Luring Cooktown |
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horrorhead
LureLovers.com Fanatic LureLover of the Year 2020 Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 14008 |
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An hour session with Wal and Shaun flicking lures off a rock wall near the wharf chasing mackerel. Wal had a huge hit that turned out to be a giant trevally around 80 cm long. He attributes the oversized surface hit to competing fish as he saw another buzzing around his hooked fish right next to the rocks - he got cut off as his hooked fish dove around one of these rocks.
10 minutes later as he was pulling his lure out of the water, he got hit by a 75 cm plus barramundi. This fish was green and leaping all over the place on a short piece of line. During one of these leaps Wal yanked the fish onto the rocks where it was pounced upon. A few photos then back into the water - closed season. |
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Martin-
you don't havta be pretty to fish |
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Chep Buxley
LureLovers.com Fanatic Joined: 19 May 2010 Location: Lake Dyer Status: Offline Points: 1202 |
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Great fish off the rocks! Love this post...….
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Fishalot
Senior Member Joined: 13 Jun 2013 Location: Tamborine Mtn Status: Offline Points: 108 |
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Great looking lure,as well as the Barra.
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hooknose
LureLovers.com Fanatic Joined: 16 Jul 2013 Location: emu park Status: Offline Points: 1408 |
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Smashing them Martin, get into it 😁👍
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MAN I LOVE FISHING ! ! !
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horrorhead
LureLovers.com Fanatic LureLover of the Year 2020 Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 14008 |
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Another go off those rocks this morning. I scored a 43 cm mangrove jack using a stick bait made by Billy Stringer's friend - Gary Ransom. I also was short hit by a huge spanish mackerel hard up against the rocks. There were big boils everywhere during this time but they were short lived. I'll have another crack at them tomorrow morning as I'm sure the source of the boils were from big GTs and spanish mackerel.
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Martin-
you don't havta be pretty to fish |
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hypnos
LureLovers.com Fanatic Joined: 20 Jul 2015 Location: bribie island Status: Offline Points: 1818 |
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nice fish H/H !! cheers bazz
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a wife & a steady job are a handicap to the serious fisherman !!
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Fysshe Salmon
LureLovers.com Fanatic Fysshe Lures Joined: 04 Jan 2011 Location: Taylors Beach Status: Offline Points: 2746 |
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Topwater Jacks are always good fun...
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Fysshe
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puglee62
Stall Holder Fugly Lures Joined: 03 Feb 2010 Location: ipswich Status: Online Points: 7937 |
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that Jack looks tasty,good stuff!
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that's no how ye make porridge!
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horrorhead
LureLovers.com Fanatic LureLover of the Year 2020 Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 14008 |
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Another flick session at the rocks again early this morning. I landed this 55 cm giant trevally with a 120 cm plus model following close behind it - but alas, that dude didn't return. Another brief hook up on a similar sized GT a little while later. But as I casted parallel to the rocks, I gave it some slack line as I hurried closer to it and it spat the lure out. I had 4 different barra short strike me closed to the rocks when using a stick bait, the biggest around 80 cm. If I had switched back to a diver lure, I could have hooked any or all of them. But as it's closed season, I let them be.
Some good news, the local IGA has chook AND duck lures back in stock In the afternoon, Wal and I had a session at Archer Point for very little sign of fish. I did however land this coconut |
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Martin-
you don't havta be pretty to fish |
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Kimo
Senior Member Joined: 04 Feb 2015 Location: Adelaide Status: Offline Points: 825 |
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Was that coconut on a Mark A Lure Martin??
I had heard that the market was going Nuts on them ! Is there any particular technique used in firstly acquiring the hook up and then landing it The reason I ask is that coconut is still more than I am catchin at the moment, gota get my A++ tail into gear Kimo |
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horrorhead
LureLovers.com Fanatic LureLover of the Year 2020 Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 14008 |
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HA HA Kimo, no the lure was one of Wal's Illusion Lures. And surprisingly, it did put up much of a fight at all Another morning flick off the rocks. The GTs were there but few and far between. Wal managed one a little bit smaller then mine of yesterday morning. We both had a couple of great hits but no solid hook up. At this spot, the half hour before dawn seems to be the prime time with very little afterwards. I tried about 5 different makers, Wal kept to his own lures. No signs of a spanish mackerel today. Haven't taken the boat out as the winds are still up and predicted to be the same for the next 5-6 days -I'll be on my way to Brisbane by then.
