Fishing Reports Info

I took Ed out for a blue marlin social fish as there had been a few caught the day before and being Mother's Day, bookings were hard to come by. Ed is 87 years young and I got him hooked up to a blue I judged to be just under 100kg for about 5mins and a run of 300m or so. Unfortunately the hooks pulled out. That was it for the day. Getting ever closer to the first blue for the boat though.

I had four regulars along on this one but I don't think any of them had fished together previously. Garyth and Ryan were flexible but Greg and Paul couldn't do Sunday. As it transpired Saturday was a cracker weather wise and Sunday ended up a bit breezy.

The fishing was tough as per all the radio reports but we scratched around here and there and caught a few. The only people who did any good were those that overnighted and got a dawn or a dusk bite. At one stage we went to one of my seriola spots and had to share it with another boat but Ryan had a hook snap on a soft plastic to a good AJ and Paul got smashed up on jigs twice so they were there. That spooked them and it went quiet. It would have been good to lob there with some livies but being only my second trip out since being back on the water I had not found them yet.

Matt was back again, this time with his sister and Longy and Morgan once again. The fishing was tough and I was flat out finding any fish shows in usually good spots. We scratched up just a feed but no great numbers or any stand out fish. Matt was happy with his first genuine snapper even if it was squire size. Cas had fun with the usual tame dolphins. Just need a bit more time on the water to piece it all together.

Finishing touches to the boat today after two weeks on the hard stand. All sorts of niggly stuff fixed up and some new additions. It is now ready for the auto electricion to come back and wire up the survey standard TMQ-AP4 autopilot and put in the stereo. My wife can't wait for that. Here are some pics with the new dark navy transom, signwriting and prop speed on the prop, rudder and shaft. Thanks to Jim McKinnon from Aqua Mobile Marine for all the mechanical work including organising the repitching of the propellor and Adam Ashby the boat builder for most of the work, antifoul and painting. Craig Lynch of iSigns did the signage.

Brad and Jeff were back again along with Jeff's dad Frank who had missed a couple of trips and new guy Nick. We started off on the pigfish grounds. They were slow with only one legal making it's way into the esky from all the undersize pearlies we were pulling. We stopped and dropped our way along the main ridge of Caloundra Wide until pulling up at one of my favourite spots from last season. Along the way we picked up a couple of legal pearlies and a moses perch. Once here the quality improved and our first legal snappers hit the deck. Drifting and anchoring we finished the day off here with over twenty legal fish coming from this spot. Frank's snapper was the best but most of them were only 38-45cm. Still not too bad for my first serious day long bottom bashing session.