Day One – the warm-up
The Fishing World team decided to enter the Dave Irvine Memorial Snapper Classic at Coffs Harbour for the first time this year. While the event itself sounded like a bit of fun, it was also a good excuse for us to fish a region we don’t get to often enough. In no time at all a couple of days fishing a snapper comp morphed into an epic road trip for five blokes, a brand new Land Rover Discovery HSE TDV6, a mountain of fishing gear, and plans to video a heap of cool stuff for the Fisho website. Bring it on…
After arriving at our farm stay accommodation north of Coffs at 1.30am and not hitting the sack until 3.30am, due to last minute rigging and line spooling duties, a bleary eyed Fisho team of Jim Harnwell, Sami Omari and I rose at 5.30am.
It was the morning before the third Dave Irvine Memorial Snapper Classic, hosted by the Coffs Harbour Deep Sea Fishing Club. The Snapper Classic is a catch & release event inspired by the memory of enviro-friendly fisho and inventor of the EnviroNet, Dave Irvine.
The seas were slight, but confused, the cloudy colouration of the water an after effect of recent floods that devastated much of the north coast. The skies were clear and a brilliant blue. We fished washes around the eastern side of South Solitary Island and picked up a couple of honker tailor of 3-3.5kgs on soft plastics. Numbers of schooled kings made a play at taking jigs and plastics, as did a bunch of small amberjacks for Jim. We also fished areas that should have held snapper but caught none.
Day Two
The morning of the first session of the Snapper Classic we purposely slept in and beat the rush at the ramp for a 5.30am start. Arriving at the Coffs Harbour ramp at 6.30am we only had two boats ahead of us. There was only the slightest westerly wind and seas again were ideal for offshore fishing.
For the event only three competing anglers were allowed per boat, so prior to the trip Scott Thomas and I had volunteered to carry out deckie, photography and score card duties. Team Fishing World, consisting of Jim, Sami and Fisho sales manager Chris Yu (who’d turned up the night before), found the snapper fairly elusive in the first session.
Chris got us on the board early with a 390mm “pannie” on an Octa jig. Only a small fish, but in this comp they all count.
Jim hooked a honker soon after on a white 7″ Gulp that made a long line-screaming run and really tested out a new Fin-Nor spin reel and St Croix “Australian Collection” rod we had on board. The fish turned out to be a 780mm red weighing roughly 7kgs, and was Harnwell’s PB snapper. It was a great start.
Sami scored his first points around the tide change with a 705mm fish he pulled in on a Quantum baitcaster outfit we were testing.
All too soon, the first session was over and it was time to head to the Coffs Harbour Deep Sea Fishing Club and hand in score sheets and download camera memory cards to verify captures; as the event is C& R, competitors are asked to lay each captured snapper and the successful angler’s ID card on a Brag Mat to record length (from the nose to the tail tip) and take a photo.
Talking to fishos on other boats after the first session it was clear the Fisho team wasn’t alone in finding the snapper fishing quiet. Even the favourite to take out the event, Fisho’s Michael Guest, had struggled. Although his team had hooked plenty of fish, they were unfortunately finding new ways to lose them.
The second session after lunch was even quieter and we only accounted for one snapper – a nice 600mm fish to Chris Yu, again on a 7″ Gulp.
Back at the club for dinner competing anglers could view pics of the day’s captures via a special big screen monitor, and see some big snapper, kings, and bream cruising the Supertank.
The event had a friendly feel about it; as someone with little experience of fishing comps it was a bit of an eye opener to see just how much fun they can be. There was a lot of inter team banter going on over a few cold beers, the talk mainly centred on the lack of snapper numbers – most teams had caught a few, but had struggled. A 960mm snapper caught by Hayley Bonnici was the biggest news of the event thus far.
We later caught up with Guesty at a local service station, his team were smarting from busting off eight big snapper in a row…
Day Three
The snapper comp’s morning only session of the final day saw team Fisho facing a zero on the score cards. With an hour to go the morning’s cool westerly had abated and we did a number of drifts in the Stabi near popular mackerel grounds east of the harbour. There was a good reef showing on the new Lowrance HDS sounder, an indication of why there were a scattering of boats at anchor there. Almost ready to call stumps, Jim hooked up on a plastic (a white 7″ Gulp) and was kept busy for about 10 minutes. It turned out to be a cracker 12kg king and a good catch on a test Stella 5000 SW reel and a custom GUSA rod built by Central Coast rod builder Jan Mikula.
Shortly after as I started the motor to head back for the 11am log off, a fish grabbed a bait drifting out the back in a rod holder. Chris was soon tangling with a good fish that looked a handful for my Loomis Bronzeback rod, Quantum test spin reel and 6lb FireLine. The fish was called for everything from a cobia to big snapper, king, jewie and mackerel but 10 minutes later when it made another strong screaming run we were no closer to finding out. Soon after it popped the FireLine, resulting in loud sighs from our boat and an audience of other boats around us.
