Car racing enthusiasts gave up a weekend at Indy to fish the Great Barrier Reef in fair weather.

One member of the group who missed his 1st year since the 1990’s was Allan . Sadly, your previous record for the biggest trout was well and truly beaten by Darby, whose trout weighed in at a remarkable 30kgs?… you better be here next year to win your title back!

Perfect weather greeted the crew from Gympie so after a few days bottom fishing the Swains, the Gympie boys headed out to Saumarez Reef in the Coral Sea.

The Gympie Boys

Whilst uncommon at the Swains- The magnificent Coronation Trout is often caught out at Saumarez Reef. Wayne & Co. managed to land these great Red Emperors. Here are a fine pair of Spangled Emperor!

Whoever said a charter to the Barrier Reef was a relaxing holiday? Its hard week all that fishing!!

A Big Hi to Mike Richardson’s group from Parkes NSW. A brilliant week a weather produced some great catches- Including Ned’s 35kg Mackeral. Injoying their time together are father & son, Andrew & Greg

You always hear of those strange but true fishing stories, well- one occurred this week that we’d like to share.

Crispy and Cliff headed off in one of our tender dinghies. After whetting their lines, Crispy thought he had snagged his line and as much as he tried; couldn’t retrieve his tackle from the bottom. He couldn’t even pull the line enough to even break it…so Crispy wrapped the line around a piece of wood and started the motor. As they drove away they looked behind in their wake to see athis great Red Emperor! Other happenings whilst on charter included the celebration of Pottsie’s 77th Birthday.

Some great trophy fish and a fine Red and Coral Trout.

Peter Hughes’ Gang from Victoria joined Ed’s Gang from Toowoomba on a 9 day charter to the Swain’s and Saumarez Reef. A combination of pelagics from the Coral Sea and some fine table fish from the Swains were caught.

Here is an interesting Catch!- Ed managed to catch one of the reefs most beautiful yet poisonous predators. This spectacular Butterfly cod is more commonly seen in dark reef crevasses where it fans out its venomous spiny fins to catch prey, alternatively they are a common marine aquarium display. We have never heard of one being line caught and even when diving, have never seen one so large…after the photo-op it was successfully released.