Great Barrier Reef 2024 - Part Two

Great Barrier Reef 2024 – Part Two

Post author:Shonalanga
Post published:November 6, 2024
Post category:Captains Log
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Great Barrier Reef 2024 – Part Two

Great Barrier Reef 2024 – Part Two: There goes the second one bro…

In mid-October 2024 we had a gap chasing Giant Black Marlin on our home waters of Bazaruto and went fishing for them for two weeks on Australia´s Great Barrier Reef.

The first week aboard the Adventum had seen some great fishing including a beast of 1245 pounds which we boated and which report and pictures you can see here;

Great Barrier Reef 2024 Part One

We slept in Cooktown on the night of the 23rd and must say it was great having a chilled night on land, with a nice Thai dinner and some amazing chilled white from New Zealand´s Marlborough area

The next day we met up with the crew of the Hellraiser 2 which would be our home for the next week.

From the moment we stepped on that boat we could feel that they were great genuine guys, deeply passionate about it and most of all wanting to have fun doing it.

Our first impressions were not wrong and what a great week we had with Rhys, George and Eric…

George with a double weighted scad ready to go… as much as I love the quennies and would not trade them for anything, how I wish we had those things as well back at Baz as a backup for our swim baits!!!

Weather was pretty good and Rhys decided to run all the way to number #10 where they had experience great fishing the previous week – obviously with the normal bait fishing session along the way, catching a bunch of species mostly king and scaly mackerel and Kawa Kawa´s which they call mac tunas that side!

We put the baits out just after noon at the bottom end of number #10 where the water was quite milky from the outgoing tide but as we moved further north and up it went beautiful.

Then, at 15h15, literally into the first two hours of fishing we get a bite on the scad and we hook up into a real nice one.

As she showed herself Rhys immediately asked if we wanted to put the gaffs down. I told him no, that Carl, who was now busy dealing with this thing in the chair, did not want to kill one, well unless it was maybe 1500 +!

GBR tour 2024 Part II – …another XXL model!

Two hours into fishing on the first day of the week charter aboard Hellraiser 2 and we hook into this slob of a fish making for a perfect start to the week.

Well, the show this big girl gave us on the leader had to be seen to be believed – it really was one of the most exhilarating fish, absolute beautiful driving from Rhys and great wire work on the wire by George with Eric cutting her off at the right time for a quick and clean release… and everyone on board going absolutely nuts!

As George nicely put it afterwards, in the morning we were complete strangers and by midafternoon we were screaming and hugging each other like long lost friends.

Experiencing that level of adrenaline can bind people to new levels and it’s not only what you achieve and experience but the people who you do it with and appreciate it on the same level…

Luckily, we got some GoPro footage of that release and some great pics to go with it!!!

BIG Fish on the Wire aboard Hellraiser 2 on the Great Barrier Reef recently.

Big Fish explosion!!!!

We missed another one later that afternoon, also on the scad and then went into anchorage next to the boys on the Sheriff and had a few laughs and drinks together.

With the two boats next to each other the underwater lights were doing double trouble and, as was the case every night, but this night even more the trevally´s were all around us. Of course, sometime during the evening, someone had the idea of getting a popping rod and getting stuck into some GT´s while others got the fly rod and had fun on the big eyes!!!

When kingfish come for dinner – the Great Barrier Reef aboard The Hellraiser 2.

The next day dawned beautiful and it was by far the calmest day we had for the two weeks – absolutely gorgeous.

We had a short bait session which produced some goodies including this XXL bluefin trevally model for George but with such glorious weather Rhys decided we should put the lures out and go wide to have a look.

George with a really large bluefin trevally caught on a bait session…

The previous week they had some great action out wide and had caught 5 Blues to 700 pounds. However, it was very quiet out there – we had a double on the lures but not one stuck and we did not even know what it was!

Back on the edge we had nonstop action but not the one you want. The razor gang was wild and kept cutting our swims. We had a couple boats hookup to us and eventually late afternoon at the top end of n. #10 We had a bite on the swim but the hook did not set.

That night we went into Lizard Island for dinner but before going ashore Rhys cooked us some boiled prawns which were absolutely delicious – I mean we come from the land of the prawns but these things were out of this World.

It was awesome going for a bite to Lizard, seeing all the memorabilia and meeting with some other crew´s – I even ran into a mate I had last seen many years ago in CV when he was decking on the Gladius.