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Fly Fishing

Chasing Golden Trevalley on the Magnetic Island flats.

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Thursday 20 August 2009

Ozbee's Fishing Charters!

If you are a forum member you will know that the forums number 1 idol Ozbee offered to have a get together fishing trip out from Ayr to some of his world famous Nannygai holes. In the week leading up to last weekend the forum thread was alive with comments from people keen to go and people who wished they could go. Unfortunately I was one that couldn't go. So the following report is written by forum member ScottNthQld.

It was well the largest gathering of "Fishing Townsville Forum" members the world has ever seen with 2 boat loads heading out from Plantation creek at 6am. That means a departure from Townsville By about 4......we all met up at BP cluden before heading to Ozbee's joint where GBF had stayed the night with boat ready. All was going well, until that is we couldn't see 10m in front of us because of a thick soupy fog, a sure sign of good weather.

Once the gear was loaded and esky filled with rations of the amber kind we all piled into the vehicles and head off to the ramp where we met another boat "Dee Ben" a recently purchased Barcrusher 640C, the owner of this boat, Stef (Ozbee's bro in law) was keen as to head out and give his new toy a good run, this being the first opportunity to take it out to the reef proper.

Once all were in the water we make our way out and have a troll for some spanairds on the 12 mile shoals, no love their so the first spot is a quick run, and we get into some great trigger! yeah awesome :roll: Upon retrieval the first half decent fish is caught by yours truly and a Doggy we would be proud to catch in the channel is added to the bait pot. Nothing but trigger makes it self known so off we head for Morinda Shoals where the first trout are pulled for the trip, both Ronnie and I boating a good specimen each of a guesstimate weight of 5-6kg. Not long after I add a 3rd slightly smaller trout to the box. Things soon slowed and we were off again to meet up with GBF who had gone ahead to Broadhurst reef.

Fishing was tough, the usual high catch rates that are normally associated with Ozbee's fishing trips were failing us at this point, though enough interest was shown by the ooglies that they kept us well entertained, as well as the constant banter between the crew and the downing of several amber bevvies. Finding the fish was easy, finding the right fish that were hungry was proving the difficult part, though we did mange to add the odd trout to the box every now and then. We would troll, find a bit of structure with fish holding, stop trolling have a drop and a drift and move on, it wasn't long before we found a good patch of fish, but whilst others (me included) had hooked up on the coral and were re rigging, Adrian pulled in the first nanny for the trip, which also turned out to be the biggest at around 7-8kg at a guess:



We fish several other spots and slowly build up the esky, but we keep plodding along having way to much fun to worry about how good the fishing is.

Perhaps my most memorable part of the trip was me hooking up on a Spaniard on a drifted pilly, and fighting from the pod, I managed to lose my footing and go ass up, but being the all ass no class fisho I am, I still managed to hold onto the rod, keeping pressure on the fish and still get it in after scrambling back to my feet, AND manage to refrain from breaking anything in the process! Definitely my most embarrassing moment and my highlight at the same time. At this spot we also managed another trout and another Spaniard between us.

We start to move off to the red spot to setup for the evening and in the distance we see Spanish mackerel leaping 30 feet clear of the water chasing bait! Its the first time I've witnessed anything like it and it was truly a spectacular site to see. We tried to get the camera's out for a photo shoot, but they seem to know and disappeared every time we tried, so in went the lures fro a trolling session that ending with us boating another 5 Spaniards between us, all in the 8-10kg range:



After the mackerel fun we head off to the red hole, and bite to eat and setup for what surely was to become a hot bite of big reds. Unfortunately the hot bite never really came, with the current raging, and us somehow managing to drag anchor all night even though we had 2,yes that's right TWO anchors out! We stiall managed to catch several good fish to add to the box though ending up with 5 Red emperor and 4 more Nannies to add to the box. The first Red of the trip fell to Adrian once again:



We persisted for a while longer and soon enough I am hooked upto something HUGE! It was a no win battle for either fish or foe, with me gaining line back, only to lose it again, I was tiring but the fish tired first and after some tense moments some expletives were fired across the ocean, for as the fish revealed itself from the depths I was a dirt great big Chinaman, the biggest I had ever seen, let alone caught, easily a 15kg fish, to say I was disappointed would be saying the least, I was down right pissed off, I was totally spent, back aching, arms numb, hands locked up for what I felt at that moment was nothing, so much so, once I managed to get the hooks out I threw it back without even thinking of a photo, but I assure you, the one Mal's missus caught on his main pain would be nothing more than a snack for this beast. However, its at this point I will mention that my newly purchased outfit, A saltist 40H (high speed model) and my New T-curve Deep Jig 500 handled the job brilliantly and I couldn't be happier with how it performed. Soon aftert I managed to boat a nanny and a red before heading off into the cab for some sleep ready for when the tide stopped and current would be down at midnight. Well that didn;'t happen cos as soon as my head hit that pillow I was out like a light and didn;t awaken until about 3am. During my sleepy time, Ronnie (3-rats), Adrian (Eugah) and Ethan (Adrian's son) all managed to land big chinaman, so they all know how I feel in that respect.

The next morning we wake up to breakfast of a bit of chicken, some chocolate, lollies and beer (Breakfast of champions I tell you) and head off in search of more trout. Whilst sounding the area we were once again on the troll, picking up another 2 spanno's before dropping anchor on a likely looking bommie.

Bottom fishing was slow, with pickers rife, only small stuff being brought to the boat, but the box was still slowly being added to, with a couple more trout, tricky (redthroat emperor) and a couple of Long nose emperor (though I think these were caught the day before and I forgot to mention them earlier). GBF heads in early because he's starting to get low on fuel, even though Ozbee reminded him that he had an additional 60l on board if he needed it, speaking of which, I'm not sure how long he had to wait to get in because the water level was low in the creek and the tide was still falling....I'll be interested in how far they had to push for in some very croccy looking water.

We head towards Bowden reef, where we see trout boats and a few dories working the shallows, so we stay a bit deeper and still manage a few small trout for the box, Stef pulls up on a some good looking ground and gets onto a patch of small mouth nannies, we head over to join him, and can't buy a bite, it was even more frustrating to see another boat 50-100m away from us is getting into them too....talk about annoying. We tried everything a bit of burley to steal the fish from the other boats, a variety of baits, things juist weren't happening for us.

We persist with a few more spots, only to wait for the tide to come in before heading for home. Again a bit of excitement on the way in we spy 3 or 4 whale's at the 12 mile shoals splashing and carrying on, so ozbee guns it over handing me the video camera to get some footage. Well I tried to keep the camera on the whale's on the way over but only managed to get lots of good shots of the sky and dash as we bounced out way over, but I think I managed to get some good stuff once we got right up close. Soon though we had to boogie with a big cargo ship bearing down on us we make a beeline for home, Ozbee showing us some of the landscape along the way, though I was more interested in the miles and miles of good bottom with loads of fish holding (my guess is they were grunter), something I want to head down that way just to have a go at some very close shoal.

We get into the creek but still have to wait a good hour or more for more water to come in before making it back to the ramp, then it was back to ozbee's place, for clean up and we are on our way home. Our totals catch in the obligatory lawn of death shots: