Road Trip North

October 24, 2023

Trip to Fraser Island! In particular, the shoals off the north-east tip:

Set off on Friday 13th with two super keen young crew – Oscar and Jacob:

Half way stop at beautiful Wooli. We launched in the river and crossed the bar, heading for North Solitary Island. Kicked things off with a kingfish on the jig:

And soon after, an upgrade:

Multiple pro fishermen lead lining the grounds, and hauling out kingies one after the other. I posted a pic and commentary to the Facebook page which received a lot of opinion – both positive and negative:

Pro Kingfish Take at Wooli

Quick run east to the FAD – which was dead as a doornail:

We had to be off the water at Wooli by 9.30AM - if we wanted to get to Hervey Bay by dark. We made it. Next morning, launched and headed north along the inside of Fraser Island. Some bust ups drew our attention:

Longtail tuna AKA northern bluefin are one of the toughest things on fins:

Next morning, fourth member of the crew arrived. John Verano is a top bloke who I’ve fished these waters with before:

But storm clouds were gathering. The wind kept picking up relentlessly. We headed back mid-morning and went for a walk on the famous Urangan pier. This pic of a pro boat trying to get into the harbour shows just how hard the wind was blowing:

Having said that, this bloke hooked up bigly halfway along the jetty. Don’t want to sound like a know-it-all but he applied A LOT of pressure at the end (when his mate was about to drop the treble gaff in the pic) and the fish wrapped him round a pylon:

Next morning we decided to try Monduran dam, for barramundi. Not sure what we did wrong, but no result:

Thursday morning, and the wind was howling. But we all wanted to fish the Bay. We were the only trailer parked at the boat ramp – which has at least 200 car spaces. Not a good sign:

Working the bust ups on the way up the Bay, and finding school mackerel and tuna. Here’s Jacob managing one:

Halfway up the Island we stopped over some light marks showing on the sounder screen, in just twelve metres of water. I grabbed our light 702 combo – recommended for mahi and snapper - and tied on one of our 100 gram jigs. This is our newer model – diamond shape with a central eye, and the hook placed right over that eye. Maybe three retrieves? And, WHACK! 45 minutes later:

Big cobia. The power on this thing was insane. Here’s a pic I took of our sounder screen, showing the number of times we spun the boat around during the fight:

Eventually a shark took a big bite and the fight was over. Afterwards, we drove to Tackle World and bought a scale to weigh the chunk of cobia the shark left us. 33.5 kilos:

Tough trip! But only due to the weather. The fishing was good when we could get out and the company was great. Thinking I might even leave the boat in storage there, through the middle of next year? We’ll see. Oh, and don’t forget to score a pack of our one hundred gram jigs 😊 They work:

TEN JIGS $75 INC DELIVERY

Thanks for reading
Andrew Hestelow