# **Video Added!**GT Popping the outer reef at Hinchinbrook



## beefs (Jan 30, 2006)

Well i'm back onboard after spending a week up north with a mate at Cardwell. The first few days were fairly ordinairy weather but it's an amazing spot and blowy weather outside just means you can head into the estuaries. The going was fairly slow - steady, but slow. Highlights were a nice salmon, my first jack, a (small) feed of crab plus a flatty and a stack of grunter. Not the barra we were looking for though.

As we didn't have the internet (everywhere in town seemed to be broken) we didn't really know what was happening with the weather and were playing our trips by ear day by day. Come wednesday though the groundskeeper at the caravan park came over for a chat and mentioned that the weather was glassing out for the next few days. Ecstatic, the days eastuary trip was put on hold and we tracked down a weather report. It was too good to be true - 3 days coming up of 10-15 knots. So, in true fly by the seat of your pants style, we canned the days estuary trip and got ourselves set to hit the outer reef. It was a bout a 50km run, or an hour and a half in my boat. We had never been before and i've never had my boat further than the close by islands around yeppoon. So what do we do? We decide we'd head out at 8:30 that night. 8:30 because the moon should be up and at night because the afternoon breeze would hopefully have dropped out and we couldn't wait for the next day to be out there. So packed, with all precautions taken and enough spare fuel to see us to new guinea we were off.

Was a good run out - hour and a half or there abouts and smooth enough to sip a beer (providing you were observant of the larger swell lest you take your front teeth out with the bottle). Get out there, find a spot showing fish in 40m of water, drop the handline down and BANG. Woohoo  

















For a while it was a fish a drop but not to the standard of the first fish, got sharked plenty and then at around 3:00 my mate hooks up to a nice fish. Played for about 10 minutes, get colour and its red!! Bloody huge chinaman fish - arggghh. Still a nice fish but not the emporer we were after. After that had a lie down - a pillow each and one person each side of the console and dozed until first light. Today was the day for testing the new outfit and popping for GTs  Shimano T-Curve GT Special with Stella 10000, 80lb Tuf Line XP and 130lb leader  . We hadn't done it before and were a little lost where to start. We found a nice bommie though and soon hooked up - bang lost fish - what the?? Bring the lure in and my Owner Jobu 7/0 is snapped clean off!! What - these things are supposed to be the business?!?!Rig up with two more and same thing - eventually hook up again and this time both Jobus are snapped clean in half! Insert huge string of expletives right here. Anyway I whip some trebles off another lure and get back in the game. We end up with 5 GTs landed from the boat for the day - bloody awesome. Anyway by 2:30 in the arvo we are buggered and head back in - the ocean still glassed out  Anyway - this aint kayak fishing is it :twisted:

We got back to the mainland and felt like drunken soldiers - without having consumed a drop. 20hrs on the water had given us a real wobble. Anyway we had such a ball the first day we figured the only way it could be topped - and on our last day of fishing - was to chase GTs, on poppers, in the kayak  So thats what we did.

Conditions were even better than the previous day. I was able to sit on the floor of the boat (5.4m centre console) and change trebles and de-barb hooks on the trip out. 









We were out there in an hour and a bit and the yak was deployed. One person manning the boat and the other on the hunt. We had quickly figured out that by chasing the schooling blue fusiliers along the reef edges we would soon find GTs. You usually only got one cast per school though, the water was so clear that even with the yak to sneak up on them they quickly spooked.









I hooked up first cast  but dropped it. After that it took a bit of work and I changed between a 20cm river to sea popper and the lure that did the damage on day one (nomad stickbait) and then back to the popper. After that its a bit of a blur of hook-ups, landed fish, chasing schooling bait and watching manta rays. Not to mention being in the boat carelessly tossing slices out the back to catch some mackeral or site fishing (believe it or not) to a red emporer by dropping a metal slice down to it in about 7 metres of water only to get cut off on the reef!

Anyway I ended up with 3 GTs from the yak and my mate MC with 2 GTs. I'm not sure on the size, we didn't measure or weigh them, just released as soon as we had some footage and a photo or two. I have the digital footage but it's on my laptop (with a flat battery). I couldn't wait any longer to put the report up though so the video will come later on - it's worth the wait though 









*Edit* Here's the video finally! It's not great quality - to upload a good quality vid to youtube takes forever! Please excuse my commentary as well ;-) :lol: The boat had to be so far away that the image is a bit shakey at times. The water was so clear that the fish spooked real easy hence the ultra zoom/shakiness and far off shots.





 - here's one of my fish. You'll see me struggling to lift the rod at one stage...I seriously could not lift the rod back up from near the water!





 - - here's MCs fish. Dissapointed about the quality - especially the strike...cant see it very clearly at all. Even the photo I added is blurry!





 - if your net is slow and you only want to watch one vid i'd watch this one. you gotta have a montage. Montage! (or Monatge as it is...)


