Green Island snapper and an 'ouch'!...

[Peter4]

Braving the forecast of mid-strength northerlies, Kyle & I headed out into the bay for a pre-dawn reccy to find some snapper. Very breezy conditions encouraged us to fish in the shelter of Green Island rather than trying to cross the bay to Peel. Not much action early with only one undersize snapper for me so we tried the high tide shallows on the eastern side.

The wind was beginning to ease and we were pleased to see very murky and dirty water, which always keeps the snapper in the shallows for longer. For the next hour or so we managed a good bite with about 5 more undersize snapper coming aboard, two that were just under legal. By 7.00am the northerly stopped so we motored up to the northern shallows where the real dirty water was. About 1 minute after we arrived I hooked-up to a better fish that engulfed my little minnow in about 2m of reefy water. After a good fight Kyle slid the net under a 44cm snapper which turned out to be our only legal fish for the morning.

Just as I was about to remove the lure from its mouth the fish went nuts in the bottom of the boat and the rear single hook went straight into my index finger. For about 10 seconds the fish kept flapping while I tried desperately to stop it moving...owwww! Finally we got the front hook out of its mouth, measured and released it. The side cutters freed me from the lure but I had the best part of 1cm of barbed hook buried deep into my finger.

I convinced Kyle that we could remove it with the loop line technique. Some 15lb leader was looped over the hook. I pressed down on the shank and told Kyle to pull quick and hard and he did! Thankfully it worked to perfection and the hook came out without any trouble or pain. We continued fishing and managed a few more undersize snaps before we called it a day at 9.00am. Kyle also got dusted by bigger fish twice during the morning.

Final tally was about 10 snapper with just the one legal fish. Sorry, no pics as I was too traumatised!!

Oh, we also saw the odd school mackeral leaping over 1m+ clear of the water chasing bait plus a friendly dugong and heaps of turtles - gotta love Moreton Bay.

Have a great Xmas...

Cheers

Pete & Kyle

[Bazil Brush]

Yea you pair certainly have that place worked out, great morning...Good to see that method work for you on the hook, just hope i don't ever have to use it.

[Didley]

Hope some one who knows their stuff is there when I need the hook removal thing done. Good work.

[Mick Baker]

I know how you felt Pete.I had a salmon do the same to me,driving one of a set of 4/o gangs into the ball of my thumb.I ended up at the local casualty ward where the doc wanted to cut it out.I told him to push it right through and cut the hook barb off.He ended up using a set of side cutters from the maintenance staff.
I have used the loop method a number of times on smaller hooks not buried so deeply.
You and Kyle certainly have those Bay snapper wired
Cheers, Mick.

[gunna]

Hope some one who knows their stuff is there when I need the hook removal thing done. Good work.

We can do a test run if you like ?

[Blackfish]

Good work on the fish. Hard yards by the sound of it but better than work hey.

Got a story bit like Mick, got a hook in my leg once, up to casualty but they had no pliers to push it through, so out to the car to get mine for them to use and that whats they used.

[Benny]

Good work guys, finger sounds painfull tho!