Broughton Island - maiden trip. Monday 7/9.

[Welster]

We headed up to Port Stephens for the week hoping to target snapper around Broughton Island. @Scratchievery kindly offered to join dad and myself for a trip out. Although on holidays, I was looking forward to my 3:30am alarm to kick off the day!  

I might be on holidays but I was looking forward to that alarm going off to kick off the day. 

The morning turned out to be a cracker on the weather front; the fishing very tough going with plenty of casting and moving spots, with little result. I was stoked to eventually come up tight on my first soft plastic snapper.  

A massive thank you to Scratchie for his generosity, time and knowledge, we had a great day and learnt so much.  

[kingie chaser]

A hard earned fish is even more appreciated imo.

Congratulations.

Your a ledge scratchie 👍

[zmk1962]

Glad you got one to top of the day Jason👍 
Awesome effort Scratchie to give up your time and share your experience 👍

... and another 👍 for being top raiders 

cheers Zoran 

[Scratchie]

Pleasure to meet you @Welster. 
The conditions on the day could not have been better but the fishing has been disgraceful. I’ve warned everyone that’s been up here lately that the fishing has been poor. Nothing I can do about that. No current, no bait, no drift and visibility to 20m is not conducive for chasing snapper. 
Although mate, you just kept casting and came up tight. Good to see it on the mat. I may have had an educated guess at 48cm lol 😝 

Thanks for having me onboard! 
 

cheers scratchie!!! 

[Welster]

7 minutes ago, Scratchie said:

Pleasure to meet you @Welster. 
The conditions on the day could not have been better but the fishing has been disgraceful. I’ve warned everyone that’s been up here lately that the fishing has been poor. Nothing I can do about that. No current, no bait, no drift and visibility to 20m is not conducive for chasing snapper. 
Although mate, you just kept casting and came up tight. Good to see it on the mat. I may have had an educated guess at 48cm lol 😝 

Thanks for having me onboard! 
 

cheers scratchie!!! 

You were spot on with the size!   

[Rebel]

Great report.

[Welster]

11 hours ago, kingie chaser said:

A hard earned fish is even more appreciated imo.

Congratulations.

Your a ledge scratchie 👍

Thanks. Scratchie really put in a solid effort trying to find them whilst showing us around. 

26 minutes ago, zmk1962 said:

Glad you got one to top of the day Jason👍 
Awesome effort Scratchie to give up your time and share your experience 👍

... and another 👍 for being top raiders 

cheers Zoran 

It made for a nice lunch the following day. I ended up using Scratchie's spare rod as mine was broken before the first cast.  

[JonD]

Seeing that snapper of around 46cm reminded me of this I saw on Facebook this week. 

 

[Welster]

3 hours ago, JonD said:

Seeing that snapper of around 46cm reminded me of this I saw on Facebook this week. 

 

That came up on my Facebook feed this morning and I thought the same.   I was pretty surprised it to that long to grow.  I know bream are slow growers but my guess would be that a 20 year plus snapper would be way bigger.    Thanks for sharing it, I always find that stuff interesting. 

[Scratchie]

7 hours ago, JonD said:

Seeing that snapper of around 46cm reminded me of this I saw on Facebook this week. 

 

It’s actually very interesting the growth rate of a snapper. We have a research program going up here with the frames you donate. 
From the feedback I’ve seen, size is NOT related to age and each fish is very much individual. For eg. 1 x 51cm was 12 years and 1 x 71 was 9 years. 
 

It left me wondering how many times that 71cm fish over the last few years missed my hook 🤔🤔🤔🤔