The Trip A Long Time Coming - AUSTRALIA (May 2016)

Well this trip had been a long time coming for me. It hadn’t just been between seasons but literally one whole year between shark trips! As you can expect I was pretty excited, especially due to the quality of sharks that the other members on this trip have been catching lately.
So to kick off the trip I headed off from Brisbane to Hervey Bay on Friday afternoon. A few hours later I arrive, we pack the 4WD and we’re all ready for the early start the next morning.

4WD all packed and ready to go

The 4am alarm sounds and we are up and off. We pick up a mate Corey on the way through and arrive for the 6am barge with plenty of time. A 45 minute trip over on the barge and we are on the beautiful Fraser Island.

Barge trip over to Fraser Island

Brett (Rogue Hooker) the driver is a local to Hervey Bay and does go over to the island pretty frequently but hadn’t been over in a 4WD for a couple of years. Without going into it too far we did get to see some amazing scenery while we got a little lost.

Stretching our legs after a few wrong turns

We eventually got to the area we wanted to fish. It was blowing up to 30 knots this weekend, so we had a limited area that we could keep sheltered. After a few runs up and down the beach we found a great spot to set up camp while some baits defrosted. We had a large range of baits from eel, catfish, rays, tuna and spanish mackerel. Disappointingly no fresh tuna baits, which had been going so well with Brett and Corey’s recent trips.
After camp and rods were set up, baits were deployed about mid arvo. We were lucky enough to be fishing in a sheltered area with literally no current. All our baits held their position without any weight and the lightest pre-set drags. This was a first for me.
It wasn’t until just before dark that the first rod went off. This was Brett’s rod with a whole mac tuna. This was one of the slowest runs I had ever witnessed and we were calling for a big tiger. Sadly it wasn’t to be, it was only a very lazy small lemon. We didn’t bother measuring him but we guessed around that 7’ mark.

Brett hooked up

Brett and I holding his lemon

Brett releasing his lemon

It wasn’t too much longer and my rod goes off on a nice steady run with a large half ray bait. I feel full weight when I attempt to set the hook but it then loosens off. I can feel that the bait is still there but the shark was gone. Annoyingly enough this same shark run and hook attempt occurred about half a dozen times until around midnight when the hooks finally set home and I was hooked up. The weight was solid but the drag barely clicked over a few times in the whole fight. Not long and I had a 9’ pigeye whaler on the sand.

Me and my pigeye whaler

Me releasing my pigeye whaler

After this we all went back to bed to wait for the last rod loaded with a tail section of spanish mackerel to go off. We didn’t have to wait too long but sadly the hookup was missed and the bait was lost.

The next morning I redeployed my half ray. It had some decent teeth marks in it but was still a pretty solid bait. Brett deployed the front half of the spanish and Corey put out a couple of catfish strapped together.

An hour or so went by and my rod goes off on a slow but short run. The shark dropped the bait and didn’t come back. None of the other baits had gone off for a while and due to the fact we were very low on baits this trip we pulled in the rods and went for a short drive to a nearby creek to see if we could collect a few rays. After a few hours of not spotting a single ray we were almost at the point of giving in when we spotted a few in the beach shallows outside the mouth of the creek. After a lot of failed attempts Brett whipped out some fluky skills and managed to hand spear one as well as jagging another with a rod. With a couple of fresh baits collected we headed back to camp to deploy them for the evening. Brett and Corey put out a fresh ray each, while I put out an eel bait on one of mine and a whole mac tuna on the other. I have to apologies for the lack of bait pics, I don’t think we took any this trip.

A couple of hours later my eel bait goes off but the shark doesn’t fully commit to the bait. I bring it in to inspect the damage, give the cable ties a bit of a tighten up and re-deploy it on my first ever night drop. It was pretty easy in the perfect conditions.
About 9pm Corey’s fresh ray goes off. The hook set was tried but as soon as the rod loaded up the line went slack. Closer inspection showed that the line had been sliced up and a good 100 yards of line was lost. A new trace was quickly rigged up and the untouched front end of the spanish mackerel from earlier today was dropped out.

It was this rod that went off again next. A steady run and a solid hook set was made. No drag was pulled but there was a decent weight. After a short fight Corey had a PB 9’4” lemon on the beach.

Corey hooked up to his lemon

Getting a measure on Corey’s lemon

Corey’s lemon

The rest of the night was pretty quiet with one take on my rod but setting the hooks resulted in me snapping a 24/0 circle! I wound in only the top hook holding the head of the tuna. The rest of the tuna was gone along with the curve of my bottom hook.

My broken hook

The next morning I got up early and deployed two new baits. It wasn’t too long before one got picked up. I let it have a heap of line before setting the hook with a running man. I came up really solid but no run. At this stage everyone else is still in bed. I give them all a rude awakening to come and give me a hand. The shark seems to be pretty heavy but doesn’t take much line if any really. I’m calling for an 8ft lemon or something but as I see this dark shadow making its way into the shallows I start to wonder what it is. Brett jumps in for a quick dip to wake him up and it’s about then when the shark is ready to be leadered. I hear Brett yell out “it’s not a bad shark man”…………“actually man it’s a pretty solid shark!” After a little resistance Brett beaches the shark and I un-harness and run down to help. I am pretty shocked at what I see. This is clearly my PB shark by a long way. She taped out at 12’ but disappointingly fought like she was only 7’! A few photos, a tag and off she went.

Me and my whaler

Me taking a ride on my whaler

I had one last rod out that I’d only recently deployed. Brett paddled out the last bait in the esky to soak for the last couple of hours while we had breakfast and packed up camp.

Within an hour or so my rod started off on a nice steady run. I gave it plenty of line and set the hook. I get a solid amount of weight and a few turns of drag come off the reel then POP! The uni-uni knot I had to tie the night before (due to a line cut) had let go. I very rarely have any issues with knots letting go, so I was pretty dirty about it, especially seeing as it was a decent enough shark to pull drag.

After this we finished packing up camp and eventually headed off. I won’t bore you with all the details but it was a long trip home for me. To kick it off we had a flat battery, got jump started, missed our first barge, re-booked the barge, missed our second barge due to rescuing 3 stranded damsels in distress, re-booked to the last barge, found out we didn’t actually book last barge as it was already booked out and then finally were luckily enough to get squeezed on to the last barge and we made it back to the mainland. After a quick feed and packing my car, I was off for the 3.5 hour drive home, which I didn’t get me back home until 2am.
Good trip as they always are with lots of good memories.