Trip of a lifetime (until I go again)

Queensland Fishing Reports
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GTSHoon
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Trip of a lifetime (until I go again)

Post by GTSHoon » Sun Jun 28, 2015 9:37 pm

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Going to break this down day by day as there is a lot to get through!
So first up is the build up and the first day we landed!
Where do I even begin with this?
I was lucky enough to be given the options by my parents last September to either have a party for my 18th Birthday or to take $1500 each for my Dad and I to go on a fishing trip somewhere, my decision was made as soon as she’d uttered the offer, and so Dad and I began to narrow down a location, this was not easy as there was so many different places we could go, from saving the money and going on a few charter’s over the year, and if not where to go?
About 2 weeks later an article was written in Modern Fishing advertising a place you can stay and hire boats in New Mapoon/Bamaga/Seisia (the very tip of Cape York.) At first we wrote it off as we thought it would’ve been a long, long way out of our price range, how wrong we were. After a day of deliberation we made the call to get a quote anyway and we were shocked, it worked out at $130 a night for 4 people and then $360 a day for boat hire of either 1X18ft Cairns Craft or 2X14 footers, flights were also included and it ended up costing a little over $1250pp for the 4 of us who went! The decision then came to who I was going to invite, this was a tricky one as I could wither go with some friends or with family. I eventually came to the decision that I was going to ask my Uncles Don and Craig. This proved to be a good choice as they were trustworthy on the boats and didn’t get overly rowdy, unlike if I had of invited a stack of 18 year olds! So this then lead to a careful preparation of gear, this culminated in a mass expenditure of about $1200 on tackle including 2 new rods, 1 new reel, lots of line and god knows how many lures!

Finally after what felt like an age and lots of good advice from our very own Trigzz, Pat (Broomstick) and Glenn from hooked on Bait and Tackle we were on our way, a 6:30am flight from Melbourne to Cairns then a 3 and a half hour stop over at Cairns
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and we were in our noble chariot heading towards Bamaga, a tiny town near the very tip of Australia, 1000km’s North of Cairns
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A bit of a drive
Upon landing at 4pm it was 28 degrees and 80% humidity, what more could you ask for? Perhaps a wharf with this underneath it permanently
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Constant Bait Schools

and catches like this taken off it quite regularly
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A guy we mets GT
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Went down for a quick flick, no luck but did see a free jumping Spanish mackerel and a follow from a 30ish cm Flatty (Can’t even get rid of them up there)
After this we headed off to our accommodation to say it was basic is an understatement but really it’s all you need, it even has an aircon, a TV and a pool! So it’s utterly perfect
So after a quick dinner of Hamburgers
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Dinner
we headed off to bed extremely exited for the coming days!
Keep your eye out for further installments
Cam :thumbsup:
Last edited by GTSHoon on Mon Jun 29, 2015 12:16 am, edited 3 times in total.
The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad
The gods do not deduct from man's allotted span the hours spent in fishing

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GTSHoon
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Re: Trip of a lifetime (until I go again)

Post by GTSHoon » Sun Jun 28, 2015 9:37 pm

Waking at 6am the next morning we were advised to take one of the 18ft’s
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The 18ft beast