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## Breambo (Apr 19, 2006)

Gee's sounds like FUN with a capital F. Great report. 8)


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## pcsolutionman (Apr 9, 2007)

Awesome Stuff Travis that would be great fun off the yak, and on the surface too :lol: :lol: great stuff mate

Lee


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## breambuster13 (Dec 29, 2007)

looks like awesome fun and from a yak  .
Craig


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## beefs (Jan 30, 2006)

some more photos from day two


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## bazzoo (Oct 17, 2006)

Do you reckon you could take that sort of fishing all year round Travis , ummmmmm , i think i could , fantastic .


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## pcsolutionman (Apr 9, 2007)

Mate those last few pics of the monsters caught form the boat :shock: :shock: :shock: Bet those bass at baroon wont feel the same again lol

Lee


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## DougOut (Dec 31, 2006)

beautiful ... just plain beautiful
what a great part of the country and to be able to tow the yak like that from A to B 
A for amassing fishing, B for .... did I say Beautiful :lol:


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## sunshiner (Feb 22, 2006)

G'day Travis

Exceptional conditions which bring back fond 30 yr old memories of trips in the same area in my 15ft tinnie.

It's great to see that the fishing apparently hasn't deteriorated since I was there last. Nice pics.


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## wopfish (Dec 4, 2006)

Hey Beefs

Great news mate !!!!! Well done !!!! SO how did the stella perform..... and may I ask what knot you used for your leader on this one - did you get any bust offs at the join ????? Did you get reefed much on the the 80lb / 130 leader ??? Which colour stick bait were the nailing... was it the green mackerel looking Nomad??

Woppie


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## paulo (Nov 1, 2007)

Awesome Travis. Snapping 7/0 trebles!!! How many inches were added to the length of your arms over the week?


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## Huwie (Mar 16, 2008)

haha towing the yak!


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## Dodge (Oct 12, 2005)

Some great yak captures Travis, and in such beautiful clean water


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## T-curve (Feb 19, 2007)

:shock: ...now theres something id like to try and try and try again  ..awesome..well done Travis !!


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## spooled1 (Sep 16, 2005)

Top catches in a top spot. Did you hit the Northern point at the Island?


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## RedPhoenix (Jun 13, 2006)

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

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## beefs (Jan 30, 2006)

Thanks for all the replies everyone - was a great time. Here's a few for those that asked questions.



wopfish said:


> Hey Beefs
> 
> Great news mate !!!!! Well done !!!! SO how did the stella perform..... and may I ask what knot you used for your leader on this one - did you get any bust offs at the join ????? Did you get reefed much on the the 80lb / 130 leader ??? Which colour stick bait were the nailing... was it the green mackerel looking Nomad??
> 
> Woppie


Cheers Woppie - loved...LOVED the Stella. Performed well. Argh - leaders...I had a twisted leader done up that took me ages to do and anyway long story but I lost it (non fishing related). So I reverted to simply tying the leader from the lure (uni knot) to swivel (uni knot) to braid (uni knot). No issues. Nomad lure was a dogtooth 80 in blue/yellow/silver. Was the bomb. In fact so much so the next day I bought a Ulua in green/silver. I only got busted off once the whole trip on the reef and it was on this brand new lure having never caught a fish ARGH!! Will put up a photo of the lure the did the damage - was decidely 2nd hand looking after just one day! So you bought yourself some poppers yet?!?!



paulo said:


> Awesome Travis. Snapping 7/0 trebles!!! How many inches were added to the length of your arms over the week?


7/0 singles Paulo and I think they must have been a faulty set...i'm sending them back for sure. They are decent fish but not HUGE and they shouldn't have broken. Arms? Sore...geez they give you a run for your money! But as I kept saying to my mate...imagine doing that for 3 hours with a 78kg marlin on the other end!!!! :lol: Respect ;-) :lol:



spooled1 said:


> Top catches in a top spot. Did you hit the Northern point at the Island?


Gday Spooled...no not really. On the first day we ried out Gould Island which is at the north but not the northern tip of Hinchinbrook (Cape Richards?) Is there good fishing there?



redphoenix said:


> Bloody great report Trav, in ripper circumstances.
> 
> Must have been a whole heap of fun.
> 
> ...


Ummm...about 2 hours. A few rumbos under the belt upon landfall successfully reversed any ill effects and upon landing in bed I was "reversed" enough to not notice the ill effects of 20 hours on the water  :lol:


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## craig450 (May 11, 2007)

Wow, very impressive fish!!! and a top report, i enjoyed reading that  
Some great photos too, the weather conditions look fantastic. 8)


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## spottymac (Aug 29, 2005)

Top REPORT Beef and what a top spot Hinchinbrook is.


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## spooled1 (Sep 16, 2005)

Yeah, the cape can really turn it on.


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## Davey G (Jan 15, 2006)

another epic beefs adventure.. 8)

me, jealous?? nah not bloody much!!!


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## Rstanek (Nov 5, 2007)

Fantastic report mate, those conditions look amazing! Great fish too  .

Rowan.


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## Dave73 (Dec 3, 2006)

Top stuff Beefs!  

That is a dream of mine, GT's from a kayak. 8) 
Were you using the GT special and Stella combo on the yak or did you have a shorter set up?
How did you go casting heavy lures and working the cup faced dumbells from the yak?

