A coral trout drift at "the islands" turned into one of the more chaotic offshore captures Mick's Gone Fishing has filmed in recent memory after a 25-kilo GT engulfed a small red prawn jig and proceeded to spool the boat in a full 360-degree rotation before coming to the gunwale.
The trip — billed as a low-key "strawberry picking" run for coral trout, with the host admitting it had been "a long time since I had the boat out" — opened conservatively. The kit on deck was a 30 to 50 lb Saki Forge 7-foot-three paired with a 5000 Sultan reel, 50 lb braid and a 60 lb leader, with what Mick described as "my old faithful little red prawn" tied on.
The trouble started inside the first proper drift, when the camera operator picked up a fish on the sounder hard against the bottom and Mick instantly felt under-gunned.
"Definitely got big throbbing head shakes," he said. "Calm down, mate. Sultan sing. This is where you wish you had something a little bit heavier."
The fish ran more line than he expected, and then more again. The drift turned into a circle as the boat was dragged around its own outboard.
"At least I'm getting some line back. I should have counted how much line he had out because I reckon I've still got 100 metres of line out — that's the colour I finished on," Mick said. "This boat's just doing a donut."
"You've got us like anchored. I go under the boat. I wonder if I try and freeze-spool it and spin it around these outboards because I'm not going to get around otherwise. That's better. Better angle. Bit more power. You watch, she's coming back now."
The weight on the rod was enough that, by the time the fish broke colour, Mick called it for what it was.
"It's bloody huge. Wow. A 25-kilo jet. Let's pull this dog in," he said. "He's coming in the back door. Actually, I'm going to need a hand here."
The fish — a giant trevally that had no business eating a prawn jig — went into the esky. Mick's verdict: "What's a GT like that? He's got no business eating a little prawn bait."
The rest of the session settled into a more traditional reef rhythm. Coral trout came out of the same lump on subsequent drifts, with a 54 cm fish opening the legal-size column. Multiple short trout, a chunky grassy sweetlip, a Spanish mackerel that smoked his rod almost the moment the stickbait hit the water, and a brawling cod from a deep ledge filled out the bag.
The Spanish encounter was textbook reef stickbait rhythm.
"Let it sink. Rip one. Rip one. Rip one. Rip one. Pause," Mick said. "There he is."
"This is a spud sack for sure, bro. Surely immovable object. Any second now, the bar trauma is going to kick in. Why are you changing direction so much, man? Is it like a golden or something? Shouldn't be fighting. Yeah, it's a shark. Sharks eating prawns. What's a shark doing eating a prawn?"
The bite shut off when the tide went slack and the glass came out. Mick's read on the day, summed up at the ramp: "Once the glass is out, the fish don't seem to want to play, but we struggled to find some current, and when we finally did, we couldn't even feel the bottom."
