Brucesta
22-03-2010, 11:14
Well as promised we went out for a day of chasing the GT's with the big popping gear. My mate Webby has been primed for a full on assault since i got my boat, we had one failed attempt due to my work Christmas party making me drive the porcelin bus all night but today there was no hangover and good weather all day, just ask Lear John :)
On the water by 8am with the incoming tide to fish untill 1pm and then the run off we started at Eaglehawk island again as the queenies are a good warm up and they didn't dissapoint with heaps of strikes and two fish landed but thi9s was not out target speices so on to NW Reef for a chuck, the signs where good with plenty of bait and some tide lines to work over but nothing so then off to spot three to Bare Rock. I pulled out a new $50 Weezel Polecat in black and within three casts BANG!!! i got nailed and a rookie mistake cost me my first big GT, i hadn't set my drag high enough and the boat was not in idle as i had just finished re-rigging after a workmate managed to put knots in my braid for the third time so i would have been lukcy to have 10kg's of drag for the fish and he hooked up close too so i was smoked by the G-Bus, out of the blue from around the point Lear John came past and just managed to miss me getting stuck into the fish but never mind.
Now we aren't using small gear here, our rods and reels are a little under gunned as we cannot afford or get past the minister of finance a proper $2500 GT combo so we make do with our carefully selected reels loaded with 80lb braid, our reels all have about 12-15kg of drag available and the rods are 15-24kg bluewater spin sticks which can struggle to cast the poppers but they do fine. short double of the braid tied to a wind on 2m twisted leader with 200lb+ breaking strain to a 300lb swivel to a 250lb split ring to the popper which is rigged with big Owner trebles with more 250lb split rigs so some serious hardware we are chucking around especially as most of the poppers are about $50 each.
we kept working around the archipelago from Bare Rock to a very fishy Roly Rock but no love, only a queenie on the troll when we left but we had high hopes for the last few destinations, first stop Kendrew Island, this is a known GT spot and we all got excited but we found more queenfish but i finally got some runs on the board when a GT smashed my popper near the rocks, i wasn't making the same mistake as it charged at the rocks full steam, then he turned for the deep blue and i got him in, he was about 12kgs and was quickly released.
Next few hours was a non event and we must have put 100's of casts into likely spots but nothing, it was getting late and we got to our final spot, i put a new popper on and first cast a big GT swiped the lure at the boat so spirits lifted again, i changed lures again as the one i had wasn't putting much action on the surface and 10 mins later i got nailed, the fish took off fast but it didn't feel like a GT and sure enough a 1m Spanish Mackerel made it's way into the boat, unhooked and just about ready to take a photo then Webby launches a cast into the tide lines and gets nailed BIG TIME, it was drop everything to the deck and get the boat out into the blue, we still don't think he knew he was hooked for a while but there were times where the fish couldn't take line and webby couldn't get it back but we won the battle and up came Webby's new PB G-Bus estimated at 23kg and measured 104cm to the fork.
We got the lure back after some surgury and revived the fish and he was sucessfully released, so beers all round and off home, the good day turned a little south when the rod holder with my TLD 20 in it snapped and hit me in the head, good news was the reel hit the deck and not in the drink but more beer fixed the headache.
Long story but it was a long day and good fun, but i'm sore now!! heres some pics
On the water by 8am with the incoming tide to fish untill 1pm and then the run off we started at Eaglehawk island again as the queenies are a good warm up and they didn't dissapoint with heaps of strikes and two fish landed but thi9s was not out target speices so on to NW Reef for a chuck, the signs where good with plenty of bait and some tide lines to work over but nothing so then off to spot three to Bare Rock. I pulled out a new $50 Weezel Polecat in black and within three casts BANG!!! i got nailed and a rookie mistake cost me my first big GT, i hadn't set my drag high enough and the boat was not in idle as i had just finished re-rigging after a workmate managed to put knots in my braid for the third time so i would have been lukcy to have 10kg's of drag for the fish and he hooked up close too so i was smoked by the G-Bus, out of the blue from around the point Lear John came past and just managed to miss me getting stuck into the fish but never mind.
Now we aren't using small gear here, our rods and reels are a little under gunned as we cannot afford or get past the minister of finance a proper $2500 GT combo so we make do with our carefully selected reels loaded with 80lb braid, our reels all have about 12-15kg of drag available and the rods are 15-24kg bluewater spin sticks which can struggle to cast the poppers but they do fine. short double of the braid tied to a wind on 2m twisted leader with 200lb+ breaking strain to a 300lb swivel to a 250lb split ring to the popper which is rigged with big Owner trebles with more 250lb split rigs so some serious hardware we are chucking around especially as most of the poppers are about $50 each.
we kept working around the archipelago from Bare Rock to a very fishy Roly Rock but no love, only a queenie on the troll when we left but we had high hopes for the last few destinations, first stop Kendrew Island, this is a known GT spot and we all got excited but we found more queenfish but i finally got some runs on the board when a GT smashed my popper near the rocks, i wasn't making the same mistake as it charged at the rocks full steam, then he turned for the deep blue and i got him in, he was about 12kgs and was quickly released.
Next few hours was a non event and we must have put 100's of casts into likely spots but nothing, it was getting late and we got to our final spot, i put a new popper on and first cast a big GT swiped the lure at the boat so spirits lifted again, i changed lures again as the one i had wasn't putting much action on the surface and 10 mins later i got nailed, the fish took off fast but it didn't feel like a GT and sure enough a 1m Spanish Mackerel made it's way into the boat, unhooked and just about ready to take a photo then Webby launches a cast into the tide lines and gets nailed BIG TIME, it was drop everything to the deck and get the boat out into the blue, we still don't think he knew he was hooked for a while but there were times where the fish couldn't take line and webby couldn't get it back but we won the battle and up came Webby's new PB G-Bus estimated at 23kg and measured 104cm to the fork.
We got the lure back after some surgury and revived the fish and he was sucessfully released, so beers all round and off home, the good day turned a little south when the rod holder with my TLD 20 in it snapped and hit me in the head, good news was the reel hit the deck and not in the drink but more beer fixed the headache.
Long story but it was a long day and good fun, but i'm sore now!! heres some pics