and head over to a spot called Mutee Head, a rocky headland a 40min boat run from the wharf, so after stocking up on livies caught at the pier (cast nets are so easy) we were on our way out, the weather was smooth as and the ride out was comfy, up there its doesn’t blow a breath of wind until at least 10am so morning fishing is like heaven. After pulling up we found a spot where the water dropped from a depth of 8m down to 15m and decided it was going to be our first drop of the day. With the anchor in we simply nose pinned a livie and dropped it down, as soon as it hit the bottom my uncle Craig’s livie got smashed before being spat back out. We were left wondering what we had gotten ourselves into, next drop my Dad hooked up, to a tiny cod thing the same size as the bait that threw the hook boat side. Then almost instantaneously my other uncle Don hooked into something slightly bigger that actually fought a little, and managed to land this little guy
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First Fish
pretty damn cute, as soon as he went back my rod went off and I was in to my first ever fish in Cape York! Turned out to be this cute little guy
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Weird Fella
this continued for a fair while with a few different species being landed including this thing
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Le **** FIsh
we called it a **** fish because as soon as it came out of the water it would just crap mud and shrimp everywhere, and it smelt terrible! But they fought damn hard so we weren’t to upset. Eventually Dad started getting annoyed cause he didn’t land much so I gave him my nitro and I went to be deck hand, as soon as I did this we hooked our first “unstoppable” these are fish which just go and go and go, whatever this was wasn’t overly heavy but as soon as we got it turned it would just run again until it eventually ran us straight into some reef, this was our first inkling as to what it is like up there for 3 hours it was a fish a drop with stacks of little ones and the occasional big run and then dropping of the bait, or rub offs. Then Don hooked something different, it fought weirdly and didn’t seem very big until he got it boat side and uttered words that will forever be etched in my brain, “Uhhh I think I have a cobia” At this stage I dropped my rod in a holder with trevally still attached and raced over to his side of the boat and pulled the fish up.
It was at this moment I realised what had actually happened, somehow he had hooked a remora that decided his whole squid was a tasty bait, however it did give us a massive jump start and was a seriously pretty fish
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leaving this I went back over to my rod and pulled in yet another Trevally, a bit bigger this time so he went in the esky for dinner
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Nom Nom's
After this the bite slowed, with a fish landed every 10 mins or so, and we couldn’t figure out why until I had a shark follow up a small queenie, my first ever
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The little queenie

and this wasn’t just any shark, it was easily the biggest I’ve seen, a weird sort of grey/brown colour with a head at least a metre across, he would’ve been at least 5m long and was a sight to behold, after a moment of looking around he flicked his tail and swam back into the depths, this was our first encounter with the “tax collector” as the locals call them and was a truly awe inspiring experience. With this it was about 3pm and we were now fairly sunburnt as who remembers sun cream during a hot bite? So we headed back in and found a coconut that we decided looked like a nice way to cool down.
That night we spent relaxing around the accommodation
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Kitchen
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Sleeping, pretty much in the kitchen
with the owner and our new mate Chris (the guy with the GT) bloody expensive though. A 10 pack of Canadian Club and Dry is $55 each, crazy money, but up there it’s expected with fuel prices at $1.88 for ULP and $1.95 for diesel.
Eventually we crawled into bed dreaming about the unstoppable monsters we witnessed and wondering what was going to happen in the following days?
Last edited by GTSHoon on Sun Jun 28, 2015 10:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad
The gods do not deduct from man's allotted span the hours spent in fishing

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GTSHoon
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Re: Trip of a lifetime (until I go again)

Post by GTSHoon » Sun Jun 28, 2015 9:38 pm

Day two of fishing was totally different to the first, we decided we might as well head back to the same spot (well the old guys did I wanted to troll around the mouth of the Jardine River) and to say it was slow is an understatement, we caught a few small trevally and the like but nothing like what we experienced day 1. However we did have our second run in with a shark, this time my dad hooked one on my nitro viper (a 6-8kg rod suited to mid-sized kings) this was a big boy, a bull shark probably 9ft long and easily 150kg’s. It came quietly for a while when we still didn’t know what it was before taking off in a big way, by the time I pulled anchor and turned to chase it the spool was visible on my Caldia which means at least 250yd of line had been taken before it jumped clean out of the water and in a big way, was a sight to behold, it then landed back on the braid and obviously cut straight through the 30lb mainline I run on the combo, this was about all there was to talk about from that day so instead I will add a few of the cool pics we took.
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Rocky headland
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Forest meets the sea
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Just me rigging up another lure
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These were everywhere
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Tree's don't adhere to normal rules up there
Highlight was probably stopping at this cool beach and just having a relax and a quick cast and then the subsequent dinner at a place called Loyalty Beach, a near by caravan park which has a $14 fish and chips, and by god it’s the best you’ll ever have! ANd it's in a beautiful setting to
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Loyalty fish and chips
After a good meal we decided to shake it up the next day and head into the infamous Jacky Jacky Creek system and try and snag a barra or two
Last edited by GTSHoon on Sun Jun 28, 2015 10:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad
The gods do not deduct from man's allotted span the hours spent in fishing

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GTSHoon
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Re: Trip of a lifetime (until I go again)

