Beyond The Green – Dean Smith 2016
“Leader…?”
“Nope, we’re out”
“Sinkers…?”
“Two left”
“Hooks…?”
“You don’t even want to know”
“Engines?”
“The left one works…”
“How far to the harbour?”
“About 140k mate”
“Last drop then?”
“We will see mate… we will see”
I listened to this quick inventory check between my brothers, Luke and Wade, with arms cramping and a tiredness in my body that I didn’t know was even possible. Yet, as we circled around for another drift, I eagerly picked my rod up and waited for the signal from Wade to drop the 75 metres to the bottom where the ‘big things with teeth’ were waiting once more.
As you are reading this you are probably thinking that something seems a little fishy, pardon the pun, how could we let ourselves run so short on vital equipment 140klms away from home base? Poor preparation? Careless knots? I will put it in plain and simple terms, over the two days we were offshore from Yeppoon in Central Queensland, we had been continually stretched, monstered and pushed to our limits, both physically and mentally. The results? Well I know by now you have looked at the photos, which is the only real reason you are reading this article, so sit back and enjoy, as I share with you a trip that had everything an offshore angler could dream of and more.
When we first started fishing offshore as teenagers, we were told that it was incredibly difficult to capture quality reef fish on small tides. “No run, no Fun” we were always told, so, in true Hell’s Anglers style and after many experimental trips and much technique refinement, Luke and Wade developed a tactic that consistently produces fish for us on these tides, just to prove the naysayers wrong. Even to this day, we are still told by ‘locals in the know’ that you will struggle on the smaller tides. With this in mind, the go button was pushed and plans were put into place, to showcase just how easy it is to capitalise on near neap tides.
The aim? Head north and east over the green zone, target areas we have never fished previously, locate isolated structure in deep water and get our arms stretched and some smiles on our faces. The weather forecast was good enough to depart at midnight on Friday and return just after sunset Sunday evening, the boat was loaded up with the essentials, swags, food and water while our trusty Accurate combos were packed with care for the trip. In typical Central Queensland fashion, the Keppel Bay northerly did not drop out until the early hours of Saturday Morning which delayed our departure somewhat and saw us hitting the water at about 3am. The late disappearance of the northerly meant that the exposed waters passed the islands were still quite rough, and a decision was made to grab an hours rest at Outer rock to continue on in the daylight.
With the sun just cresting the horizon in the east we made our way toward a mark that is known to hold bait at this time of the year. Live bait is an essential ingredient to our success on the smaller tides, as a live bait, in this case our choice was yakkas, can often tempt a strike from a fish that would turn away from a well presented dead bait. Once you can get the fish to wake up on the small tides, you can create your own bite window with action creating more action for you to cash in on. The action at this spot began on the first drop of the bait jig, as the rod tip loaded up with the tell-tale sign of yakkas, I began the journey back to the top. About four metres off the bottom, my jig was collected by a freight train and I never saw it again. Dodging the mackerel patrolling the waters below was quite a challenge, but we eventually had two live wells full of yakkas, as well as a whole bunch of fresh dead baits preserved nicely in an ice cold slurry. By this time it was about eight thirty in the morning, the ocean was beginning to calm and we were currently 5 hours behind on our schedule. On the plus side, we had some cracking baits, time on our hands and awesome scenery as the whales put on a show the whole way out to our destination.
The calm seas and small tides for the weekend meant we were met with crystal clear water, and minimal water movement from the current and lack of waves. Planning for this occurrence can drastically increase your odds of having a successful trip on tiny tides. The key to our success can be put down to refined fishing techniques, with an emphasis being put on using the thinnest diameter mainline possible. Our go to braid for any offshore fishing is Berkley Whiplash, in either 30 or 50lb. The thin diameter mainline creates less drag through the water and therefore the visibility of the line to the fish is severely limited. Fishing any heavier than a 50lb mainline can really deter fish that are already incredibly fussy about how and what they intend on eating, this means that a greater importance must also be put on bait presentation, the more natural you can make your bait appear on the hook, the higher chance you have of enticing that bite. On this particular trip, we found that downgrading to 40lb leader restricted the visibility factor and moving from straight monofilament to fluorocarbon leader assisted us in minimising abrasion and bust offs. In the deeper country, 60-80 metres, we found great success using 50lb mainline and 40lb fluorocarbon, while we lost a lot of gear doing this, it was somewhat of a trade-off, the minute we went any heavier then 40lb leader, the bites stopped coming and so did the fish. The shallower country, 30-50 metres of water, saw us using a 30-40 combination of mainline and leader respectively. The final key to our success on the small tides is to create our own water movement, by using our motors to control and manage our drifts, we were able to create the illusion of water movement down deep and trigger the bites by slowly moving our baits through the targeted country.
