{{start}}

Got a text from from my next door neighbor Tom on Wednesday inviting me out to Masthead on Saturday to target our favourite table fish Red Throat Emperor (AKA "lippers").

Whilst the size limit for RTE is 38cm and the max size is around 55cm we only keep them when there over 40cm and even then normally bag out with 5 red throat emperor each.

Forecast was winds around just 4 kts from the west for most of the day. Sounded to good to miss so I accepted and set up my two 6'6" bottom baiting rods. My bottom baiting rigs are 50lb braid backing, then a rod Length of 50 pound Penn mono connected to the backing with a Albright knot and then a choice of two rigs.

My go to rig is a #5 bean sinker sitting directly above a #7/0 circle hook and my second rod rig (mainly for use if difficult holding the bottom with the #5 bean sinker) is always rigged paternoster style with the same hook and a choice of different weights of snapper leads.

Masthead Island is a coral cay surrounded by coral reef and located in the southern Great Barrier Reef, 60 kilometers northeast of Gladstone, Queensland.

As planned I was up at 1am and joined Tom next door at 2am. We launched at the VMR ramp, about half an hour later, and because it was approaching low tide which can be a problem if you use the North entrance we headed down the harbour and out via the south channel at Gatcombe Head on the southern point of Facing Island. The trip out was bouncier than either of us expected and even with Toms fiberglass half cabin, with 200HP of Yamaha grunt, it took a little longer than expected to get to Masthead. In any case we still got to fish about 2 hours of the dark and three hours of light. It was still choppy and unfortunately the tide was running the same direction as the wind which was closer to 25 kts than 4 kts. It was difficult keeping balance on the boat but we persisted.

For this trip we found it hard to hold the bottom with our baits so the action was slow and between us we only managed a modest catch of just 2 red throat emperor, 9 tusk fish and one solid coral trout for the esky.

Interestingly, I also boated my first Qld trigger fish (40cm) which I released.

The trip back was worse than the trip out because we were now traveling into the Westerly and even at a modest speed of around 30kp the boat was being repeatedly launched by the head-on waves and coming down with a hell of a thump.

None the less Tom is great company and a fantastic neighbor so I'm looking forward to our next outing together ... perhaps we'll avoid westerly winds.

{{end}}