Matt and I made the most of a very small late week weather window to hit the eastern side of the Barrier. Snooping my favourite spot paid off yet again. The country is superb for snooping averaging 6 – 10 metres deep with lots of bommies and guts opening out into deep water. However,the viz this time was barely good enough with tonnes of phytoplankton in the water along with heaps of very large jellyfish. It was soon apparent that there was plenty of snapper about, so with the smaller models, I took the opportunity and practised relaxing and not giving off a predator vibe – not locking eyes, relaxing my posture and pretending not to be interested in them. This definitely makes them relax and hanf around that little bit longer. With so many snapper about and my wife’s voice in my head telling me the family needs some fish, I nailed three fish in the 2 – 3kg range. Happy, I had enough fish to keep the domestic executive happy, I held off waiting for a bigger fish. Sure enough, as I crept to the end of a long gut a 6 – 7kg model attempted an escape down the far side. A long shot and short battle saw him break off. That's the breaks and happy it wasn’t a fatal shot, I tell myself to get serious as I move into an awesome area that always produces good fish. Not long after, I peered around the corner of a shallow gut and this big boy swims around the corner and stops, high in the water column, a metre and half off the end of my gun. Unbelievably he just sat there frozen, but relaxed, so I took my time and placed a stoning shot just above the spine at the back of the head. He weighed in at 9.039kgs just 61 grabs off the magical 20lb mark. Opening him up later to an empty stomach, I had a chuckle, as all he needed to have was a small breakfast … - Navy Seal

Kingy's two bobs worth - Ants and I made it out to east side of Barrier on friday. Was nice and calm over there but vis was so so - not good enough to dive the kingy pins at needles etc so no kingy action (and I was gagging for it) but good enough for some epic snooping. Navy Seal Yates hit the mother load on the first snoop on a section of country I have always found holds good snapper too. Scored about 5 nice ones with the biggest snap going 9kg to maintain his undefeated record of being the Axemen with the greatest number of >19lb <20lb snaps - 60 grams short, you was robbed mate (but big enough to take the Axemen leaderboard pole position). Though the Axeforce is strong with us our combined will power was not enough to shift the scales ... still he substantially outperformed me as I only scored a couple of snaps up to 3kg. The last one was in open water - I swam out into a workup and the snaps were going a little crazy beneath it, didn't pay enough attention above, and paid the price. We also bombed my packy crack (some packies there but all undersized, scored a nice red) and Porae we couldn't help but check out your spot - a few reds but none in reach ... clearly they are saving themselves for you. Wind was up on the way back to Little B - just about destroyed the big fellas feet and legs but hey, any day on the east side of G Barrier is a privelege and sometimes you've got to pay. - Kingie