Just spent a week and a bit on Fraser Island, Queensland, Australia were one of Austrailas biggest fishing competitions was held. Over 300 boats and 2500 people make the event on the worlds largest sand island with no roads but just all beach and bush tracks. It's world known for it's true beauty and has become an extremely busy tourist destination with thousands flocking to the island yearly. It also holds some of the best fishing action in Australia so it's very popular for both the beach and offshore fishermen. It's an absolute logistical nightmere getting a boat and all the required gear onto the island but that's what makes this comp one of the prestige events on the calender. After a small barge ride off the mainland It's fairly straight forward drive of around 2 hours up along one of the longest beaches around before heading off the beach and up into bush tracks which also takes a couple of hours and usually were problems begin with bog situations and broken components occuring.
A mate had only recently just purchased a new V8 turbo diesel landcruiser ute and this was given the duty of towing the new boat to our destination and didn’t it do a great job . A corner on one of the bush/sand tracks turns left reasonably sharp and houses a 4 foot vertical bank holding shrubs, sticks and small stumps making the corner hard to pass without pulling the boat into the bank and causing major paint damage. We have a fairly lengthy draw bar on the trailer so there is a fair distance between the rear 4x4 wheels and the trailer wheels so taking the corner as wide as possible with the fourby was the plan but not an easy task with the rear wheels sliding down into the tracks. We snatched upto one of the 2 support 4x4's we had with us and after some great driving by the boys they managed to pull the boat through with only a couple soft plants sliding down the side and only an inch or so off some nasty stumps that would have made the paint job look very second hand. After arriving on the more protected section of the Island and were the event is held we soon learnt that we weren’t the only ones who struggled on that corner and many had damaged their good paint jobs to that nasty corner. We went back the next day to help a couple of other riptide boat owners through the same corner and Christians 7.6mtr “Bella” found the corner that he endured 2 hours on last year to soon become a problem child again. After widening the track and several attempts later we finally got it through but not without the boat given the corner wall a good hit and causing some damage. Ah good old Fraser Island. Why do we do it again?
You can either Camp on the beach or if your lucky can stay in one of the many small amount of houses at the top of the island and lucky for us we managed to get a house which makes things alot easier then draging all the camping gear up. We sat on the beach for a couple of days while it blew but it was a good time to meet up with many people and get some great feed back on the new rig. After this we then managed to get out for 4 days straight before the weather gods delivered 50 knots of wind and loads of rain. The 4 days we got out weren’t all that crash hot and it blew a good 15-20 knots the whole time and rained also but at least it was fishable even though I drove the boat all day long backing up on spots so the boys could keep the baits in strike zone for longest possible time. I think I only had about 10 drops for the whole trip but I got some nice fish on those even if the rod holder caught a my biggest fish while I netted 3 other fish the boys pulled up. After hitting many marks I had found previously it was soon apparent the fishing was slow so I knew I had to find new ground. It was a bit of a gamble travelling some pretty big distances both north and south of Waddy point but it paid off in the end with a couple of spots producing plenty of good red emperor, red throat, coronation trout, blue Maori cod, Maori cod, Amberjack and other assorted reef fish. At some stages we had 4 way hook ups on nice reds, which makes for good fishing and the effort well worth it . Andy was trying out his new Shimano electric reel which made for some good laughs and interesting viewing but in all seriousness was extremely important for Andy to fish with after having limited movement in his right arm after being ripped off and reattached in a terrible work accident. We caught about 25 goods reds during 3 days of the comp with the biggest a very nice fish but in poor condition and going just under 12kg. Altough we only fished 4 days out of a possible 9 days we all had a great time and the new boat went very well and I can’t wait to finish it completely and go for another fish. .The only damage done to the boat was some stripes on the side got torn from a Albatross. He nailed a bait ready to go down to the depths and then went crazy beside the boat and tore the decals with its claws .(didn’t even mark the paint) We managed to free him after some work and 10 minutes later he was back for more. Not a real bright bird that one.
Enjoy the pics and Google Fraser Island to see the wonderfull place that it is.
Regards,
Greg
