A FRESH ESCAPE
At home in the NSW Southern Highlands, night time temps were creeping below zero degrees, a clear indication it was time to head north.
As luck would have it, a good mate who lives in Mackay took ownership of a 7m Kevlarcat and wanted someone to help crew it (and help with the fuel).
Three days later and I was in Mackay with a quiver of heavy spin rods and a bag of stickbaits and poppers. These just begged to be fed to the army of XOS GTs and coral trout that we envisaged would be waiting for us on the outer reefs. I had also packed a couple of fly rods in case I got the urge and time to chase some spawn run trout in the New England on my drive north.
Sadly the wind had other ideas for our long distance, multi day reef trips... We watched the forecast on an almost hourly basis, cross referencing websites trying to predict suitable opportunities. Weather windows would open up then slam shut the next day, blowing even harder than the days before.
PLAN B
After two weeks of fanatical screen watching and two half day
