Reef fish

AN invitation to join a Swain Reefs fishing trip is pretty hard to knock back, and to do a trip with essentially the same nucleus of guys from previous years that all get on well and love their fishing makes it even harder. We headed out from Yeppoon late in the evening on the Capricorn Star with owner/skipper Scott Wilson …

It wasn’t a bad run to the islands, but as we pushed out past them we became really exposed to the swell, so we just took our time and anchored up on the first rock. Almost as soon as the bait hit the bottom, the boys were on, with a couple of solid fish of about 3kg coming over the …

We picked up great shows on the sounder and really craggy country to work over, but with time marching on and excellent fish in the box, the call was made to head towards home and fish a few more locations along the way. The fish cleaning is always a big task and a couple of big buckets of salt water …

On the first cast another large coral trout ate my plastic and swam straight into a bommie. I have never felt so out-gunned when using such a high calibre of gear. After hits and misses, a few little reefies such as stripey seaperch, a spanish mackerel and various sweetlip, we left the area with a score of coral trout five; …

The 20,000-litre fuel tank provides plenty of fuel capacity for the long haul out to Wreck Reefs and back..  As for your freshwater needs, she holds 13,500 litres of fresh water for showers, cooking and hosing off gear and the deck. Upstairs on the bridge, she’s equipped with all the latest electronic equipment such as a 64 nautical mile Furuno …

Some of the fishing from the deck of the Capricorn Star was very good. Everyone was fishing braid, and with an experienced crew tangles were at a minimum. On a number of occasions the quality of fish was much better than I had expected, and it was surprising how quickly a good catch could be put together. Ivan Mapp landed …