I fished Saturday as part of the Baptist Church Fishing Club monthly competition. I am currently leading the senior male devision, and with only a few trips left I was determined to fish hard and keep my lead! Just a couple of fish is all I wanted. We even left the kids at home so we could get 'serious'! Besides, the weather was never going to be crash hot, and I wanted to get as far onto the blue stuff as I could.
We hit the ramp at 5.30am. Plan was to work the channel markers out to the North Cardinal, then head around the back of the Island to West Point. But we didn't pound much more than 500m before I asked Tania if she wanted to put up with this all the way out. We jointly decided it wasn't worth it. So a slight direction change to West Point made the ride much more comfortable. And once we reached the Island it was and easy 25knot run across the front. At West Point itself it was great. Almost a glass off in the wind shadow the island. But a little lump wrapping around the seaward side.
We anchored on a mark there and collected plenty of live bait. We put them back down on the heavy gear, and floated some pilchards out the back. The sounder was typically covered with activity. But no action could be found. I did miss one good fish. It hit the live bait hard and headed for cover. Lasted all of about 5 seconds. When I pulled it in I tested the drag to see how much pressure I had on the fish. I showed Tania, "look at this" I said as I tied to pull line from the reel with my hand. I could barely budge it, and this fish pealed it if like it was in free spool! But that was it for this spot.
Next we headed about 5nm wide to try another couple of marks. The weather at this stage was 'ok'. We tried drifting live baits, floating pilchards and spinning high speed metal. The only luck we had was a 54cm very unlucky Doggie that hit the metal slice on the drop. But that was finally a fish to weigh. Fingers crossed others were doing it as tough as us! Wind soon came up and it was a bumpy ride back to the island.
I tried about 6 or 7 more West Point marks before heading inside the island to my 'honey pot' mark. There we caugh many under size Nannygai to JUST under 40cm. And a couple of screeming Catfish that we were hoping were Cobia.
Back home and my 40 point Doggie scored me 3rd place for the day, and 1st in the lure division. Don had an amazing day at Morrisies catching some Horse Bream. Great point scores he ended up with well over 100pts for the day. Good job Don.
We hit the ramp at 5.30am. Plan was to work the channel markers out to the North Cardinal, then head around the back of the Island to West Point. But we didn't pound much more than 500m before I asked Tania if she wanted to put up with this all the way out. We jointly decided it wasn't worth it. So a slight direction change to West Point made the ride much more comfortable. And once we reached the Island it was and easy 25knot run across the front. At West Point itself it was great. Almost a glass off in the wind shadow the island. But a little lump wrapping around the seaward side.
We anchored on a mark there and collected plenty of live bait. We put them back down on the heavy gear, and floated some pilchards out the back. The sounder was typically covered with activity. But no action could be found. I did miss one good fish. It hit the live bait hard and headed for cover. Lasted all of about 5 seconds. When I pulled it in I tested the drag to see how much pressure I had on the fish. I showed Tania, "look at this" I said as I tied to pull line from the reel with my hand. I could barely budge it, and this fish pealed it if like it was in free spool! But that was it for this spot.
Next we headed about 5nm wide to try another couple of marks. The weather at this stage was 'ok'. We tried drifting live baits, floating pilchards and spinning high speed metal. The only luck we had was a 54cm very unlucky Doggie that hit the metal slice on the drop. But that was finally a fish to weigh. Fingers crossed others were doing it as tough as us! Wind soon came up and it was a bumpy ride back to the island.
I tried about 6 or 7 more West Point marks before heading inside the island to my 'honey pot' mark. There we caugh many under size Nannygai to JUST under 40cm. And a couple of screeming Catfish that we were hoping were Cobia.
Back home and my 40 point Doggie scored me 3rd place for the day, and 1st in the lure division. Don had an amazing day at Morrisies catching some Horse Bream. Great point scores he ended up with well over 100pts for the day. Good job Don.
