First Reef Fishing Trip Off Gladstone

October 28th 2022.....
This has been our first opportunity to fish off the coast of Gladstone. We've literally never fished the reefs together in our own boat before, Ever! So it was all a big learning curve.
The further north we go, tides and moons phases, play a massive roll in our fishing experience. I was freaking out about the tides and navigating the route from the boat ramp out to the open ocean mostly because the navigational markers aren't as prominently marked as the Gold Coast estuary system and there are a lot of underwater sand and rock bars if you happen to stray out of the navigation route.
It will take us some time to learn what time of the tide we can still use the bar (I'm told 2 hours either side of low is still ok) and I'm still not sure if it gets rough through the bar at any stage of the tide? Obviously the weather could turn the bar pretty nasty. We were lucky on the day we went out with the weather window and the tides the way they were.
Now I understand why people stay over night or a few days now when fishing these waters because it's a hell of a long trip out to even our closest island Mast Head Island.
To fill the boat up in this day and age really hurts our pocket so we have to make sure we are getting the most out of our trips now. Don't worry filling it up doesn't necessarily mean we use the whole tank in one go but it uses a lot more then it used too on the Gold Coast.
And so, we still manage to land a few legal sized fish to take home which made the trip that much more worthwhile.
Hope you enjoyed this episode and we can't wait for more trips on the reef.