We reached our first destination around lunchtime on the Saturday, and began sounding out an area that Wade had identified as potentially holding the isolated rocks that we were seeking. 20 minutes later, we were waiting for the signal to drop our baits as the Furuno lit up with a solid six metre rise off the bottom in 70 metres of water and all the reds and greens we could possibly hope for. The first drift saw all three of us hook up, and two of us, Luke and Wade, get their fish back to the boat. A lovely pigeon pair of large mouth nannygai really set the tone of the afternoon for us, as we were continually stretched pulling these quality fish out of 80 metres of water. By the time mid-afternoon rolled around, we had to drive away from the first spot and leave the nannies biting in search of new marks and some variety for the box. As luck would have it, we didn’t need to move far to sound up new marks, the Furuno 587 was working a treat and finding us some serious country with creatures that we just couldn’t stop. A large portion of our leader, hooks and sinkers were made as donations to the big fellas on that Saturday afternoon and into the evening.
The sun rose on Sunday morning, somewhat spectacularly, and we made the decision to head toward the shallower country in search of red throat emperor and coral trout. The fishing on the second morning was challenging, with no water movement and glass off conditions, we decided to drop the pick and try to stir up some action. Slowly but surely, the red throat began to bite, becoming more frequent and building into a frenzy that was something quite amazing to experience. On 30lb gear, the red throat certainly gave us some curry and I believe they are seriously underrated in the fight game, particularly the larger 50cm plus models that we were catching. Suddenly, the red throat bites were replaced with hard hitting coral trout bites, certainly testing our equipment and skill to breaking point at times. Believe it or not, we tired of fishing the shallower depths, so we set off with only one thing on our minds, the monarch of the reef, the highly sought after red emperor.
By this point in the trip we only had one motor capable of running, which in itself was a blessing as it gave our skipper, Wade, an opportunity to scan the depths for some more isolated structure that would potentially hold our target. We arrived at one particular spot and Luke was the recipient of a cracking red emperor while Wade boasted a solid job fish and I was left re-rigging after being monstered and unable to get it up. The third drift of this mark was particularly special, with a three way hook up on red emperor all making their way back to the boat and subsequently onto the ice. This was when Luke began to get monstered, on the next five drifts, Wade bought in five legal emperor and Luke was busted off every time, by what we presumed were rosy jobfish. The jobfish have a set of rasping teeth that cause absolute havoc on your leader with their erratic head shakes and never say die attitude that makes it incredibly difficult to get them back to the boat fishing with 40lb leader. It is quite a strange occurrence on our boat when someone is on a bad run, every drift afterwards, it is almost as if that person ceases to exist, no one acknowledges when they hook up, there is no question being asked “What do you reckon you have?” So on this particular occasion, both Wade and I began to slowly move toward the front of the Boat the second that Luke hooked up again, perhaps to give him room, perhaps for fear of our own safety. Happily, Luke got himself back in the game with another solid emperor for the session as this time Wade was busted off close to the bottom.
“Leader…?”
“Nope, we’re out.”
We managed two more drifts of that mark before we made the decision to begin the slow journey home on one engine. As the soothing melodies of Daryl Braithwaite’s “The Horses” rang across the boat on the trip home, it was a good time to reflect on the successfulness of the mission. We challenged what was seen as a given on the smaller tides and challenged ourselves to produce fish. The challenge is what draws me and what will always keep me fishing, so when a ‘wise man’ next says to you, ‘no run, no fun’ or tells you that you can’t fish a certain set of tides successfully, challenge yourself, use your knowledge, spend time on the water and come back smiling with your success. You will no doubt have failures along the way, however, you most definitely won’t have success sitting at home wishing you were fishing.
