After filling up with fuel and water we finally left the marina, much to Johns relief. Too much walking along those long pontoons, I think.
Weve worked out we use approximately 2.6 litres per hour when motoring. Seems very economical for two motors.
Wind was less than forecast so we motored the distance to Woodwark Bay north of Airlie and anchored in the spot marked in 100 magic miles as the ideal anchorage. Soon as the anchor was set John tuned the tele to see if he was going to be able to watch the ashes Test 3 Eng vs Aus. Alas, this was not the ideal anchorage for John as reception was poor, so it was, pull the anchor move, re-anchor and try to get a direct line across a small saddle back to Airlie. Reception was not much better in the new spot, at least it was intermittent on Ch 9.
Nyeki arrived, and not long after I received a text message from Debra with photos of sweetlip and coral trout. That galvanised us into rigging up and dropping a line over. I caught a small coral trout almost immediately then another smaller.one John pulled in a small netting cod then a sweetlip which we kept.
We had a lot of bites, lost a few fish around coral then I had something big on. Whatever it was peeled the line off my reel even as I was gaining, he would have another go then take more line. I feel I was gaining on him slowly however I didn’t want to lose him so I handed the rod to the experienced fisherman who tried for quite some time to get him closer to the boat with no luck. By this time daylight was fading and we couldn’t get a chance to sight whatever it was then all of a sudden, the pressure was off and John said a shark must have got him. When we reeled in the line we had a red emperor slimy and scaled. He had been in the gullet of a huge cod that finally regurgitated him to us alive.
When John filleted him, he was bruised internally so he’d had a hard time inside. Wish we could have got a glimpse of the big fella.
A few hardy heads were swimming around the lights at the back of the boat and a little further out something big was chasing them and leaping out of the water. When I shone the spotlight, I could see a long shape with red eyes. Barra?
John attached a lure and flicked it around to no avail. They weren’t interested. He tried about 8 lures with no luck, they chased it a little way then gave up. I threw the cast net and caught a few hardy heads to use as live bait. These worked and John soon had one on. It lept out of the water then disappeared. Upon closer inspection of his line (with his glasses on) he could see the line was curly on the end. The knot he tied in haste in the dark without his glasses had come unravelled. Rookie error!
Johns lure selection, nothing worked.
Next was my turn, I hooked a Barra and played him for a while then he too was gone. I think they must have gill rakers that cut the line, great fun though.
I persevered, caught a few more hardy heads even getting one prawn in the net but couldn’t catch another barra. I feel they got a bit wary.
Dinner time came and went with all the excitement. We ended up with the sweetlip, cod and red emperor for John to fillet.
What a fantastic afternoon and evening and such variety even little crabs were swimming up to the boat. We eventually had dinner at 10:30 and retired rather late.