ADVENTURE 5 QLD REEF FISH

I love fishing the waters around Hervey Bay. My Ram Road trip was a mere 450km south from Rockhampton and the ride was a breeze in my Ram 1500 Warlock. With its built in towing system, I could hardly feel the weight of my 650 Surtees Game Fisher on the back. But if the brakes need to be applied quickly I have full confidence that the Ram Truck and the 1.5-ton load on the back will pull up quickly.

As I am doing so many long drives some up to 14 hours in a day I really need a vehicle that has the lot. The Ram meets all of my needs in style.

My plan was to stay the night right up towards the top of Fraser Island so I was fortunate to be able to tie up the boat and bunk up on a beautiful charter yacht.

The accommodation on the yacht meant I was only a stone throw from Rooney’s Point right up the top of Fraser Island.

From this vantage point, it meant if the weather was fine with the swell low and the wind light I could take a look at getting across the unpredictable sand bar running across the top.

At first light, I headed off up and around the Frazer top end. The bar was looking a bit dodgy but I was.

fortunate to be able to follow a large game boat out across the bar and I marked the channel into my Garmin GPS plotter for the trip home.

Once I was clear of the shallow sand bar I headed out to some of the many reef systems that I could see easily on the Garmin Map.

I rigged up with some heavy gear just in case I was fortunate to hook a large Emperor.

My first three fish were colourful Cod but I was after something bigger. The next fish to hit my bait was a beautiful Trevally with long sickles, which looked amazing. After several attempts to land a bigger fish ended up as Sharks dinner I was anxious when I moved locations and saw some big fish arches on the Garmin sounder. Were they more Sharks or would I finally get a decent fish to the Surtees.

After a titanic battle, I was able to land this powerful Green Jobfish and I was super happy.

These fish test your skills all the way to the boat. They look prehistoric with their armour-plated body big head and long fangs but they are delicious to eat.

The day was slowly starting to turn into a good one and as the rod bent and line poured off my

Shimano reel a beautiful Spangled Emperor slipped into the net.

These are quality fish as they fight hard and are beautiful to eat. What really amazed me though was the colours and patterns of the fish I caught. They were all so different from each other.

As we headed back around the tip of Fraser Island we could see smoke pouring skyward as a large bushfire had started devouring the vegetation just over the sand dune. It’s been a crazy couple of years with bushfires, floods and Corona changing the world we live in.