Fraser Island Frustration

Regular readers will know that, last month, I was invited to join a boat syndicate. The main guy in the syndicate planned on buying an offshore fishing boat and fish it along the Queensland coast through what’s left of the 2024 year. Thankfully, I didn’t have to contribute any money! Just experience with the fish and the planned destinations. After a rush to fine tune the boat we headed north last week:

It’s a seven metre custom made, in 3C survey for pro fishing. Very similar layout to a Trailcraft. Deep vee, high bow, lockable shelter console and a Yamaha 150HP. My old Surburban pulled it easily. After a sleepover at Wooli, we kept going the next morning, and arrived at Hervey Bay late Monday. Next morning we launched and headed up the western side of Fraser Island, chasing the tuna schools. Here’s Jock on his first longtail:

The big problem we faced – all four days – was the dirty weather. It blew 20 knots most of the day every day, and regular rain didn’t improve things:

Jock had a huge light tackle battle with a longtail tuna which unfortunately ended after maybe 15 minutes, when the tuna got sharked. Underneath the feeding tuna there were other predators enjoying the tiny baitfish the tuna killed - but missed eating:

Fishing underneath the tuna schools I scored my PB gold spot trevally, which took a 5 inch Z-man SP in bubblegum colour:

The wind was too strong to drift or anchor up, so I decided to run a garfish on a Head Start off the downrigger at 5 knots. To do that, I used a Z-Wing – a planer board from the States which goes deeper the faster you go:

When swimming garfish for mackerel it’s usually a good idea to either run light drag and set the ratchet, or, be ready to knock the boat into neutral on the strike. The reason being, it’s so common for mackerel to bite the tail off the bait, then come back for the front half. Unfortunately with no ratchets to sound on our reels, I missed a couple of strikes like that:

We had big plans for crossing the Breaksea Spit and jigging the Banks on the eastern side. But the weather never gave us the chance. So we stayed in the lee on Fraser Island, chasing tuna:

Frustrating! The good news is, we left the boat in storage up there. According to one hundred years of wind records, June and July are the calmest months of the year. Plan on getting back there late June. Thanks for reading
Andrew Hestelow

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