Rob Payne jumps aboard Big Cat Reality to tangle with some of Central Queensland’s biggest brawlers.

Without a doubt, travelling to and fishing the Wreck Reefs situated offshore from Central Queensland would constitute the title of an angler’s ‘fishing trip of a lifetime’.
Wreck Reefs receives a reduced amount of fishing pressure in relation to closer inshore reefs such as the popular Swains Reef and is home to some large and intimidating species of reef and pelagic species.
This trip is no small undertaking though and most of us do not have the appropriate vessel for such an extensive journey; however,dedicated anglers, in particular sports fishers and reef fishing nuts have the opportunity to D.I.Y in comfort.
Enter Reality Cruises and its 25 m mothership Big Cat Reality with her large fishing decks, 4.3m fishing tenders and committed crew and you have the makings of a memorable fishing trip.
It is also possible to bring your own vessel, which is advantageous,particularly as you are familiar with the set up.

Sean Conlan excelled and captured the largest Wahoo of the trip

D.I.Y. WRECK REEF
Brisbane-based L. Wilson & Co, a family owned wholesale fishing tackle supplier and manufacturer, regularly trial their tackle on Australian fish and had organised a research and development trip to Wreck Reef to test tackle.

Sometimes it’s not all about the fishing. The author watched this eel for some time stalking its prey

Graeme Wilson with his best dogtooth of the trip

As a member of Team Wilson, I was invited along and was looking forward to using the gear, in particular the specialised jigging equipment.
After everyone arrived at the Bundaberg Port Marina in the Burnett River, it took a few hours to load the mountain of rods, reels, boxes of lures, line and terminal tackle on board Big Cat Reality.
L. Wilson’s six-metre plate alloy boat was also loaded on board and was to be used for filming during the trip.
I must stress here that the fishing is really D.I.Y and anglers bring their own fishing gear and fish unguided in Big Cat’s tenders. It’s a long way back to a tackle shop if you happen to get spooled and it’s of the utmost importance to have plenty of spares, especially in the lure department.
It was reassuring to receivea comprehensive safety briefing prior to leaving port; an essential requirement on any long range charter operation, or any charter for that matter.
Over the course of the next eight days Mother Nature was going to throw us some character building rough seas, starting with the swells coming into the Burnett River that lasted beyond the36 hours of steaming to the reef. Needless to say we all readily consumed seasickness tablets.
During the voyage we ensured our gear was ready for the action that lay ahead. Knots were meticulously tied and lures chosen for the denizens of the deep that we would soon encounter.
The crew was on hand to offer assistance and of course kept us well fed.
On arrival at the reef at 10.30am, located some 450 km east nor east of Gladstone in the Coral Sea, the crew of Big Cat unloaded our tenders and we stepped aboard for our first session on these exceptionally fishy and productive waters.

After a session on the water, Big Cat Reality’s crew were on hand to clean the boat when necessary.

The reefs were pristine with crystal clear water in the shallows and dark blue to purple colourations in the deep which had ‘fish’ written all over. Located on the edge of the Continental Shelf, it would be of no surprise to encounter plenty of fish, and a few big ones at that.
Targeted species were many and there were certainly a few of us ready to tick a few off our bucket list while engaging in some newly learned tricks and techniques. Giant trevally and dogtooth tuna were two formidable opponents and certainly tested the gear to its extremities.
The Coral Sea holds large populations of super-sized GTs, a challenging and exciting species to target with some international anglers actually making a living out of catching these fish. A number of techniques were employed on the GTs, along with many other species, including deep water jigging, micro jigging, casting poppers, stickbaits and trolling.
Fishing in approximately 70m was interesting as I was able to use the specialised Venom jigging rods for the first time on some truly nasty fish and they were incredible to fish with.
My favoured jig rod in the range was the Venom Deep Jig Spin 350 g which had the backbone to extract some good size GTs, dogtooth tuna and jobfish. Having said that, it was torturous holding a rod with a line burning fish hightailing it back to the reef for that anticipated bust off, knowing I couldn’t do anything, other than hold on and hope.
Even armed with high tech spinning gear and top of the line lures, some fish were just too powerful to tame.
Being an avid tackle tinkerer, the biggest surprise for me was that all the big fish we caught came on mono rather than braid. We certainly had the same class of fish on the braid rods but no cigar. Was this because the stretch in the mono put these fish under constant pressure, regardless of how sloppy the rod work became? Contrary to that,when using braid, did the same sloppy rod work give the fish the impression it had gained the upper hand when the line pressure was let off?

