REDS REDS REDS || Mooloolaba
This kick-started an amazing few days which lead to landing over 10x Reds in a week!!
Brycey- It started off as a normal day in the office when Benny called up at midday and told Heathy and I to get our asses to the boat ramp, it’s fishing time!! We said ‘catch ya’ to Deano and ran out the door, stopped off at my house to grab some gear, and got to the boat ramp just in time.
We ran to the bait grounds and quickly filled the live well tank before heading to some isolated bommies where we started dropping baits. It didn’t take long before I hook up to a nice red emperor, as we got him up we could see it was going to be close to legal, that’s when we realised that we didn’t have a brag mat on the boat! 🤦 We decided to let him go just in case he didn’t reach the legal size of 55cm, as we didn’t want to upset the red Gods.
Without any waste of time, we went up and restarted the drift, dropping straight on top of the same rock. I hooked up straight away with another red, this one a little smaller. We still had time left in the drift so I dropped down again and got another little red, at this stage, we were a bit suspicious that this might be a red rock, and could Mummy or Daddy be home?
3 reds in 3 drops! WHAAAAT!!!!
Next drift it was my go on the camera and Benny hooked up not the biggest fish but a red. Next drift Benny hooked a good fish, right from the start it was pulling hard, big head shakes and hard to get off the bottom. With a few short sharp pumps Benny got her off the bottom and now the mission is just to get it up before the sharks get to it. Half way through the fight we figured out that it might be the one we have been after, we got a sighting on it and it was confirmed. We had found a legal red off the sunny coast, after a nervous swing into the boat the day went from a good day to a great day. We were a bit nervous to neck him and we were considering if we should let him go then we figured out there was a measurer on the kill bag, he went 63cm!
After Bennys legal red, the fishing slowed down a little bit so we decided to move spots, the wind blew up the swell picked up and since we were in reasonably shallow waters it was getting ugly. Heathy got a little parrot straight up at the new spot then the fish shut down at this spot as well, at this stage, the sun had just gone down so we decided to pull the pin and headed in.
We got to the bar just after dark and it was pretty hairy, there were solid waves breaking right across the mouth, but as per usual Benny got us through safely. We made our way over to the trawlers where we planned to meet Deano, with the cooker and a few ingredients for a cook up.
Deano was waiting for us at the trawlers where Benny filleted and cooked up the red. We didn’t have it with any salad or special sources just salt, pepper and lemon so we could taste the goodness. It was a 10/10 dish and watching back on the footage made me hungryer than ever seeing the soft, peal white flesh and golden brown top. After cleaning the dishes and a bit of a chat the adventure was over.
Bring on the next adventure! Brycey signing out 👊