Coral Sea Adventure

See all articles by My Fishing Place Team

24 Aug 2009

This article is posted in these categories: Lure Fishing Popper Fishing Saltwater Fishing Sport Fishing

The waiting was killing me, sitting in the small lounge of the seaplane airline. The anticipation was high. It wasn’t long and we were airborne, overlooking the beautiful Great Barrier Reef, and the best thing? Mobile phones off – and they weren’t going to work for another seven days.
We were headed for Bugetti Reef in the Coral Sea for a week of GT fishing with Nomad Sportfishing, one of the worlds premier Sportfishing companies.
The week started well with the plane arriving safely around 9.00am in the morning, by 10.00am we were casting poppers at scary reef edges. Our goal? To catch the first GT before the seaplane returned with the next 6 guests – and succeed we did.
The first day saw me catch 2 GT’s around the 20 and 25 kg mark, not a bad start, plus we boated several mackerel and a very nice Longtail Tuna which was destined for sashimi.
Over the next few days saw us catch dozens of large GT’s – some where you thought if I hook up here I am in serious trouble. However with 130lb braid with the drag tightened behind belief it was amazing what could be pulled out. The largest for the week was not my biggest ever GT but at 36kgs (nearly 80lb on the old scale) it was a great fish.
Some fish fought well in excess of their weight class. I had one GT that turned side on in a current of about 8 knots and seemed almost impossible to extract – I called for a 40kg plus fish however it turned out to be around the 30kg, a great fish, however the effort to extract was mindblowing.
There were times after just catching a GT, the guides would say through your popper in there – pointing to a nice pressure point with bait pushed up against a reef ledge, my reply was “you have to be mad what if I hook another one!”, such was the effort sometimes to extract.
The Gear
This place is no place for second rate gear. Nomad uses all top quality shimano stella 20000 and Ian Millar GT Popping Special Rods, mostly loaded with 130lb braid. Some of the guests on our trip brought Daiwa Saltigas all with upgraded drag and again loaded with 130lb braid. During the week we saw poppers and stickbaits destroyed, broken rod guides, and even a $1,200 specialist GT rod snapped such is the power and brutality of these fish.
Etc Etc,