Went out to a local reef close to Cairns. Overcast and calm day on the water. While we were going trolling for Mackeral, they were too busy chasing a big bait school around and it was nearly impossible to follow. Instead we drifted the shallows casting small and medium sized lures.
Mark got smashed by a good sized coral trout that he just couldn’t stop, a different rod and reel maybe. He had no chance, but it was entertaining none the less. Would have been an impressive and big fish. He also had a huge hit while trolling, we presume it was another coral trout, this one bricked him before long and bent the metal bib on one of his larger ‘swains special’ trolling lures. Not the best day for Mark, but I think next time he’ll be better prepared!! He did catch a mother-load of small Dwarf spotted rockcod (wire netting cod) and Hexagon rockcods.
I mentioned to Mark that I was going to catch a coral trout as I haven’t caught one yet on a lure. I cast out as far as possible at the edge of the coral drop off and the lure got nailed. Feeling a good weight and the fish taking off tight drag, I went pretty hard on the fish. I don’t like being bricked on shallow reef, nor did I want to lose one of my favourite (impossible to get) lures. No less than 30 seconds after my initial statement I’d caught a bar cheeked coral trout (Plectropomus maculatus). Stoked! How good is that?
Also another cod, that I assume is a blue spot rockcod (Cephalopholis cyanostigma?), although I’m not sure as the flanks of it’s fins were not the right colour, but I can’t find anything closer. **It’s a Coral Cod (Cephalopholis miniata)!** I also caught a heap of small assorted rod cods, greedy little buggers can’t resist a paused lure sometimes and they will hit anything, even lures bigger than themselves!
And lastly caught a flowery cod (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus) that put up a hell of a fight for a small fish.
Great day out on the water casting lures, perfect. Looks like we found some good spots and we’re starting to map out where the good coral patches are and areas that hold trout.