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Martin-
you don't havta be pretty to fish |
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horrorhead
LureLovers.com Fanatic LureLover of the Year 2020 Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 14008 |
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We flicked the rocks again yesterday evening for no result.
This morning I went back to the rocks and tried a variety of lures (my normal practice). I scored this 64 cm giant trvally on one of Wal's lures. Then everything went quiet. At this time of the year the herring disappear for a day or 2 a few times until one time, they do not re-appear until Jaune / July the next year. This morning was one of those herringless days so not much was going to happen. |
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Martin-
you don't havta be pretty to fish |
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MadDogLures
Stall Holder Mad Dog Lures Joined: 09 Oct 2015 Location: Sunshine Coast Status: Offline Points: 2719 |
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How's the boat going??
Cheers, Dave
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Life is fishing!
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horrorhead
LureLovers.com Fanatic LureLover of the Year 2020 Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 14008 |
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Boat is going great, love it. I could have taken the boat out today but I have a cancer treatment on my neck and it makes it very very sun and heat sensitive. Wal and I treid the rocks today. Our secret spot has been compromised- Scotch and Dry found us. Not that it is hidden as it is a well visited spot. Wal got hit by a metre plus mackerel that once again took to the air and jumped towards him. He could wind in the slack line fast enough and the fish spat the lure upon re-entry. That was our only hit but a few mangrove jack smashed through some small bait right up against the rocks.
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Martin-
you don't havta be pretty to fish |
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MadDogLures
Stall Holder Mad Dog Lures Joined: 09 Oct 2015 Location: Sunshine Coast Status: Offline Points: 2719 |
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That's great wookiee, Sounds like you are still smashing it and all the best with the skin cancer spot.
Cheers, Dave
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Life is fishing!
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horrorhead
LureLovers.com Fanatic LureLover of the Year 2020 Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 14008 |
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Dozens of spots Dave, but all good and under control
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Martin-
you don't havta be pretty to fish |
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horrorhead
LureLovers.com Fanatic LureLover of the Year 2020 Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 14008 |
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Tried again this morning and this evening back at the rocks for one 40 cm or so giant trevally. There were some big surface smashes this morning but they were all on the other side of the channel and too far out of my casting range. Both times today I had a couple of other minor skirmishes for no further hook up. Once again I tried a variety of lures with the "usual" lure doing the damage.
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Martin-
you don't havta be pretty to fish |
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horrorhead
LureLovers.com Fanatic LureLover of the Year 2020 Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 14008 |
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Tried again at the rocks this morning. The barra were still there smashing through little bait less then 2 cm long. Included in them was a very black little barra. Obviously came down from a very dark tannin stained waterway to breed. As they were hanging close to the rocks, when my lure got close to them I burned the last of the retrieve so they would try to hit it.
I got smashed by a big fish of some sort that "rolled" on top of the lure to hit it from the top missing all of the hooks. 10 minutes later I was followed by, obviously, a very big giant trevally that boiled behind the lure four times leaving holes in the water the size of a dinning table - still no hook up and the last of the action.
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Martin-
you don't havta be pretty to fish |
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horrorhead
LureLovers.com Fanatic LureLover of the Year 2020 Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 14008 |
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Had a flick around at the wharf mid morning and this afternoon - nothing happened on the luring scene. But to be fair the tides are $#!+. Low tide at 4 am at 0.87 metres, high tide at 11.50 am at 2.16 am. The next low tide is at 4.24 am tomorrow morning so very little run in the water. In fact the tides do not start coming good again until Tuesday next week.
Not really game to take the boat out despite the prediction of low winds on the two sites I use over the next few days. The problems are the predictions of thunderstorms, (don't want to be caught out there with lightning flashing around ) as well as the unpredictability of cyclone Owen. Just wait and see what happens I suppose. |
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Martin-
you don't havta be pretty to fish |
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Seaweed
LureLovers.com Fanatic née Capt.Seaweed Joined: 23 Jan 2011 Location: Darwin N.T. Status: Offline Points: 3124 |
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Take care HH, that cyclone could be heading back your way, should bring a nice bit of rain with it. I'm in Thailand until the NewYear, up north here winter is kicking in, nice reprieve from the Darwin build-up, where nights have been up to 29deg. lately.