Post by GTSHoon » Sun Jun 28, 2015 9:39 pm

By far and away our slowest day of fishing (expected as it was fresh water in a massive system) but also one of the most amazing places I have ever experienced which more than made up for it, to say it was spectacular is an understatement, it is a sprawling web of tributaries feeding the Jacky Jacky “Creek”, this creek is at least 10 times wider than the Golbourn near Eildon and is truly enormous, apparently at least 4 people a year die because they get lost in the place and boy, oh boy do I believe it, there are creek mouths everywhere and getting lost is extremely easy if you don’t have a GPS, which we had thank god.
Up nice and early we picked up the two 14 footers they supply
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The little beasts
and our cray pots and drove down to the boat ramp, after launching we motored over to a “little creek” Bully suggested (when I say little creek I mean a tributary the size of the Yarra River) and dropped the pots with a couple of old Barra frames in them, with this done we powered up the river until we came to a creek he suggested for fishing. As soon as we entered it started bucketing rain out of nowhere, this deluge lasted about 5 mins but was enough to wash off our insect repellent and to soak us through. Just as the rain ended, there was a commotion under a snag and just as quickly I had fired a cast into it with on of my ever faithful Jackall Chubbies (this one a pink deep diver) on my light outfit and came up solid to something, at first we thought it was a Jack but eventually we boated this
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The weird looking bream
a Pikey bream and what can I say but how sick is this thing, about 35cm long and fight a lot harder than any black bream Ive hooked, plus they have huge teeth that I wouldn’t like to get bitten by that is for sure.
After a brief pic we were back under way and super keen for our next fish, but we had to wait….. and wait….. until we came back to see my uncle who had managed to pull the first barra (which of course we weren’t there for Bangg ) so off we went again into the main river this time to try something different. By this time I switched to heavy outfit and proceeded to throw around a gold strada, until I lost it to the great Jacky Jacky snag gods. There must be $1000’s of lures in that joint due to how snaggy it is when the wisdom of the great broomstick rung in my ears, “I always use Jackall Transams, they're all you need!" so on went my one and only whitish/silver transam and first cast it was smacked on the drop, as soon as it hit I knew what I had and the jump just reinforced my belief, I finally had hooked my first barra! Jeez do they fight well and they are a seriously beautiful fish, after a short but hard fight I had him, what a moment, something I had dreamed about since I was a kid and it was everything I could’ve hoped for
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BARRA!!!!!
This signalled our time fishing in the creek was coming to an end as more rain clouds were gathering so off to the pots we went, both of my uncles pots came back untouched, as did mine so all the responsibility was resting on my dad’s shoulders, and he did not disappoint pulling in this monster of a crab
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Let me go yee bastards
who went on to become dinner
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Yes, That is a 1.25L coke bottle
with my uncles Fingermark he caught at some stage through the day
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Tasty
It was a fantastic night and what a way to cap off one of my most memorable catches ever!
Last edited by GTSHoon on Sun Jun 28, 2015 11:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad
The gods do not deduct from man's allotted span the hours spent in fishing

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GTSHoon
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Re: Trip of a lifetime (until I go again)

