Brucesta
17-06-2010, 12:17
The gods shined upon me yesterday due to my efforts for working the weekend just gone i had two days off in the middle of the week and some fuel to get rid of in the boat.
Firstly the weather gods had shone down upon us and greeted us a day of easterly winds no more than 15 knots and 0.2m of seas, so we headed west to Eaglehawk island at the tip of the Dampier Archipelago. We packed just about everything we owned between myself and Tobi and went out with 5 ideas all weather dependant.
I have been waiting for a good day to find some new ground to the SW of Dampier for some reef fish but it was going to require a perfect day, second was to troll up some Coral Trout for the freezer, Third get hold of some squid, fourth was pop for Queenies and GT's and fifth was to play around with SP's in the reefs and bait fish the shallows.
Plan one went out the window as it was getting worse and i didn't want to have to bash back into a stiff NE wind. We went for plan two. Tobi didn't beleive me that you could land nice trout in 4-5m of water, only took 20 mins to prove her wrong. we made 2 passes with one hookup to a nice spanish flag but we sent him back, good size too at 45cm but not our target, 5 mins later my 3.5m RMG Scorpion 160 got chomped and the Tyranos made that sweet sound, the great thing about trout is as soon as you get them 1.5m off the bottom they won't generally dive back down to the nasty stuff so it's heart in mouth for 30 seconds then it's just play it inot the boat. Just as we stopped Tobi also hooked up so it was double trouble with Trout!! Got both in and mine went 57cm and Tobi's was undersize at 37cm. 10 mins later over a deeper patch of water and another strike with a 48cm trout in the eski.
It was looking good for us to get our limit for the day of Trout but the bite shut down as the tide slowed and the wind swung into our little bay so we ducked around to the southern side of the island to hide and keep trolling along. No further fish but not to mind it was time for plan 3 get into the squid!! The wind was giving us a great drift speed meaning we had little work to do with the jigs except move them up and down. They were on the chew for sure with plenty of little ones the size of the jigs attacking the lure so we let plenty go but with 4 drifts over 2 hours down we bagged out on 30 squid, we got a few really big ones but most were your average 15-20cm tubes so good eating size, we'll be back there in 6 weeks to get those little ones as they get bigger.
The wind dropped and it was 3pm, the tide was running so we headed to Queenie corner. This little gem is a place we frequent either for some fun or a warm up for GT's when we chase them all day. We had 4m of movement over 6 hours so there was plenty of water draining from Mermaid Strait into the open ocean and it funnels through this channel of about 1km width and past the NW corner of Eaglehawk Island. The tide lines where there so with 2 casts so where the queenfish. We didn't hook up as it is quite hard to work the popper through the chop so if you didn't time it right you'd pull hand to bloop it and it'd skim across the water for 8 metres and lose any interest from fish. If you got it right they exploded behind the lure with gusto. We had one hookup very briefly but we didn't care it was a bit of fun for the end of the day.
The water had glassed off and the big Etec was opened up to 5000rpm for the trip home, 25 mins later and we where back safe and sound with a great feed of seafood for the two families and most importantly we stayed dry for once :) i'll upload a pic of the big trout tonight off my iphone. Next trip it's Sailfish again :)
Firstly the weather gods had shone down upon us and greeted us a day of easterly winds no more than 15 knots and 0.2m of seas, so we headed west to Eaglehawk island at the tip of the Dampier Archipelago. We packed just about everything we owned between myself and Tobi and went out with 5 ideas all weather dependant.
I have been waiting for a good day to find some new ground to the SW of Dampier for some reef fish but it was going to require a perfect day, second was to troll up some Coral Trout for the freezer, Third get hold of some squid, fourth was pop for Queenies and GT's and fifth was to play around with SP's in the reefs and bait fish the shallows.
Plan one went out the window as it was getting worse and i didn't want to have to bash back into a stiff NE wind. We went for plan two. Tobi didn't beleive me that you could land nice trout in 4-5m of water, only took 20 mins to prove her wrong. we made 2 passes with one hookup to a nice spanish flag but we sent him back, good size too at 45cm but not our target, 5 mins later my 3.5m RMG Scorpion 160 got chomped and the Tyranos made that sweet sound, the great thing about trout is as soon as you get them 1.5m off the bottom they won't generally dive back down to the nasty stuff so it's heart in mouth for 30 seconds then it's just play it inot the boat. Just as we stopped Tobi also hooked up so it was double trouble with Trout!! Got both in and mine went 57cm and Tobi's was undersize at 37cm. 10 mins later over a deeper patch of water and another strike with a 48cm trout in the eski.
It was looking good for us to get our limit for the day of Trout but the bite shut down as the tide slowed and the wind swung into our little bay so we ducked around to the southern side of the island to hide and keep trolling along. No further fish but not to mind it was time for plan 3 get into the squid!! The wind was giving us a great drift speed meaning we had little work to do with the jigs except move them up and down. They were on the chew for sure with plenty of little ones the size of the jigs attacking the lure so we let plenty go but with 4 drifts over 2 hours down we bagged out on 30 squid, we got a few really big ones but most were your average 15-20cm tubes so good eating size, we'll be back there in 6 weeks to get those little ones as they get bigger.
The wind dropped and it was 3pm, the tide was running so we headed to Queenie corner. This little gem is a place we frequent either for some fun or a warm up for GT's when we chase them all day. We had 4m of movement over 6 hours so there was plenty of water draining from Mermaid Strait into the open ocean and it funnels through this channel of about 1km width and past the NW corner of Eaglehawk Island. The tide lines where there so with 2 casts so where the queenfish. We didn't hook up as it is quite hard to work the popper through the chop so if you didn't time it right you'd pull hand to bloop it and it'd skim across the water for 8 metres and lose any interest from fish. If you got it right they exploded behind the lure with gusto. We had one hookup very briefly but we didn't care it was a bit of fun for the end of the day.
The water had glassed off and the big Etec was opened up to 5000rpm for the trip home, 25 mins later and we where back safe and sound with a great feed of seafood for the two families and most importantly we stayed dry for once :) i'll upload a pic of the big trout tonight off my iphone. Next trip it's Sailfish again :)