Matt and his crew came up from Melbourne to have a crack at popping for GTs; and a successful day we had.
Matt's brief to me on the phone was simple: "Harry we just want to see what all the fuss is about".
They quickly learnt it was a bit different to snapper fishing at home.
Seeing the conditions were calm we headed well north of Port Douglas, probably closer to Cooktown and fished some inner shoals rarely visited.
The morning saw Spanish Mackerel on the chew on some of the deeper shoals inside.
They provided us with the usual aerial displays launching clear of the water like balistic missiles with stickbaits across their mouths akin to dogs with bones.
We also introduced the boys to GT fishing 101: Boatside strikes.
The fish were enjoying fast retrieves on stickbaits, as such they would chase all the way to the boat, the boys learnt never take your eye off the lure. We missed a few fish right at the boat as they made last second lunges, from out of nowhere, at lures right as they were being lifted out of the water. We also managed to hook a couple in the process.
Visually very exciting stuff!
With the tide change we headed to one of my favourite patches of reef still well north of Port Douglas. The water was starting to flow through the channels in the reef and bait was stacked on the pressure edges. The boys landed a few nice little GTs in good time. We found a nice looking channel and pushed "Insidious" up into the opening within a couple of casts the water errupted, the rod loaded up and the drag started to scream. It was over very quickly as the fish darted up a little gutter and rubbed us off on a coral edge before anything could be done. We don't even know how big to call the fish, other than to say it was much bigger than anything else we saw all day.
We kept drifting up the channel whilst retying and the action was hot; GTs everywhere stikes a plenty and some nice fish being landed.
This was a great spot to finish up a good day on the water, the boys retired with stretched arms and were no longer GT virgins. It was a comfortable cruise home and the cheese and biscuit platter went down a treat.
Mission accomplished!
