ADVENTURE 1

Our Ram Road Trip took us across the NSW Queensland border as soon as the Corona gates were open on December 1, 2020.

With a brand new black Ram Warlock towing my new sponsored Surtees 650 Game Fisher on a stable Dunbier Trailer I couldn’t wait to get into the sunny state.

I headed north to the Capricorn Coast to chase some awesome Queensland species that don’t like crossing into colder NSW and remain happy in their tropical northern home.

Rockhampton was my first stop some 700 kilometres from the border. The Ram Warlock handled the journey with ease with its 5.7 V8 Hemi powering me along we got there in around 8 hours. Driving in the Ram 1500 Warlock is like flying first class.

I joined a couple of great mates in Dean and Graham who love their fishing also.

The plan was to launch at Keppel Bay Marina and head north to Port Clinton. Joining us on the journey was Keppel Bay Marina’s registered charter vessel Keppeluna and having this vessel, as our liveaboard ship for the 3-night trip was tremendous.

We found some great country on our Garmin sounder and with loads of bait showing underneath the Surtees boat and some big predators sweeping through we knew that it wouldn’t take long for some action.

Like fishing anywhere there will be quiet days and busy days but we were racking up the catches and things were going very smoothly on day 1. As it was our first filming trip we started off chasing some poddy Mullet along the shallow sandy beaches. It didn’t take long to have a tank full of baitfish after using the cast net to great effect.

Wow what an awesome catch and somehow the hook and line missed out on coming into contact with the razor-sharp teeth of the Spaniard and our first prize capture was in the boat.

My mate Dean got a strong hit on the Mullet as soon as his bait hit the reef but then all of a sudden my bait got belted and a quick lift of the rod saw line squealing off the Shimano Saragossa reel.

I wasn’t sure what it was as it stayed down deep early before moving up in the water column and fighting it out up on the surface. To my surprise, a large 15-kilo Spanish Mackerel swam alongside the boat and Dean quickly slipped it into our net

Bi-catch was this terrific Spanish Mackerel

We continued to toss our live-baits into the 16m of water and found that lots of predators were swimming in with the incoming tide. The sun was setting when my Taipan 10-20 kilo rod nearly bent in half. Whatever was on the end wasn’t happy and the powerful fish blasted away time after time.

I was calling it for a possible black Jewfish as the line sizzled from the Shimano Saragossa reel. I waited anxiously as the great fish finally showed itself to be a magnificent Jewie.

The net was slipped under its thick body and I gave Dean a hand to lift the big girl on board.

I was over the moon and after a few pictures, we had the black jewfish swimming by the Surtees gaining strength.