Looks like a great trip. I've fished Hinchinbrook once only. Never saw any bluewater, just worked the mangroves for barra etc. The water was like soup, hot, thick and brown..

Great report,

Cheers Dave


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## Zed (Sep 18, 2006)

Fantastic report, beefs. Very very envious of that!
Wow, I'm spent too, from the read. Thank you for sharing the adventure!

Z


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## wozmc (Jan 17, 2007)

Hey all, A bit of a delayed post but I am the counterpart in the adventure with beefs, and what an adventure it was! Best fishing experience I have had. It was somewhat of a challenge bringing in those GT's on a 10kg Ugly Stick and an Abu 7000, with the drag wound up as far as I could and they were still going on arm tearing runs. One of which nearly de-yacked me! Anyway the pictures show how much of a good time we had, the weather sure turned it on for us! (thanks mother nature!)
Can't wait for the next adventure...............


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## wopfish (Dec 4, 2006)

Glad to hear the old Abu 7000 still delivered... I used to use those... not bad reel......


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## Redfish (Apr 25, 2007)

Awesome work guys! I was looking at going to the same area at the same time, but the old man's boat is only a 4.6m and we were fishing 3 up so we went to the Palm islands instead. We got a shiteload of smaller reefies (one drop got a tusk fish and red throat emperor on one pillie!), and a smattering of better fish. I hooked a nice big GT on a Roosta 135 that I couldn't stop on sporting 30 lb braid:










Managed some nice coral trout on SP and bait.










We also got a nice GT on the troll towards the end of the day. Managed to put my brother (pictured) and dad, both novice fishos, onto their PB's in the one session.










No kayaks though- the redfish had to stay in melbourne!


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## beefs (Jan 30, 2006)

videos added at bottom of first post


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## AJD (Jul 10, 2007)

Great report Beefs. The fish and the weather conditions made me envious.


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## spottymac (Aug 29, 2005)

Loved the videos. awesome fishing


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## pcsolutionman (Apr 9, 2007)

Awesome stuff travis mate loved it

Lee


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## Dave73 (Dec 3, 2006)

Beefs that is too good! Perfect conditions, nervous bait schools, GT's AND managing to get them from your kayak.  
I'd love to experience that 8) 
Top effort and great viewing!

cheers Dave


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## Huwie (Mar 16, 2008)

Awesome videos mate, looks like a lot of fun!


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## TerryH (Aug 29, 2007)

mate that's phenominal.

After seeing that video I immediately asked Lee.. "when are we going?" haha, that'd be adrenaline pumping action !! :O Well done mate.


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## beefs (Jan 30, 2006)

TerryH said:


> mate that's phenominal.
> 
> After seeing that video I immediately asked Lee.. "when are we going?" haha, that'd be adrenaline pumping action !! :O Well done mate.


Got a boat? Its a long paddle! ;-) I'm really keen to go again next year, think we probably will. Sure got lucky with the weather though - we seriously couldn't have asked for better conditions those couple of days - pure luck. Next trip though is Shoalwater :twisted: Home of getting blown away by monster GT's - cant wait :twisted:


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## wozmc (Jan 17, 2007)

occy said:


> Gee those things go like the clappers don't they. Awesome video too dude. Are they no good to eat at that size?


Occy, I'm sure you could take one of these for a feed however i expect they would have a very strong flavor. Also when on the reef why take a good sport fish when there are trout, reds, macks and other great table fish around ;-) 
We let them go so they are bigger for next years trip ;-) :twisted:


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## beefs (Jan 30, 2006)

occy said:


> Gee those things go like the clappers don't they. Awesome video too dude. Are they no good to eat at that size?


the go bloody hard thats for sure occy...great fun. I think they'd be ok to eat but as MC said they'res better things to eat - the esky had a selection of coral trout, red throat emporer, nanygai and calamari in it so GT's weren't on the menu ;-) Also as MC said, they a great sports fish and its just as good to see them swimming off after as it is to land one.



leftieant said:


> Awesome vid Scotty, and good to see that Poppy the dog makes a brief cameo appearance as well (did you take her out to the reef with you? Good work!)


Thanks Ant, yeahp Poppy made both trips out to the reef with us - the first one was over 20 hours. She's good, sleeps a lot and just has a look around when they'res some action. Plus the occasional woof at the scary motor :lol: She also doesn't mind tucking into packs of lamington fingers if you happen to leave them on the floor while fishing :lol: I think she's happy to get off and have a run around afterwards but she'd be far more miserable if I left her behind altogether.


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## Biggera Yakker (Jan 25, 2007)

Great report and videos!!
I loved the montage and the song that's in it (who sung it?)!
Those GT's llok like they can pull with a bit of muscle!!


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## beefs (Jan 30, 2006)

Biggera Yakker said:


> Great report and videos!!
> I loved the montage and the song that's in it (who sung it?)!
> Those GT's llok like they can pull with a bit of muscle!!


Gday Dale, the song is Aquaplane by Melodyssey


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