school and I rigged two rods up with live yakkas to fire out when we had a strike. Couldn’t find them again. Looked for about an hour and marked one more marlin but nothing wanted to play. We then continued south with the intention of deep dropping.

We got to the place we wanted after finding a ton of dolphins but no sport fish. There appeared to be a bit of show indicating bait/squid/plankton down on the bottom so expectations were high.




The current was to strong for what we were trying to do. We were drifting between 1.6 and 2.4 knots but we got to bottom twice and had the bait pinched before we could get off bottom. Third drop I put a J hook in the squids head and the circle brindled off the top of the mantle. We hit bottom and tried to get up 50m and had a strike immediately. We also hooked up so we started cranking him to surface. I was expecting something cool that would choose to live in 1000’ of water. Lol, imagine my disappointment












A gummy shark. I’ve caught those things in 10m of water before, didn’t need to fish in 300+ for the privilege. Funny part was I unhooked him and he took off again. No barotrauma on that fella.


We spent the afternoon out there not catching anything else but possibly learning a bit. We then ran the 30+ miles home to some sashimi




Last edited by Coiloil37; 07-27-2021 at 05:00 PM.
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  #139  
Old 08-01-2021, 01:32 AM
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Default Skip the ice, let’s go billfishing.

Well not a fishing report but big enough news nonetheless.

I read the fishing club bylaws and spoke with the club captain, I don’t need to change my braid to play for points. I can use the respective line class’s topshot and still play the game. So I’ve ordered some 8kg and 15kg IGFA rated mono and a carbon fibre tag pole.

I picked some tags up from Jay and this year both my boat and myself as an individual will be playing the points game. Nolan will be in it as a junior angler as well.





It looks like I’ll use 8kg for

Last edited by Coiloil37; 08-01-2021 at 01:39 AM.
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  #140  
Old 08-01-2021, 04:54 AM
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Hmm, seems half the post disappeared.

I meant to say

I’ll use 8kg line in <80m, 15kg from 80-150m and 24kg line out on the shelf. I tend to change my topshot every trip if I’ve caught a decent fish, some rods might make three trips on the same mono before it’s fubar but it won’t be to much trouble to spool up the correct line for the area I want to fish.

There are points for almost all pelagic fish but here are the ones I care about.





I can see extended fights with less drag and we might lose some fish to busted line this year but it’s a game I’m willing to play.
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Old 08-01-2021, 03:32 PM
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C-Oil ... we still got lots of ice on Sylvan, some guys just can't stay off it. That's the entrance to Marina Bay.

Enjoying your pic's, when you making a trip back to see the folks ?

Cheers

David




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Old 08-01-2021, 04:33 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Zip-in-Z View Post
C-Oil ... we still got lots of ice on Sylvan, some guys just can't stay off it. That's the entrance to Marina Bay.

Enjoying your pic's, when you making a trip back to see the folks ?

Cheers

David




Lol, the only ice on sylvan this time of year is in a cooler.

Not sure when we will make it back. Whenever airfare is affordable again and they’ve removed the need to quarantine. Hopefully soon, I have to get back so we can lay my father to rest.
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Old 08-01-2021, 11:02 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Coiloil37 View Post
Lol, the only ice on sylvan this time of year is in a cooler.

Not sure when we will make it back. Whenever airfare is affordable again and they’ve removed the need to quarantine. Hopefully soon, I have to get back so we can lay my father to rest.
Travel rules are changing and prices s/b going down soon.

Condolences .... had to do the same with my Dad not long ago he was 93 and now my uncle just passed, he had a good life, made it to 98.

Sylvan was a total zoo today, there must of been 60,000 people here, law enforcement was going crazy, it was a stay on your back deck day and enjoy a few brews as long as you could stand the forest fire smoke drifting in from BC.

D.

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Old 08-04-2021, 04:46 AM
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Thanks David.

It’s a rough part of life and harder being half a world away but better then not outliving your parents.

Enjoy the tail end of summer. To bad it’s so short in the old country.
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Old 09-14-2021, 08:47 PM
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Just an update to keep this thread from fading into a distant memory.

I haven’t been out for the past two months. I decided I would rather wait until the fish come back then go burn fuel and drink beer for little in return.

While I’ve been waiting…

I stripped all the wiring out of the boat, replaced the batteries and rewired everything with blueseas fuse blocks, marine tinned wire, new battery isolator and neg buss bars. It’s now done properly as opposed to 20 years of previous owners running wires back to the battery whenever they added an accessory.
I serviced the engine oil and leg oil, replaced all of the internal and external anodes, new fuel filters, spark plugs, did a valve set, cleaned the thermostat, greased the driveshaft and changed the water pressure poppet valve in the leg.
I pulled every bulkhead and through hull fitting out of the boat and resealed with sikaflex. I installed a timer on the bait pump so I don’t have to remember to cycle the pump and a waterwitch float switch on the bilge so I don’t have to pay attention to it.
I pulled my eight trolling reels down, cleaned everything. Replaced all the bearings with ceramic hybrids, lubed everything up and decided the factory felt drag washers looked pretty average.




I built new carbontex washers





And installed them greased.






