Nomad Sportfishing

Drive Out Mothership Trips

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Want spectacular sportfishing & GT casting? Then hook yourself up an overnight voyage to the Coral Sea.

The Drive Out mothership trips offer access to some of the world’s best GT fishing grounds, as well as spectacular general sportfishing action.

Incredible GT popper fishing & Casting
Light tackle casting the reef flats
Trolling, soft plastic fishing and general reef fishing
80ft Mothership, 2 x 18ft and 2 x 25ft guided centre consoles
5 day/6 night trip, with overnight mothership passage to and from the reef

The Drive Out Mothership trips cater for 12 anglers , with 3 anglers in each of our 25ft centre consoles and 3 anglers in each of our 18ft centre consoles. You’ll visit a variety of locations including Inner Bugatti Reef, Capricorn Islands, Black, Crab and Leopard Reefs, as well as the Ribbon Reefs and Outer GBR for Drive Out Trips departing Cairns. These locations provide excellent fishing for a wide variety of species, but if you are interested in GT lurecasting or any kind of bluewater sportfishing, then you’re going to have fun on these trips. These trips are mainly targeted at anglers wanting to cast or troll lures for reef species such as GTs, coral trout, red bass, emperors, spanish mackerel, longtail tuna and many others. The opportunity to reef fish and to jig with soft plastics is also available on these trips.

You can book in for a Drive Out trip as either an individual angler, or you can organise your own group and charter the whole boat and talk to us about customised pricing options and trip lengths for whole boat bookings.

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Drive Out Mothership Locations & Species

We visit a variety of locations throughout the year, and each reef area only gets visited for a very short period each year to ensure that you are fishing in a pristine and pretty much unfished area. These locations are chosen due to the huge range of species and fishing options they provide. Each reef has it’s own “personality”, so the species you are most interested in, and the time of year that you plan your trip, will best determine which location you should visit.

The charts above and below show the locations we are visiting in 2012 for the Drive Out trips, and also show a species ranking chart for each location. Just check out the chart below to decide what you want to catch, and then visit the Rates & Dates page to see when we have a Drive Out trip running to this location.

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Boats Used on Drive Out Trips

Drive Out trips use our 80ft Mothership, two guided 18ft centre consoles and two guided 25ft centre consoles. We cater for a maximum of 12 anglers, with 3 anglers fishing per boat.

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Drive Out Mothership Fishing Options

All Coral Sea Drive Out trips offer you the following fishing options, you can choose to do some or all of the following:-

GT Lurecasting
Light tackle lurecasting the reef flats
Light tackle trolling for a range of pelagics & reef species
Light tackle jigging & soft plastic fishing
General reef fishing

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Drive Out Mothership Travel & General information

The Drive out trips depart either Cairns, Mackay or Hamilton Island Boat Harbours, depending on your chosen reef. The general schedule for an Drive Out trip is:-

Day 1 – Depart the Marina onboard mothership at between 5-7pm, and travel overnight out to the reef onboard the mothership.

Day 2 – Arrive at reef between 7-8am, unload the boats from the mothership and get out fishing by around 9-10am, and fish through until 5pm. Exact times depend on location visited and weather.

Day 3 through to Day 5 – Stay onboard the mothership and depart at approx 7:30am, fishing until 4:30pm, or longer each day for fishing. All meals will be catered by our chef and hostess.

Day 6 – Fish from 7:30am through until around 3:30-4:30pm, depending on time of year, and then pack boats to start overnight passage back to harbour.

Day 7 – Arrive back in the boat Harbour at around 7-9am, and be packed up and off the mothership by around 10am. Connecting flights can then be taken from here, to have you home within Australia the same day.

We are able to assist you throughout the booking process wherever you are coming from in the world. We can advise the easiest and best hotels to stay at, and the best way to organise connecting flights and travel within Australia. Food and accommodation on all trips is of a high quality. We generally have a full cooked breakfast, then either a packed lunch or lunch onboard the mothership, followed by evening nibbles on the top deck, and then a 3 course evening meal prepared by our chef.

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Available Dates & How to Make a Booking

It’s Easy! Just Contact Us and tell us what species you are interested in catching, or which trip you like the sound of, and we’ll get back to you with pricing, available dates and all the info you need. Because we have so many trip options and locations available, we like to either talk to you or chat by email before you make a booking so we can be sure that you’re doing the trip that best suits your requirements.

Alternately, you can choose your own trip dates and location from the Rates & Dates page, and then email or fax us a completed Booking Form.

For full information about all aspects of any trip, please call or email us and we’ll be able to send you a detailed information booklet that covers every question you’ll ever have about any trip, as well as a brochure, and a 2 hour promotional DVD that highlights all of the locations we visit.

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