Day Two on Australia's Great Barrier Reef

Dave, Doug, and I had a phenomenal first day on the Lyndon Bank to start our Great Barrier fishing adventure catching a fish each and seeing other boats near by catching fish in the 900 and over range. We set up camp behind the reef that night and had a fantastic Laurie Wright dinner of Coral trout caught jigging in the afternoon by "Mr. Jigger" Douglas Nilsen. After dinner we shared some fish stories, imagine that, and hit the hay knowing the hunt for big fish was on.
Day two saw a different face on the Lyndon Bank with solid 4 to 8 foot seas and 20 knots of wind. After several passes over the bank we started heading north towards the ribbon reefs fishing opal and number one seeing two fish all day that followed the baits for a long period of time, never lighting up or charging the baits. For me it was a dream come true, spending all day sitting next to Laurie who has had hero status in my eyes as well as some of the top skippers in the world.
He was very thorough with his electronics as he fished all the high spots, focusing a majority of the time fishing the deeper troughs leading to the shallow water. If he saw a fish or we got a bite he focused on the area and boxed it in to see if there was more than one fish.
We spoke a lot about tackle and he was a major proponent for circle hooks with the health of the fish in mind, but so far we are 3 for 3 but I am still not sold. The bait rigging was very interesting and I spent a lot of time watching Dingo and Davo rig the scads and scaly mackerels with final outcome being the most realistic swimming dead baits I have seen.
The highlight of the day for me was Laurie's stories about the beginning of his career on the reef and his exploits in Hawaii, Mexico, and Bimini. Laurie is a wealth of knowledge with a variety of species targeted and caught throughout the world. Laurie and Peter B Wright are the last of the old time skippers on the reef and I feel very honored to being able to say that I know them and have shared time on the water with them. It will be interesting to see the next generation of skippers who are presently sharpening their teeth on the reef learning the ins and outs of catching granders plus innovating new bait rigging techniques.
I look forward to seeing what tomorrow brings for us on the reef.

Ben