Well Photobucket is finally playing the game so heres our report take two - lost the first effort and not happy about it either! Anyway our team this year consisted of myself, Tobi, Pickles and Gareth and we fished out of Tobi and Pickles new 670 Coraline, a big step up from the 5.3m Polycraft we brought with us last year.

We had a more defined plan on what we wanted to target for the comp but that didn't stop us bringing too much tackle with us, i had 7 combos alone and three tackle boxes, not including things like teasers, gimbals etc etc, needless to say we had all bases covered.

Our plan was to load up on fish for the freezer keeping to our limits of course but anything was going to be a win considering we brought back 1 pack of Dolphinfish last year so our main focus was to concetrate on things like Spango's, trout, reds and rankins and well we came home with a full 40L engel for the three families.

We arrived at lunch onthe Wednesday before the comp, unloaded the cars and boat then set about getting our groceries, drop off the kids to the grandparents and get out for a arvo squid session to start the food and bait gathering, this didn't happen due to Pickles and Tobi getting caught up with the oldies but we where set to go and our plan was hatched to hit the marina at 6am and head north to 50m.

Like every well played plan it doesn't always work, we woke to a stiff SE wind, not fazed mind you we packed the boat, grabbed a feed and hit the ramp, it didn't take long to decide we'll park the boat plans that morning and the trip was having an already familiar feel for it, all weather reports suggested good conditions for the whole week but we'd been lied to again so we hit the cape and had a bash from the rocks.

The tide was coming in but it was pretty shallow with turtles EVERYWHERE. We had all bases covered, one person with a popper, one with a twisty, soft plastic and bait to see what was to strike gold first. Bait failed as the reef just swallowed up rig after rig, popper was looking good with some small hits from queenies in the first few casts and lots of effort with the twisty and SP. I cracked the shits with the popper after a while as we said if it's not working this week we need to change it up ASAP so i grabbed my new little 2500 Daiwa SOL combo and tied on a 1/4oz 5/0 jig head with a McArthy 5 inch finesse minnow, now i love these little suckers but i always feel they are too small but after some reading in mags of late it had been 4-5 inch models accounting for the Spangos in the shallows so off i went casting around. 30 mins in and finally we had a hookup and GOD DAMM did it take off, called it for a shark straight away and i was waiting for the inevitable from either it's jaw or the reef but the run slowed and i began working that little combo very cautiously to subdue whatever i had hooked, 10 mins laters and its at the base of the rocks and i couldn't believe it! a bloody monster Spango, i then spent the next 10 minutes trying to get it up on the rocks without a gaff or help from my teammates (thanks guys haha) but he stopped running and i grabbed that 40lb leader and wrapped it around my hand and heaved him up onto the stones.

I peaked WAY too early, a massive PB by 14cm and he measured in at 680mm, it soon had everyone tying on SP's and having a crack but the lack of a esky soon cut this session down and we agreed it was a good start and lets keep it going on the boat. Take two at the ramp and we loaded up the game gear for a test run as we hadn't done it yet from the new boat and with two first timers but we also grabbed the squid gear, the weather had turned better but it was already 3pm and it was going to take 45 mins to get to the 50m line and so we just stuck to squid as rumour had it they where out and about, so i took my little girl out too for her first fishing trip in a boat so we spent 2 hours drifting around in the gulf for 3 squid but the little one had a ball and we enjoyed the afternoon watching the gulf glass off and enjoying some tunes and cold beers, we'll get out tomorrow and make a day of it for sure!

Day two and well there was some shady looking characters rising at 7am, we'd checked the weather that night and we had a repeat from yesterday on our hands so out came the biltong and beef jerky, the scotch, Hahn super drys and red wine until 2am so needless to say we waited for a bit.

It wasn't getting better until 2pm and so after a brekky run to Brumbies we hit the point up again armed with a esky this time, the scraps from the squid on hand for fresh bait and we settled in to another landbash session. i persisted with SP's for the day with a small but very acrobatic queenfish giving me a good fight on 15lb. Gareth was dieing to get into some fish as he had never caught a fish on SP, he was already converted after showing him the number of trout and snapper i had accounted for over the summer back home so he set out to open his account on his new Monstermesh rod and Saragosa 5000 and sure enough he got stuck into a nice little GT for his troubles followed by a Golden Trev.

Pickles in the mean time moved to the western tip of the spot and flung out a hunk of squid and waited patiently away from the shore as we where all copping a hiding from the swell on the rocks, 20 minutes latter he's stuck into a ripper of a fish. he wrestled it to the rocks on 30lb on his 4000 stradic/fin nor ahab combo and he holds high a healthy 630mm spango and so it began a bloody hot session of 1 hour hooking into 5 spangos to Gareth and Pickles between them with the smallest at 560mm as well as a few turtles that just took off like a frieght train.

We called it quits as the esky was getting bloody heavy with all the fish and ice so we loaded the boat for billfish take two. Once again we left from the marina and headed ASAP to 50m but time was really against us and so was the weather and conditions. We set the spread and headed west but we only had 30 mins of fishing time before we had to head back, clean the fish, clean the boat and be at Adams for the briefing night.

With a few beers in hand off we went to register the team and catch up with all those i'd met last year and get the goss on whats been biting so with the formalities out of the way we went back and sat around and checked the weather, suprise it was going to be breezy from the east but not as bad so with not one bottom bash session in the bag, no GPS spots at all it was decided to hit the murions and go from there, try and find some trout in the shallows and if the weather allows head out and try and find some reds somehow.

