Wind: Light variable south east to south west to 5 knots
Swell: small easterly
Current: at Little and Big Halls, none
Launch point: Middle Groyne
Participants: Pedro,Tarzan,Kahuna,Baptism and Richmond
Conditions looked like they'd be too good not to take the day off today. All I needed was for the fish to play ball.
As usual, Pedro had already launched when I arrived at the car park about 4.30am. Baptism was asleep in his car and as I was setting up Tarzan arrived ready to go.
After the boats were set up, our launch was a breeze. There was a little bit of a wave but patience paid off and a dry bum launch was had by all I'd say.
Tarzan and I had decided to head for the close reefs to the north. I chose to go close to the beach whilst Eli chose a wider track. Didn't really matter which way we went as neither of us had a strike on the way out.
I had raised hopes as I saw a few Longtail bouncing out of the water just after I crossed over the bar, but that was it. Whilst we were trolling around Little Halls we met up with Baptism and Kahuna. Rob was obviously trying to emulate his feat from last week, no joy for Rob.
There was no bird activity like you'd want, there was the occasional Gannet dive bombing tiny bait, but no fish bustups. There was a heap of whale activity outside of the Halls Reef belt, I had them pretty close to me at one stage right near Little Halls Reef. A breaching whale is a great sight that's for sure.
I saw quite a few Dolphins, some big turtles feeding on the jelly blubbers, actually saw an Indo-Pacific Dolphin as described by Kev in one of his fairly recent reports.
But no fish!
Baptism and Tarzan left for Halls Reef and came back empty handed. I trolled Halls Reef with Tarzan for an hour or so for zero. I tell a lie actually, I looked around and saw my rod bouncing around but no line was being stripped from the reel. I then heard a bird squawking, a Gannet had decided it wanted my Laser pro.
After the gannet was released unharmed (thanks to running single hooks) I decided I'd had enough and headed for home. We all had the same idea as we pretty well hit the beach at the same time. Our landings were uneventful, just how we like it.
I tried to call Pedro a number of times, but couldn't get hold of him. I figured he went to Sunshine Reef with Noosa Headland blocking our transmission. I hope you did better than us Pete.
23k's for a bloody Gannet!
Sorry for the lack of photos in the report, but the whale was the only worthwhile subject I encountered.
I launched around 4am,not enough moonlight to avoid a soaking while punching through the waves.
ReplyDeleteSame result out at SR,I had 1 good hit on a live fusilier and a couple of throw back squire.otherwise didn't loose a bait.
There were small fish busting the surface all over SR,couldn't catch them to identify though.
The whales put a show on all morning,banging the yak with my hand seem to keep them at a comfortable distance(for me).
Cheers
Pedro
I got a couple of short runs but didnt seem to hook up.
ReplyDeletewhen I got home I checked my leader and it was totally frayed so a new one has been put on for the next encounter.
there were lots of jellyfish around and tiny baitfish were sticking close to the jellyfish for cover
I did see a couple of bait schools on the surface and below with some larger predators on their tail at about 10-15m of water.
couldnt tempt a bite though as they seem to be moving around quite quickly