Seaweed. |
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"Always Merry and Bright"
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horrorhead
LureLovers.com Fanatic LureLover of the Year 2020 Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 14008 |
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Martin-
you don't havta be pretty to fish |
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horrorhead
LureLovers.com Fanatic LureLover of the Year 2020 Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 14008 |
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So now I’m sitting on the rocks watching huge Barra swimming around and hearing huge boofs as they hit stuff on the surface. I was throwing lures around chasing the GTs as they are smashing stuff on the surface as well. I stopped fishing due to the high chance of hooking a barra and being closed season - well that would not be cool. What gets me are the mangrove jacks swimming around and I can’t put a small lure on to chase those as a barra hook up is even more likely.
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Martin-
you don't havta be pretty to fish |
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micknq
LureLovers.com Fanatic Joined: 28 Dec 2011 Location: Townsville Status: Offline Points: 2097 |
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I need to get up there in the new year, haven't made it that far north yet.
You are showing great restraint there mate. |
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hooknose
LureLovers.com Fanatic Joined: 16 Jul 2013 Location: emu park Status: Offline Points: 1408 |
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Go barbless Marty, get into em 😁😁👍
Cheers Steve R !!! |
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MAN I LOVE FISHING ! ! !
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horrorhead
LureLovers.com Fanatic LureLover of the Year 2020 Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 14008 |
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Back onto the rocks this morning and there was about 20 barra swimming around just 10 feet from me. The plan was to throw surface lures around on long casts to where the trevally were smashing bait off the surface and when the lure got too close to the rocks - burn the lure in. Well that worked - mostly, with barra chasing the lure inboofing behind it. But I did hook up to about a 70 cm barra and as I was unhooking it in the water (no photos), big trevally were smashing bait in front of me - until I got the hook out.
This barra took up an ambush station by this rock as this was where I often reefed the lure out of the water. A little trevally as a consolation prize As the weather reports stated that the cyclone wasn't going to affect us until Friday night, and the winds were supposed to be light, myself and a friend took the boat out. We got to a little coastal reef where I trolled up two little stripeys on the HJK lure. As we were about to hit the major part of another reef,the wind blew up, it poured with rain and more was coming from the north. We decided to troll back home going with the wind. Mike had his Illusion Lure - Jewel, hit a couple of times for no hook up. The bigger of the two stripeys. Still legal size but it went back. These are a close relative to the mangrove jacks and are often sold in fish shops as a generic "reef fish". It seems that today was the last opportunity to fish out wide this side of Christmas due to the cyclone and a wedding I'm going to just before Christmas in Port Douglas.
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Martin-
you don't havta be pretty to fish |
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horrorhead
LureLovers.com Fanatic LureLover of the Year 2020 Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 14008 |
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Back on the rocks again this morning and scored this little 54 cm giant trevally.
I witnessed a mullet about 40 cm getting chased right on the edge of the rocks. It took a leap and landed on top of a rock about a metre from the water's edge, it then slipped between the rocks out of site but back into the water. Though out the morning I could hear fish splashing around the water beneath the rocks I was standing on. An eruption of water and a long cast saw me hooked up to a car bonnet sized giant trevally. Using 15 kilo line and a heavy drag, it just peeled metre after metre of line off. I screwed the drag up tighter once I only had about 20 metres of line left, the other 230 metres of line at this stage was the fishes. I didn't know if I was going to run out of line first, or get wrapped around one of the channel marker bouys. Then everything went slack and my initial thought was that my knot onto the wire trace had failed. But as I wound the line in, I could feel a little bit of drag. I still had my wire trace on, and a very distorted (supposedly) 50 kilo rated lure snap. That was the end of the action. But I did observe a 50 cm plus mangrove jack swimming within arms reach - oh, and a heap of barra as well. What's the bet that 2 days before open season, those barra will disappear
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Martin-
you don't havta be pretty to fish |
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horrorhead
LureLovers.com Fanatic LureLover of the Year 2020 Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 14008 |
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Back onto the rocks this morning with a beefed up trace, clip and a bigger lure. I thought the bigger lure wouldn't be as attractive to the smaller GTs giving the bigger ones a go. Well a 44 cm and a 56 cm GT came up on the rocks. But at least it deterred the smaller barra as I saw barra up to 80 cm come up for a look then turn away.
