Think it’s my turn for the annual coral bay write up this year jsmolly??

Well, the trip has been and gone and was another trip that will be hard to beat (think we say that every year!)

We booked two weeks this year to give us flexibility on days, but we didn’t need it.

Had some awesome weather. Strongish easterlies in the morning, which allowed for gentlemen’s hour starts on most days, and then prob less than 5kt afternoons which gave some great fishing and return conditions.

Drive up with 2x cars and 2x boats was uneventful and 13hours door-to-door.

First couple of days was pretty tough going leading up to the full moon. A few squid to let the wind drop and then tried everything from 60-90m. Mountains of fish on the sounders, but just not feeding/ biting. We still managed some good fish (reds, robbos, honeycomb, Pearlie’s), but nothing amazing.

As the daily conditions just continued to get better, we decided to head to deeper water to try and find the goldband. And find them we did! A couple of consecutive days with big hungry fish, and the eskies were looking pretty good.

Fished some new ground on the second deep day with big double header goldbands giving the gear a workout.

Time for a rest day, well, sort of. we dedicated a day to squidding and landed amongst some massive schools of big squid (unfortunately didn’t take any photos). Once we found them, it was on with both boats cleaning up with easy bag limits.

We didn’t have much red in the esky so we made a call to punch way south in search of some new ground. Again, plenty showing on the sounder and despite trying a heap of new ground, we reverted to some old faithful spots which saved the day with some very healthy reds hitting the deck. the biggest breaking the magical 10kg mark.

Another couple of rest and maintenance days were then in order. The eskies still copped a hiding tho!!

Last fishing day we again were on the hunt for reds and trying new ground. Some of the crew had left so we just took one boat. with an awesome forecast, we headed out around 730 am in search. And this time it paid off!

Had a few drops on some new spots for a couple of robbo’s and spangleds (returned) and then tried a new spot not showing a lot on the sounder. All hell broke loose for about an hour with double header reds, spangleds, robbos etc hitting the deck on every drift.

With the boat bagged out, we headed back in for an early lunchtime finish. One of the hottest ‘red bites’ I’ve had and not a bad way at all to complete the catch.

Out of everyday, we only had one day where the sharks bothered us and we lost a few good fish. You just have to keep moving.

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