Not all fishing trips are created equal

The anticipation and excitement before any fishing trip is normally high no matter the target species, location or plan of attack.

It’s a consistent roll of emotions – the joy or frustration caused by regular checks of the forecast, to daring to dream about that fish of a lifetime you hope to hook as you spool your reels, check leader knots and tie rigs.

That’s where the similarities between fishing trips ends and is the main reason we all keep fishing – we just don’t know what each trip is going to throw at us!

Fortunately, our most recent trip offshore was one to remember.

If you’re familiar with my articles, you will be aware that many of them feature offshore trips targeting red emperor.

 

In my view they are still the ultimate reef fish to target in Queensland.

They are striking to look at, they taste great, they fight as hard as any fish in the initial few moments after hooking up and they are elusive and tricky to target at times.

There are so many factors that make them tough to boat.

The big ones will test every part of your gear and if you give them an inch, they’ll quickly bust you up in the reef.

Red emperor typically live in depths of more than 50 metres, which means weather and current are crucial factors in allowing you to even present bait or lures to them.

We love to eat them, but so do sharks and depredation is becoming more of a problem when chasing reds.

 

When the stars align and you do manage to boat one, it’s a special moment.

We were greeted with a magic forecast for this trip, and planned to fish a location we were all familiar with, the southern Bunker Group of islands.

We made our way offshore midway through the afternoon in prime conditions.

Our plan was to catch live bait and then head wide in time to chase reds from late afternoon into the evening.

The first part of the equation went to plan in a big way with live yakka in abundance at one of our bait spots.

 

We quickly caught our limit of livies and proceeded to head further east to an area with plenty of structure and isolated rocks in depths ranging from 45-55m.

With about half an hour of light left in the day we deployed our first live baits and were bending straight away.

A little surprisingly, a trio of red throat emperor made their way on board.

We decided to move on and head to an area where we had caught some nice red emperor before.

One element of offshore reef fishing that continually rings true is the importance of your first drift or drop on a spot.

 

Some of these wider reef systems will have gone weeks, months or even years without having a bait dropped on them, so the first drift is often the most action packed.

Anglers should have their drags set correctly, knots checked and attack the first drift with readiness given the likely action.

I found this out the hard way.

Experimenting with a new braid to mono leader knot for the first time on a hectic red emperor spot is not advisable.

Rods bent immediately on our first drop, and in my case, knots failed immediately.

Expletives followed and my trusted ‘old’ leader knot was promptly tied on.

 

Within a few minutes, both of my brothers-in-law had nice red emperor at their feet and my mate Jarrod was dragging his up through the water column.

While I found new ways to lose some quality reds, a hot bite period was certainly under way.

Rob boated a lovely fish that ended up as his PB at 11.7kg and Mick and Jarrod both nailed models around 10kg.

I did catch a few nice reds but my chance at a big one went begging after another comedy of errors which resulted in my braid getting tied up with Rob’s and slicing at the rod tip.

More expletives left my mouth at a much higher volume this time given this fish took a good while to get off the bottom and was significantly bigger than the others I had hooked.

It always hurts when you know you’ve left a 10-12kg model down there and your next opportunity might be weeks, months or years away!

 

However, I should not harp on the negatives as this was an insane red emperor session that continued in several spots as we chipped away at some nice fish throughout the night and into the next day.

Although we lost a few fish to sharks, they were largely absent on this trip and that is certainly rare these days in this part of the world.

It’s not often that red emperor dominate the species count but this was one of those rare occasions.

A couple of nice coral trout, blue maori cod, parrotfish and hussar rounded out what was a trip to remember.

If only every fishing trip offshore was like this one.

Catch ya.