Big Cat Reality’s crew on hand to assist the anglers out of the boat

Micro jigging in 20 to 35m of water was undertaken using somewhat smaller jigs of 40 to 50grams. The smaller Zerek Step Sliders were fitted with Mustad light jigging assist rig hooks. I used a prototype Venom micro jigging rod in conjunction with 50lb Mustad Wish braid.
The lure was dropped to the bottom with basically two types of retrieves used. One method saw the lure sent to the bottom prior to being wound up through the potential strike zone before slowly letting it flutter back down under its own weight.
The other method was more of a standard retrieve while employing an erratic action that is used when jigging deeper water. The movement was a swift up/down lever type action with the rod arm bent at the elbow. The other hand rapidly wound the handle of the reel. Both retrieves stimulated the bite and many hook-ups followed but unfortunately the mortality rate on lures was quite high.
TROLLING
Trolling for dogtooth tuna took place in water roughly the same depth as our deep water jigging sessions, 35 to 70m(we called anything under 35m barracuda-ville due to the high number of these fish found there).
The 180mm Zerek Pelagic Z minnows in colour 07 were trolled in close using the shorter Venom jig rods while the Zappelin stickbaits (PFU was the stand out colour) were deployed for action way out the back in the middle of the spread of lures(using a PE8 or PE10 venom popping rod).
It wasn’t long until we encountered the opposition, and they were tough.
With the Pelagic Zs diving to approximately three metres and the Zappelin stickbaits doing their thing on the surface,we thought we’d have a chance of extracting fish. Seventy metres seems like such a long way to the ocean floor, but in reality, it was nothing to these supercharged beasts.
Doggies swum to the surface,smashing the lures before taking off at blistering speed, only to slow at the halfway mark. Believing we had turned their heads on a locked up drag, it felt as though the game had been won. We were wrong. Most of the doggies had other ideas and made a mockery of us by swimming hastily back to the bottom before busting us off with ease. Some did make it to the boat though. The biggest of the trip weighed an impressive 45 kg while others encountered averaged between 15 and 20 kilograms.
A number of sailfish were also encountered with my boat-mate David Green scoring one that performed well prior to boating. Another two sailfish took the lures but as it goes when fishing with hardbodied lures and sails, they didn’t stay connected for too long. I might add it was at this time that we thought we were really smart and changed our two Zerek Pelagic Zs to skirted pushers for a better hook up rate on the sails.
That idea was quickly debunked after 10 minutes as the wahoo found us. It was certainly spectacular watching 20 to 30kg wahoo shoot 3 to 4 m in the air after belting the lures. That was of course until the line went slack and $160worth of lures disappeared in a few seconds. After that it was back to the mothership for lunch and a mad re-rig session with 39-strand wire took place.
Not too long after our burst of sailfish action, L. Wilson staffer Troy Dixon landed a black marlin of approximately 200kgwith another boat experiencing a flurry of sailfish activity. Anglers fishing another boat hooked up to a small black for a few minutes and a sail landed not long after (it certainly would be nice to have the weather to target billfish for a day or two).
REEF FISHING
As a whole, the anglers that ventured on this particular trip to Wreck Reef primarily concentrated their efforts on trolling, jigging and casting lures with the reef fishing opportunities largely missed as quite frankly, there was simply too much to do out there.
That said, a few of us that weren’t totally worn out from our day sessions chasing doggies and GTs, did manage to jump out of our tenders and straight on the mothership to drop a bait to target some of the beautiful reef fish that can be found in this area.
Setting a berley trail of tuna flesh probably wasn’t necessary but it did allow us to catch long finned amberjack, red bass, coral trout and green job fish.
The isolation of the reef certainly increases the chance of catching fish, and plenty of them, with big ‘fish of a lifetime’ catches a distinct possibility across the board whether trolling, casting or baitfishing.
It’s an enormous undertaking venturing to areas such as Wreck Reef and the logistics must be thoroughly planned by the charter operator.
The crew are professional and clean the boats after each session, ensure anglers are well fed and assist when required. Spacious dining and living areas on board Big Cat Reality makes certain that anglers are comfortable
Regular radio checks take place when anglers are fishing from their tenders to ensure the safety and whereabouts of each vessel. All vessels are also fitted with Simrad Automatic Identification Systems sounders, whichis reassuring.
With owner James at the helm, Big Cat Reality Charters is possibly one of the slickest operations that I’ve encountered. Their web page is www.bigcatreality.com if you would like to check out some of the amazing itineraries on offer in some incredibly fishy waters.

Rob Payne is an avid angler whose strengths lay in the fastidious preparation of gear and tackle no matter the target species. Rob has had vast experience fishing for everything from garfish, whiting and bream to snapper, tuna, billfish and barra.
Flathead fishing is one of his specialities and has been placed in the top 3 teams at the Gold Coast Flathead Classic over the past 3 years taking out champion team overall, champion 2 man team as well as champion angler.