Headed up to Cairns on Thurs 18th, red eye flight - had a 4 day camping trip planned to Lakefield National Park with mates from up there - Baker, Mikey and Scotty, then a quick reef trip on 22nd with Tim - brother in law, before back to Melbourne on the 23rd.
Arrived in Cairns about 9:30am, quick stop in to see my folks, sisters, nephew & neice's.
Picked up by Baker at midday to go finish packing the trucks and wait for the other two, finally on the road by 4pm for a 6 hour drive north to Lakefield National Park.
Finally arrived at 10pm, quick set up, put a boat in and set some FW yabbie pots, and then a few nightcaps.
Next morning go out to check the pots and flick a few lures, first snag and Baker hooks up a nice little barra and we are thinking this is a good sign.
I should mention that Mikey booked our site for friday and saturday night, didnt occur to him that it may be taken on the thursday night, so when we got there at ten we had to drive around for another 45 mins to find an empty site, so on friday had to pack up and move to our pre-booked site, and re-set up.
All up it was a pretty tough camping trip, the fish were hard to find and scarce. We did alright by bushwalking and finding landlocked pools, one of the highlight's was seeing a jurrasic sized sat water croc sunning on a bank - at least 18 foot of croc - impressive, we all got onto some barra but they were not big fish mostly in the 40 - 50cm range with a couple in the 60 - 70cm range.
Then on the final day we went a different direction, found another pool, and Baker gets onto a nice 87cm model to end the day and the trip. Beauty.
Total count for the 4 days: 25 barra between the 4 of us, Baker - 9, Scotty - 7, Me - 5, Mikey - 4.
The next day, Monday 22.07.2013 - reef trip out of Cairns with Tim.
Plan: be on the spot at first light, find bait schools, berley up, try for some livies and get some baits in the water. When the tide slows down move to a wreck and drop some livies down, and be back at the ramp by 1 - 2pm.
I should mention that Tim and I are predominantly lure and plastic fishers, so we thoght we would try bait out just to see.
So we were on our spot before 6, lots of bait on the sounder, dropped a bait jig down and got a little GT but nothing else, so we floated him out under a baloon, rigged up some pillies on gangs and sent them into the berley trail.
Expectation was high, but the fish were shy...
After about 45 minuted we were starting to question our spot when zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz off went the livey, Tim grabbed it and a dogged fight ensued. We were not sure what this fish was, there was no massive runs, it was holding down deep, had us both guessing.
To our surprise, after maybe 20 mins a beautiful Spanish Mackeral slid into view, and Tims first.
Well, what a fish to christen your new outfit and break your Spanish cherry with - 1.2meters, high five's all round!
Once we got to the mark I sent the first victim down, and before I could finish the "Wonder if anything is down there" sentence I was slammed, pulled straight into the reef and busted off...
Tim dropped down while I was re-rigging - same result - WOW!!!
Drags were tightened, and another pair of livie's went to their doom - same result again!!! Unstopable and both bricked...
Drags were crancked right up this time, and another two livies went down.
Tim got bitten off on the way down but I connected solid, and after a good tussle, up came my favorite reefy - the mighty coral trout of around 60cm's;
Another two victims were sent down, same result and I hook up solid - this was a good fish, ripping line of a locked up 50lb spin set up. After a tense scrap I got it off the bottom and I knew it was mine, and minutes later an upgrade sized 75cm trout arrives boatside;
Final fish of the day - a cracking GT;
(p.s. I realised after uploading the pics that I am one day out with the dates, barra was caught sunday 21.07.2013, and reefies on the 22nd.)
Hope you enjoyed the report, and if you get the opportunity to go North for a fish - take it!