The drags run so much smoother now (with a kid running away from me) but the true test will be when a marlins swimming away from me. They also provide more max drag which doesn’t really help but I used to set 14lbs at strike and maxed out at 32lbs at sunset. No I see 14 at strike and 40lbs at sunset.
The reels got respooled, some got new braid, all got new top shots in 8, 15 or 24kg mono. The 8kg has me worried. Fishing with 5lbs max drag seems impossible but we will give it a rip.




All the lures were checked and rerigged/repaired as required. Another doz or so lures were added to the tackle selection. These two are the prettiest of the bunch.







I brined up some slimy mackerel for skip baits although ideally we catch some fresh ones out there.





I head back to work today but in two weeks when I get home the juvenile blacks should be back in Hervey bay which will kick off this marlin season. I was up there with the family over the weekend and it had me very itchy to be fishing. Coincidentally that’s where this thread started. Fingers crossed the weather cooperates at the beginning of oct and the currents have brought the fish down. The plan is a minimum of two three day trips to the bay in oct/nov and I’m looking for 30 marlin tagged out of those trips.

My goal is 100 billfish tagged this summer.

We will see how that fleshes out over the coming months won’t we.

Last edited by Coiloil37; 09-14-2021 at 09:04 PM.
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  #146  
Old 09-14-2021, 09:21 PM
Smoky buck Smoky buck is offline
 
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Was thinking you were locked away in Covid jail not allowed to go fishing lol

Keep posting I may not respond to the thread much because I am clueless about this style of fishing but enjoying the read/pics
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  #147  
Old 09-14-2021, 09:34 PM
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Coiloil37 Coiloil37 is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Smoky buck View Post
Was thinking you were locked away in Covid jail not allowed to go fishing lol

Keep posting I may not respond to the thread much because I am clueless about this style of fishing but enjoying the read/pics

I’ll keep posting. This thread is just as much for my benefit because it keeps a written record of the trips.

No Covid jail here either. There are a couple suburbs in the state we have to wear masks indoors until the 24th of this month but otherwise no restrictions and nothing really going on with Covid. Here’s our updated running total in Queensland as of today. Population 5.1 million.




Funny all the stupid questions friends and family have asked me lately about “what’s going on over there”? Honestly, nothing. Apparently the media over there has been spinning it another way though.


Rest assured, even in other states when they do have a “lockdown” of one description or another your still allowed to fish. It’s “essential”.
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  #148  
Old 09-14-2021, 10:02 PM
Smoky buck Smoky buck is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Coiloil37 View Post
I’ll keep posting. This thread is just as much for my benefit because it keeps a written record of the trips.

No Covid jail here either. There are a couple suburbs in the state we have to wear masks indoors until the 24th of this month but otherwise no restrictions and nothing really going on with Covid. Here’s our updated running total in Queensland as of today. Population 5.1 million.




Funny all the stupid questions friends and family have asked me lately about “what’s going on over there”? Honestly, nothing. Apparently the media over there has been spinning it another way though.


Rest assured, even in other states when they do have a “lockdown” of one description or another your still allowed to fish. It’s “essential”.
The media is definitely spinning things trying to make other countries look far more strict then they are. I have found every time I talk to those in other countries what they have to say doesn’t line up with the media

I like that fishing is deemed essential
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  #149  
Old 09-15-2021, 07:51 AM
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58thecat 58thecat is offline
 
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Fishing is essential just as this thread is.....keep it up....
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  #150  
Old 10-07-2021, 09:59 PM
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Coiloil37 Coiloil37 is offline
 
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Well this round of days off was meant to include a Hervey Bay trip. The day before I came home the cooks in camp changed out and the day cook is from Hervey Bay. He said the Merlin were not there yet.
Last Tuesday I went to the monthly Sunshine Coast game fishing club (SCGFC) meeting. There had been several boats fishing up in the bay and nobody had seen a marlin. To add insult to injury NOBODY in the club caught a marlin in September anywhere. Only one was caught in august and nothing caught in July either.

They did show the leader board and the champion boat under 7.5m had one billfish to his name back in August. So they announce he’s still the leader for September and here’s your check. I didn’t know they handed out checks but they do… and it’s $1000 a month to the lead boat which makes it worth winning cause that’s a months worth of fuel.
They also clued me into a junior tournament that I can put Nolan in for free and the juniors play all year with prizes and trophies up for grabs. So I enrolled Nolan into that one and he can play it simultaneously on a national level as we play within the SCGFC as both anglers and for the boat.

Then Rosi went for an overnight trip to Hervey Bay and came back yesterday. He didn’t see a billfish either so I’m going to wait until my next days off to go up there.

Porter and I do want to fish so we are going to head wide from here tomorrow to see what we find. Rumour has it the current is pushing 25+ deg water past us approx 40 miles out. (Another thing I want to point out once is I’m talking nautical miles. Not “miles”. So when I say 40 miles out I mean 74 km cause the conversion is 1.85km/nm). So we will head for the shelf and give it a try. Expectations are very low and the wind isn’t very good but it’s been to long without a good boat ride.

The good news is the gar are back in the canal and the kids and I have been putting them in the freezer as fast as we can. Based on last year I need about a thousand of them before they leave again. Last year they were here from October-December so I’ve got three months to make a years worth of bait.




I’ll throw an update tomorrow. Right now my beer is empty and I need to swim before I crack another one.


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