SHOALWATER BAY – CENTRAL QLD – 670km by water. Red Emperor, Nannygai, Goldband Snapper & Black Jew

We just completed an epic adventure into the Shoalwater bay area off Central QLD and covered a massive 670 km exploring this beautiful part of the coastline. We had some great weather that allowed us to head wide for a couple of days and do lots of searching where we found heaps of quality reds, nannygai, goldband snapper and grass sweetlip. The first drop of the trip was a highlight and resulted in 2 big black jew on mustad jigs and my oldman got a nice snapper on bait all of which was a little surprising considering how wide we were fishing.

We had a massive problem with plagues of very small black tip reef sharks eating our baits, sinkers and jigs and no matter where we went they were pretty much on every reef we found which was hugely frustrating. Back in close around the islands we caught grass sweetlip, trout, trevally and cod on artificials which kept us amused.

It was another fantastic adventure with many memories made with my Dad and mate macca by my side.

Some quicks facts from the trip:

750ltrs of fuel was taken, 620ltrs of fuel used, 670km covered, single 300hp Suzuki outboard averaged 1.1km a ltr even with so much weight on board, 39.8 hours of run time on the outboard for the trip, satellite phone on board for safety and weather updates, 200kg of block and crushed ice, 10kg of mullet fillets, 5kg of fresh whole tiger squid and heads, 2 cartons of bait squid, 4kg of pilchards, used 3 school mackerel we caught for bait along with many hussar that were caught.

Here’s a video of the all the action –