Later in the day I was sussing out the old bridge on the Annan River seeing how little of a run of freshwater came down from our recent non rain / cyclone event. I saw bait being smashed up close to a snag. I had a few cast towards it - and snagged my HJK Lure. A break off and it floated up so a quick tie on with another lure and some casting retrieved the errant lure. |
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Martin-
you don't havta be pretty to fish |
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horrorhead
LureLovers.com Fanatic LureLover of the Year 2020 Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 14008 |
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Only a little 35 cm giant trevally this morning.
On a strange note, there are still quite a few herring schools around. Normally the have disappeared by November. Also this year the yakkas and pike schools are larger and the schools of baby hardiheads are larger and have turned up already. In February this year when the hardiheads turned up the rat barra and mangrove jacks turned on and smashed through these schools on the half tide. Tomorrow looks like a great day out on the water and a 5 am start is planned. Today was supposed to have been 37 degrees celcius, but where I was it was 44 degrees. Tomorrow is the same forecast at 37 degrees, I hope it's that on the water.
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Martin-
you don't havta be pretty to fish |
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scotch&dry
Senior Member Joined: 03 Dec 2015 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 185 |
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be careful out there Martin in this extreme heat mate you can get heat stroke so
easily if you keep up your fluids |
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Ed.McC
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horrorhead
LureLovers.com Fanatic LureLover of the Year 2020 Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 14008 |
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Did those photos tell the story? Alas, John Ducks had the stuffing knocked out of him by that 103 cm GT.
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Martin-
you don't havta be pretty to fish |
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Ducks
LureLovers.com Fanatic Joined: 24 Feb 2012 Location: Point Clare Status: Offline Points: 2139 |
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I expect royalties when you start marketing my likeness
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horrorhead
LureLovers.com Fanatic LureLover of the Year 2020 Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 14008 |
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Along with that GT on the previous post, I had a fun day. Second cast after exploring some new ground and I scored a 60 cm coral trout. I then proceeded to score red throat emperor one after the other-all undersized - all on one of Wal's lures. Then the breeze dropped out and a bit of heat stroke despite the ice water that was going down the throat fast. That hat I was wearing protects my neck from the sun, but holds in the heat. I poured some of the ice water over my head, then dipped the hat into the water. When the heat stroke started to return, we went for a troll for the air flow over me. That with wetting the hat worked well.
After the troll (no result) the tide had bottomed out and we headed to my GT spot - where John Ducks got monstered. Mike scored his only fish for the day, an undersized red throat on one of Wal's lures. Then I was smashed by a 70 cm GT and a larger one easily over a metre tried to take it from it's mouth leaving a bite in it's side. Nothing else happened until close to home where I had missed a hook up by a large queenfish and dropped an approx. 60 cm milk fish beside the boat, still using Wal's lures. Wal wasn't with us today but I've arranged to pick him up early in the morning for another bash. If the weather reports holds true, we'll be going further afield trying new ground. I'll be taking even more ice and ice water and a different hat to help combat the heat tomorrow. My 60 cm coral trout Mike's little red throat My 70 cm giant trevally Now Mike is a good sport and laughed when I stated "we both had a good day, me catching fish and you photographing them". I just better be careful fishing next to him on the wharf again
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Martin-
you don't havta be pretty to fish |
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horrorhead
LureLovers.com Fanatic LureLover of the Year 2020 Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 14008 |
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No likeness there Ducks, that lure has more hair on it's head then both of us put together
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Martin-
you don't havta be pretty to fish |
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horrorhead
LureLovers.com Fanatic LureLover of the Year 2020 Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Location: Cooktown qld Status: Offline Points: 14008 |
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Went out this morning with Wal. What a slow day. By 1 pm I had boated a small barracuda, a large barracuda and a small red throat. Wal and I both had a few short strikes off reef fish. We trolled back to my GT spot and we saw a big giant trvally free swimming, totally uninterested in the lures. Wal got smashed by a mega sized GT that didn't hook up and we we both smashed by smaller GTs at about 80 cm for no hook up.
We can't understand why it was such a dismal day as the tides were better with more run in them. The usual current lines behind Egret Reef didn't form and the mackerel and tuna generally patrol these lines. The bigger barracuda on one of Wal's lures. |
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Martin-
you don't havta be pretty to fish |
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Tony
Admin Admin Joined: 09 Nov 2009 Location: Hervey Bay, QLD Status: Offline Points: 6012 |
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Nice work Martin - love the Geet on the John Duck Stay cool! |
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Cheers, Tony
For the love of Fishing Lures. |
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