Post by GTSHoon » Sun Jun 28, 2015 9:39 pm

Waking up on the final day was terrible as we knew we hadn’t landed any decent fish yet and that we had to leave the next morning so we were up and on the water before sun-up, we had to leave Don behind as he was recovering from the night before (pussy)
So off we went to a new spot out wide called possession island, this place is pretty cool as it’s the actual place where good old Captain Cook first claimed Australia, a bit weird as its this cruddy island in the middle of nowhere, but whatever floats your boat I guess! On the way out we were chatting about how it was odd we had not seen a single bust up or flock of birds, as I always had a rod set aside with a metal slug on (something I copped a lot of **** about from the old fella’s)
Just as we finished the conversation I look out ahead and sure enough a flock of 20 or so birds diving and little tuna jumping everywhere! At this stage we were 150m out so I cut the engines and handed Dad the controls and I jumped out to the stern of the boat, first cast was average and dropped about 20m short, so after a flat burn back in I cast again, and this time it felt perfect, sailed out clean as you like and landed on the back edge of the school, as it hit the water Dad shouted “Great cast!” and sure enough before I even engaged the bail arm I was on, and bugger me did it have a first run, straight out towards the Great Barrier Reef somewhere off in the distance.
Tightening up the drag on my Caldia I slowed it down and got the head turned, what ensued was a good tussle that went on for about 8 minutes, was an awesome feeling knowing I had finally hooked up to a real fish (until this point I hadn’t hooked anything decent, not even a shark!) as we were bringing it in we had no idea what it was as it hadn’t jumped so it was a lucky dip, I called it for a Mackerel, Dad for a tuna and Craig for Trevally, and yet we were all wrong! It turned out to be a brute of a Queenie, going 73cm and putting in a great account for itself we were utterly thrilled!
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First Queenie!
After a quick swim to revive him we went looking for the school, it never resurfaced but I honestly couldn’t have cared less I was thrilled!
After pulling into the lee of the island we anchored up on a reef edge and commenced fishing, as always first rod I put in was my big 15-24kg tcurve and 20k spheros spooled with 80lb line with the biggest livie we had on a 10/0 hook and until that point nothing had taken it, but not this time as soon as it hit the water something smashed it and took off on a decent run, after a briefer tussle I had landed and even bigger queenie, this one went 85cm and was a real horse, feeling bad for hooking both the big fish I let Dad have a picture with it
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Bigger Queenie and Dad
which he appreciated!
After this ones release we fished for a while with bugger all to show for it, a couple of seriously pretty red throat emperor who were both 1cm undersize and 2 big unstoppables, which of course took lighter gear! By now the wind had picked up and we headed back in for our appointment with Chris to head up to the tip! It was now 2pm and we were well and truly pumped to be heading to such an iconic spot, so we piled into his 100 series cruiser and away we went!
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Chris's beast
There’s not much else to say here so I’ll let the pics do the talking I think!
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Walk Down
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Weird stone mounds people make
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The Sign
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The Boys
And sadly that was the end of it, we went to bed got up the next morning bought some souvenirs said our goodbyes and came back to Melbourne from 30 degrees everyday to 6 degrees when we landed :down:
It was an amazing trip and I will hopefully be headed back up there next year, I cannot reccomend this trip highly enough and is honestly something everyone should try before they leave this Earth
Tight Lines everyone Cam :thumbsup:
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One last cast
Last edited by GTSHoon on Mon Jun 29, 2015 12:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad
The gods do not deduct from man's allotted span the hours spent in fishing

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seephil
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Re: Trip of a lifetime (until I go again)

Post by seephil » Sun Jun 28, 2015 10:51 pm

Nice reporting so fair GTS. Definitely plenty of variety up that end.
I too was sceptical of the prices. Now that you've mentioned, i don't mind looking into a few options.
Did you buy a proper rod tube like a bazooka or did you just put the rods into a PVC tube?

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GTSHoon
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Re: Trip of a lifetime (until I go again)

Post by GTSHoon » Sun Jun 28, 2015 11:00 pm

Hey seephil, certainly reasonable, here's the guys we stayed with http://www.capeyorkhireboats.com.au/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (If not okay mods please delete) we bought a Plano Airliner on special for about $80, certainly not cheap, but then again with about $1100 worth of rods going up I figured the extra protection was worth the $$$$
Cam
The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad
The gods do not deduct from man's allotted span the hours spent in fishing

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GTSHoon
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Re: Trip of a lifetime (until I go again)

Post by GTSHoon » Mon Jun 29, 2015 12:19 am

Well there you go everyone, my first foray into the world of report writing, sorry it's so long and there's still stuff I haven't mentioned such as an enormous hammerhead, but that will have to wait for another day!
Enjoy :)
Cam
The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad
The gods do not deduct from man's allotted span the hours spent in fishing

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wokka1
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Re: Trip of a lifetime (until I go again)

Post by wokka1 » Mon Jun 29, 2015 8:09 am

Sounds like a brilliant trip and your report has done it justice. Thanks for taking the time to post :rocking_report:

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Broomstick
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Re: Trip of a lifetime (until I go again)

Post by Broomstick » Mon Jun 29, 2015 9:04 am

Bloody fantastic mate! I enjoyed every word of it. Ahh the trusty transam...never fails!

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