Had the leader on 2 others which would have been pt ANSA releases. Close but no cigar. Still a lot of fun on big fish out of a trailerboat on the edge of the shelf fishing two up. Of the ones we lost, one swam under another boat while we were fighting and he didn't get out the way after we dodged through the main pack of boats, pulled the hooks on one after 20mins or so on sunset on 24kg and lost one due to a crimp pinching the mono which was a first for any crimp job I had done.
We fished Eagle Claw circles livebaiting, Js for lures and a mix of circles and Js skip baiting. Counted up to 43 boats fishing together at various times. Can't say we saw anything under 60kg behind the back of our boat with most stuff kg.
Mostly Stripes but quite a few Blacks. Did see other boats on baby Blacks sometimes. Did 11 days offshore in two weeks holidays which was good going and amazing considering normal weather. Most trips were Nm off the heads and we were using odd litres a day with the Etec on the 6. Lots of Haines Hunters there with 4 strokes and they were getting litres a day doing similar things.
Our best day was litres and worse chasing Blues on the shelf with lures The Haines' being much heavier boats so just re-inforces why I am a 4 stroke man. Dealing with oil and then having smoke every now and again as well as a bit of smell has turned me off them. It had a fuel computer and at cruise of anywhere from rpm it was using litres an hour, fast cruise in the mid 30 knot range we were using 62 litres an hour and flat out one morning I was using 82 litres an hour.
One trailerable Noosacat with twin 4 stroke Yamahas was only using a side. Not bad considering the size of the boat and comfort they would have been doing it in by comparison. Berths for the big boats were on a month minimum as well, not by the week or day like Qld marinas. Port Stephens is well worth doing at that time of year. It was a who's who of fishing. You would see famous people down the pub or when you hung around the marinas and the fishing was hot before we got there.