The conditions where amazing, the weather man had screwed up but in our favour and we launched into the gulf and it was dead flat and there was birds everywhere, i told the crew to screw the plan and tie on a twisty and lets get a tuna, so Tobi who had yet to catch a fish for the trip she was eager to fire the first cast, but not before we chanted the Boat Oath and had a skull, Pure Blonde cans aren't too bad at 8am in the morning after all and boy did it work! first cast and Tobi is on solid to a tuna, we played him cautiously for 20 mins on Tobi's SP combo and finally tailed him and into the boat, man i love catching tuna like that! Tobi was shaking as this was her biggest by far and her first longtail tuna at 97cm, we where pretty confident of a win here straight up, it was a shoe in unless someone found a Yellowtail so straight up 2mins from the ramp on the first morning WE HAD A ENTRY!!! objective 1 ticked off with a species we didn't want to chase. We tried to get Gareth onto one and we spend another 30 mins chasing the schools but they went quiet so off we went but as we did the conditions got worse and slowed us right down so Pickles found something on the sounder but the wind was casuing havoc and it was hard work hitting the bottom but somehow we jagged another entry with Gareth hooking into a 73cm Golden Trev, 2 hours in now and two entrys but we knew this one would stand up but you have to be in it to win it.

The conditions got so bad that we where down to 11 knots heading to the islands so we chucked the spread out hoping to fluke a Sailfish in 25m, no love there just weed in the spread. no probs lets chuck out the trout lures and find them, no love there either which was strange, in fact all we hooked was one pick handle baracuda, this was gettting frustrating so we ducked around to the outside of the murions and searched for Spangos but it was still really slow, lots of red throats and yellow tail emps but nothing, at least Freo was winning the football then my SP got nailed! i was calling it for a mackeral at first then a big Trevally, shark was thrown in there but he would have busted me off pretty quickly i thought so i got all optimistic and called it for a Cobia, nope it was the grey suit brigade trashing the party and i had managed to hook him in the corner of the mouth, the little Lucanus jig rod and Tyrnos 10 had a hard task boating him but we got him up and cut the line. We'd had a good day and we left home early to sort a big dinner out with some friends and family in town. Day one was a winner!!!

Day two and what a shocker!!! the wind was cranking hard from the east and it looked threatening from above, oh how right that was going to be, we launched from Tantas as the rain bucketed down while we launched, i said to the crew that there is some interesting ground to the north of the north passage before the sanctuary zone hoping to find a big golden trev or more spangos cruising the shallows. visability was shithouse but we anchored up and waited for the weather to pass so we could hit Helby Bank up for some deeper water, the fishing was slow and the weather was clearing so we moved out into 25m as the swell was running a fair bit along with the wind, Pickles didn't have enough rope to anchor any deeper due to the amout we needed to play out so we targeted this depth, again the fishing was slow with lots of little emporer around and charlie courts, we got boared so we enacted our plan to win at least ONE prize, it was an idea i had a week out from the comp while we polished off a few bottles of red and scotch and suggested to the men in our crew that we pinch the wives bathing attire and get some pics of us fishing in it, now thankfully all evidence has been erased i hope of this down right horrible sight but the male body is not meant to squeeze into a petite two pieces of fabric and string, we had a good laugh about this and promptly got back into more comfortable attire and settled in for another hour before we said we'd have a crack at the land based section seeing as we'd found a bloody good spot during the week but it had been noted we hadn't chanted the boat oath that day and we'd jinxed ourselves so we belatedly shouted it out and settled in for a good finish. Sure enough pickles little SP combo loaded up hard on a good fish, he worked it beautifully off the bottom on 30lb braid and boated a spanker of a Rankin Cod, his colours where a little funny and we weren't sure it was one but there was enough blotches on the underside to have me sure we'd got a pearler at 78cm, we didn't want to look silly with a so called rankin to be told otherwise.

Another entry and it was off to our landbased spot with fresh bait and a feed and so yet again we had another hot session on Spangos, we collected another 4 that day with the biggest at 610mm for Tobi then Gareth hooked into a small Tawny Nurse Shark which was soon photographed and released, anotehr great day with 3 more entries for fish and that never to be discussed again bikini shoot.

The last had me grovelling to the mrs that the comp didn't end until 6pm that night and i hadn't got a entry in the comp so i got my permission slip signed and got out of family day and we hit the water on the best day of the week, again we hit the murions and drifted around in 40m on what the chart called a coral bottom but for the two hours we drifted there wasn't much to show, so we headed shallower and found nice ground in 25m which showed fish holding off the bottom. some fresh strip baits did the trick allowing the pickers to bring in the bigger fish and sure enough another 3 spangos and a rankin cod to myself had graced the decks. The call was made to knock off early and start cleaning the place up as we where off the next day but we dug in for one last effort because we where convinced the bait board prize was for the longest trout so we had the hard bodies out on bundegi reef looking for my first entry in the comp, i only preceeded to lose 3 lures to the reef and one very small mackerel, we also tried for squid as we had none in the freezer yet but no love but hey we couldn't complain we had 6 entried in the comp and fillets to come home with.

Team Twitchemup may have taken out the majority of the prizes but we snuck under the radar for what i am calling second place. We took out the landbased section with the shark and that horrible bikini shoot won us the photo prize but we had a runner up in the Rankin Cod pipped by 1cm by Kye on Re-Lisa, Tobi had two runner ups with her tuna pipped by as we predicted a Yellowfin Tuna which tasted fantastic too! and Tobi's landbased spango at 610mm pipped by 2cm for what we found out was the bait board, never the less we had a ball and of course we will be back next year, great to see you all again and tight lines, i look forward to the 2012 edition of the Fishwrecked Invitational.

Big thanks to Adam for your works over the weekend and to the generous sponsers for their prizes