On November 26th my wife and I took a 2 hour flight from
Cairns north to Bamaga where we were
met by Greg Bethune, captain of the
Tropic Paradise, a 62 foot aluminum
catamaran custom designed for mother
ship fishing trips. We traveled a
short distance past 15 foot high
termite hills to the seaside village
of Seisia where the Tropic Paradise
was moored to the local pier.
Multiple sings on the beach adjacent
to the pier had crocodile warnings
and recommended against going into
the water. Welcome to Australia.
We boarded the Tropic Paradise and discovered that we were
two of the only 3 passengers. The
third passenger was PPAPAYA Bob… and
avid fly fisherman from Florida who
had taken the Barrier Reef trip last
year. Beside Greg Bethune, there
were 5 other crew consisting of
chef, two guides (Peter and Shane),
and two mother ship crew (Naomi and
Lou). We departed about lunchtime
and made Duggong Island by
nightfall. The rough weather
prompted all to vote on anchoring in
the Lee of the Island that night
rather than slogging it all the way
out to the reef. Dropping a jig from
the stern of the mother ship to the
bottom resulted in a hook-up with a
probable Narrow barred Mackerel as
it bit through the 60 lb mono after
a short fight. That seemed to shut
down the bite so we ate dinner and
went to bed after setting up our
spinning and fly-rods. I brought a
fairly stout two piece spinning rod
called the “Tuna Sniper” wed to a
Stella 20000 reel. This is what
Betsy used for much of the trip. I
brought a 10 wt JC rod with Abel #3
BG Reel (old style, full cage), 11
wt 3 pc JC rod with Tibor Riptide
reel, 12 wt Sealevel Extreme 8’ rod
with Abel 4.5 BG reel, 14 wt Sea
Level Extreme rod with Abel Super 12
W. As it turned out, most fish
including the largest were taken on
the 10 wt rod with a sinking head
and intermediate running line.
The mother ship towed 4 skiffs. Two ere 17 foot panga like
boats and two were center console
runabouts with goof electronics. We
spent much of the first morning
catching Narrow barred Mackerel
(“Spaniards”), as well as a few
Coral Trout and GT’s with poppers. I
caught a few smallish trout with the
fly rod, nothing spectacular. The
Mackerel were all taken on trolled
plugs. After lunch Betsy and I went
ashore with floating lines and small
flies to look for bonefish, jacks
etc. A few casts along the shore
produced two Golden Trevally to
about 5 lbs. We then went around to
the shallow reef side of the island
and spotted a school of about 5
large, tailing fish. Several casts
with small baitfish flies were met
with indifference and only disturbed
the school. While the fish were
regrouping I switched to a crab fly.
When the fish started tailing again
the fly was avidly taken on the
first cast. It took off on a medium
slow but powerful run of about 50
yards. After a few shorter runs we
beached it. It turned out to be a
good sized “Blue Bastard” or
Sweetlips. The closest thing that we
have in North America to this is
probably a redfish.
That evening we traveled through more rough weather to a
small island about 15 miles inside
the main reef and the next morning
we reached the Great Barrier Reef.
The wind was still up and there were
rain squalls but the water was calm
behind the reef and the fishing was
great. I had the best luck with fly
rod fishing the channels between
reef patches where schools of
fusiliers (most prevalent baitfish)
were schooled up.
I
caught Red Bass to 15 lbs, a large
Coral trout of about 18 lbs, a
Narrow barred Mackerel of about
25-30 lbs, a few large Mac Tuna and
multiple Shark Mackerel to about 15
lbs. I hooked up and got cut off by
two large GT’s., but I did manage to
land a few small GT’s of about 10
lbs and several other types of
trevally.
The fourth morning we awoke to gorgeous weather with no real
wind. The reef was covered with
glassy clear water making spotting
fish easier. We took two trips
outside the reef to fish for
Dogtooth and got into them on the
second trip. Peter was able to meter
the fish hanging around a pinnacle
about ¼ mile outside the main reef.
One of the boats managed 2 smallish
Doggies on trolled plugs. We decided
to drift over the pinnacle letting
the fly line sink about 40 to 50
feet before stripping in. This
resulted in one hook up followed by
a fairly blistering run of about 100
yards followed by the line suddenly
going slack. The 20 lb tippet broke
just below the Bimini despite
relatively light drag setting on the
reel. A lot of authors talk about
getting “finned” by the Dogtooth.
Anyway, I think I’ll try 40 lb
tippet the next time, if there ever
is a next time.
In any case, the Great Barrier Reef is an awesome place to
fish (and snorkel). We were in a
rarely visited part of the reef at
the northern end of the York
Peninsula. As a matter of fact, we
never saw another boat while we were
on the Main reef.
Things learned on the trip. Bring some crab flies, everything
eats them near shore. Bring 4 – 5
sinking heads and 4 -5 float heads
matched to 10-12 wt rod. Bring lots
of pre-tied single strand 50-60 lb
wire bite tippets about 6” in
length. The wire gets bent up after
just one fish, and the fish don’t
seem to like bent wire bite tippets.
The Narrow barred Mackerel have a
mouth identical to that of a Wahoo,
and will cut any monofilament. So, I
fished with a wire tippet most of
the time. You can get away with 60
lb mono bite for the other species,
but the Spaniards hung around most
of the places that we fished. A Spro
type swivel attached to one end
makes it easy to attach to your
class tippet monofilament. I used 80
lb spro swivels which can easily
slide through guides (not that they
needed to on a bite tippet), etc.
Thankfully most reef cut-offs
occurred on the tippet, not on the
fly line. However, I did lose
several fly lines to the reef. This
nearly always occurred when I let
the line sink a little too far,
causing a hang-up. On future trips I
would probably fish with more 40 lb
class tippet to improve landing
chances with the larger GT’s and
Coral Trout and definitely with the
doggies (at least until I got the
hang of these fish). Flies needn’t
be huge. I tied many more large
flies then I needed. The only place
where a large fly seemed best was
with the Dogtooth Tuna. A fly on a
3/0 or 4/0 hook, tied clouser style
with bright colors and flash did the
job for other species.
Another technique that might be advantageous for the
flyrodder would be to get some
baitfish (with sabikis, etc) and
cart them a few miles inside the
reef and use them for chum to
attract fish to the boat. There are
lots of fish in this area where the
depth is about 100 feet. I
discovered this when I let my fly
sink down 60 to 70 feet and brought
it back, large Spaniards and even
one very large trevally camp up
following but not striking the fly.
I think a little well placed live
chum would have kept the fish near
the boat and turned them on enough
to more readily take the fly. The
deeper water MIGHT improve one’s
chances of landing a large GT.
Steve Petit
