Hi buddharock

Your gear sounds ok to me....when we were in Coral Bay last year, we fished outside the reef most days and used a standard patanoster rig on similar rods & reels to you. Caught fish every day and didn't have too much trouble with losing gear.

We didn't fish from the shore but if you get a chance to fish around the bombies in the recreation zone south of the boat ramp (inside the reef), you'll have a heap of fun with your light gear on species like spanglies, red throat and skippy, etc...well worth trying it.

Look forward to your report.

regards
rusty...

I can't give you much advise for deep stuff but in behind the reef from south passage will get you a few fish. there are alot of sharks up there so take plenty of rigs. also behind the reef about 15-20m is good mackie territory you cant
miss. also yellowfin tuna in the same area. bottom fishing that deep I would use a 50lb overhead set up. be careful heading out, there is lots of shallow reef best ask for advise when you get up there.

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 Thanks guys, soooooo looking forward to the trip.  Hopefully will get to try shore, inside and outside.  Keen to get enough to eat for the wife and kids and maybe a little to freeze and bring back home.  

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for Reds would be to fish depths of 40-50m  (keeping a close eye on your sounder) and you will tend to find them on flat rubbly bottom rather than any sort of radical dropoffs. Also we tended to find more Reds heading out from South passage rather than the North (but thats just our experience)

Your gear should be OK but be prepared to fish it to its limit. BIG Reds/Spangleds?Rankins etc. go bloody hard

Paternosters do well up there and also have a floater hanging out the back to pickup any stray Mack etc. that may cruise by.

We were up in Coral bay last May, going again in 6 weeks. Apart from the usual boat fishing for Spanglies, Reds, Rankins and Goldband we spent an absolute awesome day down at Mauds Landing. We used 2-4 kilo outfits and blue sardines on a small gang and between 3 of us we must have caught and released about 100 mini GT's   . . . . . . They were all about 1kg and bugger me didn't they go hard on light gear. We got busted off regularly.

I ended up with bruises down the chest from trying to hold the rod up. We played with them for a couple of hours (until we ran out of bait). The fun thing was that amongst the little ones there were some bloody big fish that were taking the ones that we hooked. One minute you are fighting this tough little speedster and the next second KABOOM  . . a huge surface hit with water going everywhere and your line starts disappearing at a rate of knots. I nearly wet myself laughing. Great fun (for me, not for the fish that I had !).

Thoroughly recommend it if they are out and want to play. We will certainly be giving it another go this year.

cheers

 Thanks CC, will use the advice and head to Mauds for a spot of shore action. Hopefully have the same amount of luck too. 

Cheers!

Dont forget any slices. Twisties the go by miles. Gold or silver.

we found plenty of sharks out of the north passage and then north of there fishing in 30-60m of water. I was told by one of the locals if you have the capacity to travel a bit further which isn't much, get out to 120m and you'll lose the sharks and look for the goldband snapper. we had plenty of fun in the shallows around the bombies at the south passage too, the fish werent really on the chew but with 25kn winds it was better than nothing.

aha im going up aswell with my brother and mum and dad and another group, and im staying in the same place.

 Thanks all for the tips and information.

Will see you up there Muskrat, tight lines.

 at the moment and started running 80lb mono leaders on

paternoster rigs but have been continuously busted off ( not bitten off )

so my tip is to run 100+ lb leader. Also, make sure that all your gear

is in tip top nick, and run a striped pattern deepdiving lure out the back

when you are tonking around. It will get you good fish.

Hey Lastcast

I like the sound of the action up there. We will be up there in a week or so and looking forward to some similar action (other than getting busted off !!). I take it that you are bottom bouncing with the paternoster, how deep are you fishing, if you dont mind me asking ?

cheers

Bottom fishing with sea anchor yeah.  we only fished in max 65 meters about 5 mile out

(nice coral trout + spangled emps), but stumbled on very productive lumps in only 20m

so we fished them. Lost a 5 foot wahoo just under the boat. One more thing - head well

south  inside the reef + pick up some nice squid, heads for bait, body for beer snacks. 

Cheers Lastcast, cant wait to get up there and get amongst them.