My old man and I recently went on a trip on a live-aboard charter to Swains Reef with ‘Ultimate Sportfishing Charters’. To say I was underwhelmed with the charter operation is a gross understatement – it was nothing short of a disgrace. I’m not writing this to be an internet hero, I just don’t want anyone else to spend their hard earned money on what should be the trip of a lifetime, only to be subjected to what has become known as 'the trip from hell’. But that said, we still caught some great fish in amongst all the drama, so here’s a bit of a rundown of the week:
We arrived in Yeppoon at 3pm and we were buzzing with excitement:
We cruised down to the dock and had our first look at our mothership ‘Force 5’ (or ‘Farce 5’ as it soon became known) and didn’t fill us with confidence. It was filthy, was clearly hours away from being ready to go, and the fishing gear being stowed on board was nothing short of horrendous. By the time we finally left the harbor it was almost 8pm (we were meant to leave at 4pm), which meant we arrived at our first mooring at 11am the next day instead of 7am, meaning we missed our first morning fishing. It soon became clear that if we ever wanted to get anything done, we’d have to do it ourselves, so we cooked ourselves breakfast and started sorting through the captain’s gear. His ‘high quality’ bottom bouncing gear consisted of Jarvis walker k-mart specials, cheap rovex and okuma combos and a poor old alvey, all of which was broken in some way (bent spools, broken guides, bent shafts, broken handles, etc). His ‘$1500’ GT combos consisted of ugly sticks, some heavy pflueger reel that I’d never seen before, and the thickest, ropiest braid in the new world. Luckily, my old man and I had brought all our own gear (a heavy jigging outfit, heavy popping outfit and light soft plastics outfit each, plus half a tackle shop worth of lures) but we were the only ones who did – all the other guys on the trip had to make do with all the junk. Added to this, the captain had forgotten to bring hooks and sinkers – that’s right, we were on a charter operation without hooks and sinkers (even though he said everything would be provided). This didn’t matter too much to my dad and I as we were only planning on fishing lures, but most of the others were planning on bottom bouncing for the majority of the time. Luckily a few of the guys had brought their own sinkers and terminal tackle, and this was rationed out amongst the guys throughout the trip.
Anyway, after I’d gotten all my gear ready (and after a heated discussion with the captain about why you need to tie on a leader when fishing for GT’s) we were finally ready to go fishing. We took out one of the centre consoles (along with the mothership, there were two ‘sport fishing’ centre consoles that we could take out fishing during the day) and spent the rest of the day trolling with mine and my dad’s gear. It was a hot bite and double and triple hook ups were common. Nothing was big, but we had a heap of fun:
So despite my disappointment with the charter operation, we still caught a lot of good fish and I had a great day. We decided to spend the majority of the next day trolling too, then spend the remainder of the trip jigging and chasing GTs. So we woke up bright and early the next morning (again we made our own breakfast) and again took out one of the centre consoles. The bite wasn’t quite as hot as the day before, but the fish were all a lot bigger:
The highlight of the day was when I was bringing in a lure that wasn’t swimming straight and while it was skipping across the surface a Spanish mackerel launched itself out of the water, lure in mouth, about 10m behind the back of the boat. If only I had the gopro switched on! We decided to spend the afternoon popping for GT’s and although we didn’t get any, we still managed a couple of good fish:
So as long as I was catching fish I was happy to ignore the many deficiencies of the charter operation, which included:
-Horrible food (a lot was simply inedible, eg: chilli mud crab that was completely raw)
-Lack of essential food (eg: butter – if I ever have to eat a piece of dry toast again I think I’ll neck myself)
-The most uncomfortable beds in the history of beds (mine would have been about 5 foot long at best)
-Lack of help from any of the deckies (eg: we filleted all our own fish, cleaned up after ourselves, even did our own dishes)
-Guiding ourselves on the centre consoles (a bit of expert knowledge and someone who could put us on fish would have been nice)
-Never receiving our ‘starter pack’ of fishing gear that was supposed to be part of the charter package
-Lack of basic gear including pliers (luckily I brought my own) or a sharp knife (unfortunately I didn’t bring my own)
-Faulty freezer, which meant our fish fillets were never properly frozen
-Blocked toilet, which made the boat smell like piss for the first two days
-General lack of cleanliness and sanitation (eg: old bait from last trip still sitting in the freezer)
-Lack of safety gear in the centre consoles (no flares or life jackets, broken radio in one of the boats)
-Lack of a GPS in both centre consoles and lack of a sounder in one
-Broken everything – literally everything on the boat seemed to be broken in some way (eg: the floor was broken in one of the centre consoles).
I could honestly go on with this list for hours but I don’t want to bore you any longer, but yeah you get the picture. But as I said, as long as I was catching fish I was happy. I thought I could put up with anything as long as the fishing was good…how wrong I was.