The Dave Irvine Memorial Snapper Classic was an extremely well run event and a credit to the organisers. For the record the Fishing World team came 17th out of 67 teams, with Jim Harnwell the highest placed in our team, coming in 39th out of 183 anglers.
Final Results
Open Category: 1st Brad Bye; 2nd Lee Kaslik; 3rd James Norris; 4th Darren Sheridan; 5th Hayley Bonnici
Women: 1st Hayley Bonnici; 2nd Heather Purvis; 3rd Carol Frewen
Junior: 1st Sam La Costa; 2nd Joe Davidson; 3rd Coen Amon
Biggest Fish: Hayley Bonnici 95cm; Brad Bye 92cm; Tim Blay 92cm
Teams (67 boats in total): Black Magic 3648; Sea Devil 2847; Oscar 2797
Day Four
Early Monday morning saw us out in the Stabi around South Solitary Island. The weather was again perfect with light westerly winds and slight seas. At the northern end we found good numbers of kings and amberjacks, which were happy to take metal jigs, Raiders and soft plastics. Jim hooked a big fish which made screaming runs down deep and then circled up near the surface. It pulled the hook in the final stages of the fight. It was either a big mack tuna or a longtail – but we’ll never know for sure.
Out wider we caught a number of keeper size kings on live baits, as well as amberjacks, a bar cod, pig fish, snapper, mack tuna and others on jigs and lures.
We also saw a whale up close and personal as it floated by the boat, seemingly sunning itself.
That night after cleaning and filleting our catch we dined on an entrée of crumbed bar cod (awesome!) and a spicy Harnwell chicken curry.
Day Five
After an early night the team was up at 5am with high expectations. Unfortunately after a couple of hours in it was starting to look like predictions we’d heard of the full moon putting the fish off the bite were warranted. We struggled to catch bait over the grounds that provided plenty the day before. Fishing soft plastics and jigs over promising looking reef in around 20 fathoms we could only manage a mounting tally of red “flowerpot”cod and little else.
We jigged around some waypoints known for producing Samson fish, but despite plenty of bait and good fish displaying on the sounder it was hard work for no result.
After a fairly dismal morning session we consoled ourselves back at Coffs Harbour with some fresh prawns Chris had bought straight off a trawler and a cold beer back at our farm stay. Jim had a look at his boat trailer’s bearings as they were running hot. The news wasn’t good and the trailer ended up at a mechanic’s workshop to have new bearings fitted.
Here’s hoping the fishing improves while the good weather holds…
Day Six
No early start this time around and no one was complaining. We’d opted for a sleep in (till about 7.30am), some beach driving to test out the loaner Land Rover TDE Discovery and an afternoon fishing session.
We took the Land Rover down to a nearby beach, where it was legal to drive along the sand, as it is on many parts of the northern NSW coast. None of us were 4WD testers by any means but it was fun and interesting to see how the Discovery took to the sand. We met a local beach fisho who landed a dart and a nice bream while we were mucking around with the “Disco” nearby – stay tuned for a review of this cool vehicle in a coming issue of Fishing World.
The westerly winds had gained intensity around lunchtime, threatening the afternoon offshore session. By the time we had lunch and got our gear organised the wind had abated.
Out east of the harbour we sounded out some waypoints looking for reef, bait schools and any signs of predatory fish. Despite sounding loads of bait in some spots bites weren’t forthcoming. We had a couple of brief hookups that resulted in pulled hooks, my Loomis Bronzeback scored a broken runner – the second rod casualty of the trip – and Sami managed to find a crazy albatross that flew into his cast line. The bird understandably wasn’t happy when gently handlined to the boat to unravel the line it’d wrapped itself with. Tentatively, with a towel over the bird’s head to prevent it snapping its sharp beak at us, we untangled the line. The albatross soon flew off none the worse for the encounter.
Back to fishing and it was slow. Chris hooked a fish on a Spanyid Sniper that fought like a tuna with fast stubborn runs, before the hook pulled. I hooked up soon after on a white Gulp and spin gear and enjoyed a smoking first run. At one stage it looked like we’d have to chase the fish with the boat as the blustery south wester pushed us in the opposite direction. The fish finally slowed up and seemed to have expired. Pumping it back to the boat it was revealed as a solid mack tuna that typically had burnt itself out with fast line stripping runs.
A few more drifts produced zip. Jim suggested we try trolling a few lures in the hope of scoring a Spanish mackerel like a few that had been caught off Coffs of late.
Three strikes and two hookups later resulted in pulled hooks pulled both times, both fights suggesting mack tunas.
A few drifts for reds just on dark produced nothing. With the forecast for our last fishing day not promising (strong south westers) it looked like we’d be heading south early. The fishing wasn’t consistent but we’d had some fun sessions.
If you haven’t fished on the northern NSW coast, you’re definitely missing out.
The Fisho team are sure to be back!
Stay tuned for more in upcoming issues of Fishing World magazine and video footage of this trip on www.fishingworldmag.com.au .
