Goodbye duck!

TR by DC & Redwood

Trip Report - 16/06/13
Wind  - NNW, 15knots at times
Current - Quite Strong from the northwest
Participants - Redwood, DC

DC's TR

Arrived at MG at 5.30am, pitch black, didn't quite time it as well as I'd liked (sun up) Redwood arrived a little later, just before sun up, we surveyed the scene and made the call to go.  Redwood was heading to Hall's Reef on  a mission to catch a reef fish, I decided to tag along.

DC ready to go, Redwoods yak ahead quivering with anticipation

Paddle out through the breakers resulted in me getting a wet bum, typical....GPS & radio went on when I reached out the back and then we set off, it was a long and uneventful paddle into what seemed to be a strengthening NNW that took for ever, Redwood's Stealth was so much quicker than the Prowler as well.  For the first half of the journey Tim would stop and let me catch up but the last couple of Km's he headed off in search of Hall's Reef with me trailing in his wake a long way behind

We stopped on the Coordinates in the GPS but I couldn't locate any reef structure on the Sounder which was strange, The wind was strong out of the NNW so the drift back over Hall's was done from the North West drifting back to South East, thankfully the Drogue slowed the drift a little, we did this a couple of times.  Redwood picked up a Stingray and a Grinner or two.  Also had a school of baitfish cruise past but could see anything feeding on the except the birds.  Having no real luck we decided maybe Little Halls was the go...

We made our way back to Little Hall's (much easier paddle going with the wind) as Redwood knew those Coordinates were fair dinkum, we set up the drift as before, Redwood with bait & myself with a Zman, Redwood hooked up again...those Grinners were thick

After another few passes over the reef I told Redwood I was heading back to MG.  I stopped for a few minutes and watched a pod of Dolphins feeding about halfway back and then stumbled on another bait school, rods were safely stored in the hull so could only watch them pass underneath me.  I nearly flipped the yak in the wave zone caught by those sneaky one footers.

I was surprised when I got back to the beach how calm the ocean looked...think that wind was finally dying off...typical!

Home for lunch and then taking the Viking Fisherman 2 out in the Maroochy with the family...*edit* instead I spent the arvo fixing a leak in the mains water pipe feeding the house...very muddy

Addition by Redwood

As mentioned in DC's TR I was on a mission for some reef fish, I had to break that duck as this was getting ridiculous. The trip up to Halls was hard going into 15-20 knot winds. As I knew we'd have an easier time getting back I was happy to push on to Halls. Wayne from BCF had told me that Halls was the place to be and he had given me a few tips on rigs and baits, so I was very eager to get there. Alas! No structure to be found on DC's or my Halls coordinates. We made a call to go back and try our luck at Little Halls.

Once at LH's we set up our drifts. I was using squid baits and first cast hooked onto a grinner. Second cast I hooked something very large but it spat the hook not long after hooking up. LH’s doesn’t appear to be a big reef and it only took a few minutes to drift over it, so back and forth was the order of the day (see below GPS track of my drifts). I’m thinking a bigger drogue might be the go the next time. The bites kept coming and a few more grinner, a baby stingray and a keeper bream, I finally landed my first snapper! $@&# a duck! It was barely legal, but this puppy was going on the BBQ.

Mmm, duck!

My GSP log of drifts at Little Halls

By this time the wind had died completely and the water had glassed over and the sailboats and sun were out—beautiful. Now that the wind was gone, the drift direction changed from wind drift NW to SW to current drift SW to NW. I was getting good bites on the new drift line, but not hooking up until I got another barely legal snapper, which if I had my way was also going on the BBQ, but it had different ideas and wriggled free—bugger! Lip grips will be used next time.

Lovely day to be on the water. White specs at the headland are the sailboats.

It was now around 12.00 and all of a sudden, having had the bay to myself for quite a while, stinky’s started arriving on mass. One turkey decided to troll figures of 8 around me! Aren’t there rules like surfing for this kind of thing? That was my wave dude. The arrival of the stinky’s and my growling stomach meant it was time to head in even thought the fish were still biting.

The 2.4KM trip back was quite a strain as I think my muscles were suffering from the trip to Halls in the strong wind and the amount of paddling involved in setting up the drifts. Luckily the landing was a doddle, the channel was totally waveless –just want I needed.

BTW – the bay seems to be full of baitfish. I came across 3 or 4 big balls, but couldn’t see anything jumping out chasing them.