So on the third day the weather started to turn nasty. For the rest of the trip we copped 20-30knot winds the entire time, which made it extremely difficult to fish in the small centre consoles (particularly popping for GTs). The skipper decided it was time to move the mother ship but when he tried to lift the anchor, it was stuck. So we spent the next 2-3 hours waiting around while the deckies tried to get it free. Eventually the skipper decided to cut free the trapped anchor to make it easier to dislodge from the bommy it was trapped under. So the captain dropped the spare anchor and guess what – it got stuck on the same bommy as the other anchor. So now both anchors were stuck, and by the time they were freed we had lost half a days fishing. By the time we had gotten everything sorted and moved to the next anchorage, it was almost dark and we had pretty much lost an entire days fishing. Luckily, there were some good fish at this anchorage and my dad and I got some nice reefies and trevally on plastics:
(And some small stuff):
By this stage I had decided that I had better get as much fishing in before the next disaster, so I made a mental promise to myself to fish for as long as I could that night. When the fish stopped taking plastics, I turned to the dark side and fished bait for the rest of the night in an attempt to rack up as many species as possible:
This included a couple of epic battles with monster sharks:
And some not so monstrous sharks:
After catching countless weird ooglies I went to bed satisfied and optimistic about what the next day would bring. But the next morning there was a big surprise waiting for us. One of the centre consoles had gone. That’s right, the rope holding it to the boat during the night had snapped, and it had drifted away. You seriously couldn’t write this stuff. All the previous nights the two centre consoles were tied behind the boat without any trouble, but this night they kept drifting up beside the mother ship and banging into the boat. So the captain decided to drive one about 100m away and anchor it (seemed risky to me) and tie the other to the side of the boat (with no fenders and a pathetic little rope). So after listening to it smash into the mother ship all night, the rope finally gave away and we never saw the boat again. After I overcame the general ridiculousness of the situation, I realized that this would effectively cut our fishing time in half. On the previous days, the group had split up between the two centre consoles and one would spend the day bottom bouncing, while the boat I was on would spend the day trolling/popping. Now we had to share the remaining boat, which meant spending half the day on the mothership. This wouldn’t have been so bad if the captain had been willing to move it and find fish – but he wasn’t. In fact I don’t think he was physically able to as he was either sinking cans or sucking from a goon sack the entire trip, which probably explained why he was first to bed every night and last up every morning. But anyway, the fact remained that we had lost a boat, and while the captain stuffed around doing god knows what, my old man and I had some fun bouncing lucanus jigs over the side of the mothership (we couldn’t fish off the other centre console as it was still anchored 100m away):
After wasting a few hours the captain finally decided that the boat was gone, so we upped anchor and picked up the other centre console, and finally went out fishing. We got a few nice fish on the troll including some nice reefies:
And more big mackerel:
But we soon had to come in and let the other guys take the boat out. I spent the rest of the afternoon/evening night flicking plastics off the mothership and getting a couple of decent fish.
So the next day was our final day and I was determined to not spend it trolling again. While the other guys took the centre console out bottom bouncing, I decided to throw poppers off the mothership (I was sick of catching little reefies on plastics). I wasn’t too confident as the water was quite deep (15m+) and there were no bommies or anything to cast at. But I gave it a crack anyway, and a little to my surprise, it didn't take long before my popper was smashed. It wasn’t a huge fish but it was a Spanish mackerel on a popper and I was stoked:
Soon after the boys on the centre console came back with a heap of nice reefies, and I convinced the other guys to go out deep and drop some jigs. After getting a couple of nice mackerel on the troll on our way out there, we finally dropped the jigs. First drop, and after about 4 winds, I was onto my first fish on a knife jig. It wasn’t big, but it was a nice little trevally.
Next drop, one of the other blokes on the boat wrapped his braid around the prop, and the call was made to go in. I was gutted! But I guess it was a fitting end to the trip, and at least I’d gotten one fish on a jig and a nice fish on a popper to finish off the trip. I’d planned to fish for the rest of the day off the mothership, but the call was made by the skipper to head back early, which meant losing another half a days fishing.
The trip back to harbor was nothing short of a debacle. It was as rough as guts, and it soon became clear that the mother ship was not properly equipped for this sort of weather. Here are a few of the mishaps that occurred on the trip home:
-The ice maker (which didn’t work anyway) broke away from the wall and fell over
-The barbeque snapped off the wall
-The freezer fell over
-Food, cooking utensils, cutlery and crockery went flying
-The fishing platform at the back of the mothership snapped off
-All the beds at the front of the boat got soaked (one of which was mine)
-The captain drank half a goon sack
So we limped into port just as the sun was rising, and it’s fair to say that I was just glad to be alive. And that concludes the trip from hell aboard ‘Farce 5’, and let me just say that I have taken absolute no creative licence whatsoever in writing this report – everything I have said is 100% true. You couldn’t write this stuff if you wanted too. But despite everything that happened we still caught some great fish, learnt a heap and shared an experience that none of us will forget.
Cheers for reading!
